My friends created a FB account a long time ago, and I did end up using it briefly. I haven't logged into the account in probably 10 years and have no clue what my password is. Thoughts on whether I should bother giving Meta more personal information in order to try to log in & delete that account?
this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2026
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Don’t do it. I have an orphaned FB account too that I can’t log in to because they want video verification. So I just set the password to a keyboard smash and left it as is.
It’s kinda comforting to know that even if you had my email and pw you still couldn’t use my acc.
So it’s just stale data rotting on their servers that they can’t link to anything. And giving them more info just to delete my acc knowing they prolly aren’t gonna delete the verification data doesn’t make sense imo.
probably wont delete the other data either. just make it so the profile doesnt show as existing anymore and claim its deleted.
These companys are addicted to data and will never give it up.
If Cambridge Analytica wasn't enough of a reason to leave Facebook, then you will probably continue using Facebook today even after reading this.
Facebook should have been shutdown then. Actually, it should have been shutdown even before then since the Edward Snowden leaks.
The actions of users (or lack of user actions) from back then have brought us to the issues of today. The information has been out there for over a decade.
Cambridge Analytica was not enough of a reason to leave Facebook for me, because at that point I had already stopped actively using the site a long time ago and deleting my effectively inactive account seemed like a lot of effort for very little practical purpose.
This article (or just the headline to be honest) was finally enough to push me to actually go through with logging in one last time to finally get rid of it.
Why shut it down when you can just let it buy up all its competitors?
/s
You all still have Facebook accounts???
It's really hard to get people to suffer mild inconvenience when they don't emotionally connect with the benefits.
Most of facebook's evils are remote and impersonal. Seeing your cousin's baby photos is real and at hand.
Unfortunately a side hustle for me is buying cars, putting in some work, and flipping them. Facebook Marketplace has a grasp on the personal classified ads. Craigslist still exists, but results are slim in my area.
I really hate it because I’ll go to look at cars, but end up scrolling mindlessly on the feed.
Do you get scammers much?
I tried looking for camera lenses, logged out and with some scripting, and ran into some pretty clear scams immediately. Like no-one is even policing the site.
Depends on how you view it. If you’re just a buyer, I feel it’s pretty easy to spot scams. Though there are absolutely exceptions to that.
As a seller though, a constant barrage of scammers, dumbasses, and low ballers alike.
I fully agree about the moderation. I don’t think there is enough moderators to keep up with how many listings are up.
Why, would a closed account be a problem for them? Imagine one day receiving a short video from your deceised mom saying hi and inviting you back to fb for a chat.
But only if you reactivate your account
Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus Rift?
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You can't actually delete your Facebook account, though. They just mark it as deleted in the database, but can absolutely still use the information.
That is because if they were to actually delete the account, it would give errors on previous posts you made being linked to nothing.
Every database does this.
But you can be certain that facebook would still do so even if it was possible to delete.
Is it sure? I’ve done it 15 years ago but I remember clearly there was an option to delete everything. Could it be that it’s only for EU?
It's pretty rare to actually delete data from a database. It's almost always flagged in a way that the system is supposed to ignore.
But even if you've never had a Facebook account, they create a shadow profile by tracking you through the share on Facebook buttons on websites.
Which makes sense for an ERP software. Because you have financial related data linked to your name. It cannot be deleted or the books would be wrong. After some years it does get deleted because no it’s too expensive to not archive.
But for Facebook, I do not see the reasoning. But I trust them to find a loophole if there is one !
It's mostly because of database management, but audit purposes.
That's why people should use a browser that blocks those trackers.
The best time to delete your accounts was a decade ago. The second best time is today.
Never had a Facebook account, never will, and so i will never know the joy of deleting it.
Been through it twice. You're not really missing any joy, just the annoyance of really hoping you don't accidentally "sign in using Facebook" on a random website and have to start the process over.
No it won’t. It will be the veneer. Like preserving the makeup and hair product but not the person it’s painted on.
A lot of Facebook users are 90% veneer though.
I avoided that shitty website like the plague. Used a fake account to make an account for my quest 2, then used Oculess to cut it off from facebook forever, so I can just play my TeamBeef ports and indie vr games without big brother. Fuck facebook.
Deleted my account in Fall 2025 after +15 years. Felt good
Still can't figure out why people started using that crap in the first place, didn't this seem really obvious?
In any case, that also means Instagram too, you know that right?
Most of the people I know created their account like around 2012 as teens. It wasn't obvious back then.
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I already assume everything I wrote on the Internet is eternal. Of course, data is free and people will use it for stupid stuff like this. This doesn't surprise me.
Unfortunately, same.
I've changed a lot in the years since I started, but I assume all of it is still out there.
I was raised by deep red parents, has the whole homeschool bullshit and everything.
Things were starting to fall apart like 20 years ago, but finally hit a huge breaking point just shy of 10 years ago.
A lot of shit I said back then is probably super bad and cringe. I think I've blocked a lot of it out just to preserve some sanity.
But yeah, it's out there.
Deleted all my meta accounts a year ago. So happy to leave that cesspit behind
I saw a documentary about this. I think they called it Caprica.
This is exactly why I've been recording personal logs and saving archives of all of my digital interactions for over a decade already. Going to make one of these for myself at some point using local models.
They laughed, called me mad. Well who's mad now?
Just having a digital archive of yourself is kind of cool. Future historians (if there are any) will love that, too.
One of my happy imaginings is that perhaps someday my AI simulant will be in a museum somewhere getting to chat with whatever entities descend from us to compare and contrast how things are now with how they are whenever that is.
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