#Facebook: How to Erase Your Account. Forever.

If you intend to read any further into this entry and make use of the information contained herein, I am going to supply you with a warning in advance. Read the following disclaimer very carefully:

I present you this guide purely as an informative log detailing how I closed my account. The guide provides no guarantees or promises. Under the circumstances presented it seems to have worked and, if you are willing to risk damaging your account in order to delete it, you are more than welcome to repeat this experiment. I cannot be held responsible for anything you do. Nor can I control the distribution of this article. You are allowed to freely spread it anywhere and everywhere, provided you include my name with the document and do not modify it in any way. If you wish to report inaccurate information to me, send a message to h.f.raven@gmail.com and I will gladly discuss changes. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Now that you’ve read my ridiculous disclaimer, let’s get to the juicy part.

So you ‘wanna delete your account?

I’m going to lay this out as a list and, if followed correctly, you’ll free yourself from the beast. Don’t jump around — follow the steps from beginning to end. This process is a little bit lengthy, but if you’re set on ditching Facebook altogether, I can’t think of a better way. Let’s get started!

Part One: Erasing the Valuables

1. Login to your Facebook account as per usual. Nothing special or different about seeing that newsfeed, those timelines and all of those apps, updates and blipping chat windows. Prepare yourself mentally because, if you’re serious about this and intend to no longer have a profile, it’s the last time you’re going to see it for a long time.
2. IMPORTANT: Contact your closest friends and family — the people that mean the most to you. Inform them that you’ll be exiting the digital Facebook community. 800,000,000 people will miss you — or at least that’s the snag Facebook likes to say when you imagine leaving. Exchange physical addresses, e-mail addresses, instant messenger accounts and phone numbers with the people you want to stay in contact with, if they don’t already have these things. It’s generally a good gesture to at least lightly inform people that they won’t see you here anymore — at all. Remember that everything you have on Facebook is intangible and surface. Good conversations late at night over blipping message windows may have provided you entertainment at one point, but nothing can compare to the discussions over coffee and tea, close and personal, with friends and family you now have more time to enjoy. Ready?
3. Start erasing. The good news? You don’t have to erase every status, post and message from the beginning of time. No, that’ll be taken care of for you later on by the Facebook Team, provided that they’re honest. It’ll at least be inaccessible to the Facebook public. I erased all of my photo albums and profile pictures to start. You may have to spend awhile backing up photos if you don’t know where else they are except Facebook. It’s a complication you’ll just have to endure. In the process you will have time to understand the weight of this data — how much is it really worth to you? Does it really matter that much at all? Will you be stricken with sadness if it was damaged? Keep going.
4. Now it’s time to sunder your internet identity, whether it’s true to who you are or not. Start by erasing where you work, go to school, hang out, etc. Get rid of all of your likes, interests, books, movies, inspirational figures, musicians, etc. Absolutely everything. This may sound heartless but you can even erase your family connections, your lover, your relationship status. Get rid of it all. If you feel uncomfortable about this, you’re not alone. Important: If appropriate, contact the people that will be affected — such as your romantic partner, if you are in some sort of relationship — and inform he or she that you’re not “breaking up” but rather severing your connection with Facebook. Remember that as ridiculous or sensible as it sounds, Facebook often becomes a measure of ones connectedness to not only the world and the people around you, but to romance. Excuse my cynical tangents, but when it’s “Facebook Official” it’s REALLY official.
5. Did you erase all of your information? It’s okay if your wall is still cluttered with posts and status updates. Just try to wipe the basics. This includes your birthday. Facebook will remind you that you’re only allowed to change your birthday a limited number of times, and it will ask if you’re being honest. Quite a snoop, eh? Ignore its threats and make sure that you’ve set a random age. Get rid of all of your “likes” too. These are the pages that you pressed the +1 thumbs up on. There might be a dozen or there might be several hundred — try to get rid of them all. Likes are one way that Facebook customizes your experience in order to more successfully advertise to you, using your identity as nothing more than a way to make profit. It is likely this information is sold or traded to third parties, so if I were trying to escape from the Facebook experience entirely, I’d take the time to unlike everything.
6. Erase all of your friends. All of them. It doesn’t matte if you have a dozen or a thousand — delete them all. It’s a painstaking process that involves a hell of a lot of clicking, but it can be done. This step is optional and has not been completely tested. However, if you’re looking for a cathartic or emotional experience by tearing yourself away from Facebook, I’d recommend it. You’ll probably find many people you don’t really know or connect with in any way — other than the show of gratitude and recognition by adding them on Facebook. As an advantage, if your account somehow stays active, nobody will be able to link anything to your profile. This will include tags and the whole nine yards. To be truly un-taggable, though, you’ve got to untag yourself from every photo and document you’ve ever been tagged in. That might take hours, and it’s not necessary to erase your account, but if you’d like to do it, go ahead.That’s it. Your profile should be a barren land with information only found on the wall. At this point your entire built identity should have vanished. Good work! The process gets much quicker and easier from here.

Part Two: Locking Yourself Out — forever.

