Nobody Quits Facebook

I recently deactivated my old Facebook account and started the service anew. I’ll report back on my experience shortly, but I wanted to touch on something that I found disturbing: Facebook’s deactivation practices.

I consider myself a relatively tech-savvy person. I’m capable of using and understanding most online services. When I deactivated my Facebook account, I assumed I was permanently deleting it. However, deactivating is much different than deleting. In fact, it’s difficult to find any page about deleting your account on Facebook. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, you’ll be pointed to the deactivation page - and that’s exactly what Facebook wants.

I think it’s safe to assume that the average user confuses deactivation with deletion. When deactivating an account, most people are under the impression that it deletes their profile and all the data that goes along with it (pictures, applications, notes, events, etc.). This is definitely not the case. This is the message you get after deactivation:

This is the softest deletion I’ve seen from any service, and it’s a piss poor practice. It’s intentionally misleading and deceptive. I’d imagine a lot of people get to this point happily thinking they’ve erased whatever trail they left on the service. This is not the case at all. To “reactivate” all you need to do is type in your old email address and password (which will be automatically stored in the login bar the next time you go to Facebook’s homepage - you won’t have to type in anything, just press “Enter” and voilá! you’re back to where you left off).

It’s obviously a strategic move on behalf of Facebook. They don’t want users or user data leaving the service. But this is a shitty practice on their part. If you actually want to delete your account, you’ll end up scouring through their FAQs. It’s buried. The only thing the average user, or even a mildly tech savvy user will intuitively find, is the deactivation page. It’s easy to access and it’s right where you’d expect it to be.

So what’s my gripe? Clearly Facebook is deceiving users into deactivating accounts instead of deleting them. All services should give you a clear and transparent way out - it’s good practice and it establishes trust with users. For all the contentious privacy issues on Facebook’s plate, they should really think about the way they present deactivation vs. deletion. For a service I share so many aspects of my life with, the last thing I want is to feel duped.