Quitting Facebook: What Happens When You Deactivate?

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/quitting-facebook-deactivate/story?id=10607753

by eplanit • 16 years ago

25 9 16 years ago

abcnews.go.com

tumland• 16 years ago

Why deactivate? I just went straight for deletion. The only problem is I have to wait 14 days and will probably accidentally log-in, reactivating my account, and have to start the countdown all over. But, I have a solution which involves editing my hosts file to redirect facebook.com to wikipedia.org.

Amanjeev• 16 years ago

I am impressed by this. All I have is some contacts in there from college etc. I am just keeping it there with minimal information in it and only visit it when a friend replies or messages. Otherwise, FB is pretty dead to me.

kordless• 16 years ago

Yup, that's what I did. I had to double check all my clients that would log into it to make sure they didn't accidentally reactivate me. My wife checked my account was gone by trying to search for me.

yesimahuman• 16 years ago

What about deleting your account, waiting the 14 days, and then creating a new profile that just contains your contact information so you can reach your friends? Would that effectively let you start fresh? Facebook served a purpose for me when I was a freshman in college, but now that I'm older I don't really want that stuff associated with me. It is really unclear what remnants will remain from the old account.

gaius• 16 years ago

Oh the irony of using Google to help you delete your Facebook for reasons of privacy.

ecaradec2• 16 years ago

Don't do that. It will reboot the internet.

ecaradec2• 16 years ago

ooh my poor karma

crpatino• 16 years ago

This is an idea I have been toying with for several months now. I have been wary from the beginning and (for the most part) not published anything that I may regret. Still, the carelessness and plain stupidity around there (sadly even from some of my friends) it something that I have grown annoyed over time.

The one reason that has been holding me back is that I feel not having a facebook account is like not having an email back in the 90's. Most people in my social and even professional circle expect that. And there is of course the issue of impresonation.

My ideal solution would be to be shown like a ghost account. Someone that is searchable and can be found to have been here, but does not comes around anymore. Since either deactivating or deleting your account makes you loose visibility, my solution is just avoid to log in. I should probably send a good bye message to my so called friends... maybe this month or the next...

omgsean• 16 years ago

A site that splits a fairly short article over three pages probably shouldn't chastise another site for riding the line between unsavory and pathetic.

Quitting Facebook: What Happens When You Deactivate?

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