1. Visit www.mail.com and create a new, free e-mail account. Feel free to have fun with this step and name your account something outrageous, considering we’ll only be using this e-mail once before it’s intentionally “left to rot” forever. It will probably ask you to put in a backup e-mail address in the case that you need to recover your account information. Put anything in here.
2. Give your new e-mail account a complex, random password. Use a bunch of letters (uppercase and lowercase), numbers, and fancy symbols, such as these: !@#$%^&*()}{. Make something you’ll never remember, even if your life depends on it. Finish creating the account, log in and copy and paste the password into a text document. Keep that document open so you can refer back to it for the time being.
3. Now that you’ve accessed your sparkling new e-mail account, open a new window and log into your Facebook. Go into your Privacy settings. You can find that in the drop-down menu in the top-right of the screen. If it for some reason isn’t showing up, view your profile and go to the “Info” section. Then, scroll down until you find the section listing your cell phone numbers, e-mail addresses, etc. Click “edit” on this page and you’ll be directed to a page where you can change your active and displayed e-mails.
4. Now you’re going to need to open yet another window and log into your primary e-mail address. This is the one you use to login with. Keep that inbox open as well the inbox for your other e-mail account.
5. Add a new e-mail address to the e-mail list on Facebook. Put in the address of the new e-mail you made. There is an option on that menu to make it your primary — click it.  It is going to send some confirmation e-mails to that address. Click on the confirmation links. Check your other account, too, and confirm that you’re switching e-mails in case it asks you to confirm this change.
6. Almost there. Now go back into the main privacy settings menu. Here you’ll be able to edit your account password. Put in your current password. In the two boxes below this, where it asks for your new password, put in the random, incomprehensible password that you made for your e-mail account. This should still be on your clipboard so you can either press Ctrl+V or Right Click –> Paste. Save these changes. Keep everything open, you will need it until I tell you otherwise.
7. WARNING: It is of the utmost importance that you DO NOT LOG OFF YOUR ACCOUNT. If for some reason you closed the text document containing your randomized password AND your web browser closes for any reason, it is likely that you will be logged off from Facebook AND your new e-mail. If this happens, we’ll, you’re screwed. It may be impossible for you to ever access your account again and you will have no way to delete it. Ever.

Part Three: D-Day. Let’s get ‘outta here!

At this point you’ve compromised your account in a way most avid, dedicated Facebook users would consider completely mad. Your identity is waning and everything you have built up about and around yourself is going to crumble at any moment. In fact, it will function act as if you never even existed. It took you awhile to savagely delete all of your most prominent, in-your-face data, and that was good. But now you must do the most important task of all: actually doing it.

1.  Go back into your account options, where you found the “Privacy” settings in the last section of instructions. There should be a menu option to the left of the screen that details applications (apps) integrated with/allowed to run under your Facebook account. It is extremely important that you locate this. It will bring up a (typically) long list of different apps, such as games you play (Farmville, Mafia, etc), news feeds you connect to (Yahoo, Washington Post, NY Times), your mobile phone associations, apps that allow instant message programs to connect to FB Chat (Pidgen, Trillian, Meebo) and others. You have intentionally or inadvertently given everything on this list special permission to gain full access to your profile and information, even if you’re not online, and it can use (and sometimes trade) this information in subversive ways. You must delete every application and, by doing so, refuse all permissions given to any third party. If you don’t do this, this entire process has been in vain because, before you know it, your Facebook will likely be accidentally or secretly reactivated AND your deletion request will be made void.
2. Keep browsing through your privacy settings. Remember that getting rid of your Facebook forever means that you will have to destroy all connections it has with your mobile phone, too — that is, if you have a smartphone and use Facebook on it, your application’s gotta go. There should be a section dedicated to connecting to your phone. Disable EVERYTHING on that list and do make sure to the best of your ability that Facebook no longer has any rights to your phone, location, etc.
3. Once you reach this step, the nitty-gritty is completely done. This step acts simply as a reminder. If you’re truly dedicated to removing yourself from the social network, make sure to apply the entire process you just read on every one of your accounts. This includes independent pages, if you’re so compelled, although the purpose of this tutorial is to wipe only your personal account and information. It’s more than likely you’ll have the desire to log back in, perhaps even under the excuse of “just once more” but if you give in, you’re doomed. You’re back in that place. Everything you’ve done has been in vain. It’s been pointless. You need to absolutely lock yourself out or the addictive nature of this environment WILL bring you back (no matter what you are thinking right now)  like an addictive drug to a junkie. In fact, it is an addictive drug and all 800,000,000 account holders are junkies. Excuse my asides.
4. Let’s get to the DELETE BUTTON. No, it’s not above Backspace on your keyboard. It’s not the “Deactivate” button found in your privacy settings, either. This button contains much more power. Staying power. To find it you need to access the Facebook Help page. Since it’s probably impossibly difficult to access without searching for hours, here is the link that will set you on your way. Remember: you must still be logged in to everything at this point. The “Delete” button will ask you to type in some letters and/or numbers to prove that you are not a robot and then ask you again if you’re sure. If you have read and followed my tutorial, you’re absolutely sure. Click okay. Facebook will alert you that you have 14 days to reconsider by logging back into your account, as if it was merely deactivated. (In case my hyperlink didn’t work, he is the direct address: http://www.facebook.com/​help/​contact.php?show_form=delet​e_account )
5. Did you click it? Were you logged out? If so, CONGRATULATIONS! You just began the total annihilation of your Facebook account. FOREVER! All of your information (everything!) will be erased by the Facebook Team within two weeks. Even though you were given a 14-day grace period to reconsider your choice, you can guarantee that you’ll never return to your account by closing the text document containing your new password (don’t save it!) and logging off your newly created e-mail. You can even erase Facebook from your speed dial/most visited pages/favorites so that you won’t have the temptation. For best results, restart your computer. It will wipe your RAM and the clipboard so that there is no possible way of remembering your new password, if you made it random enough.

You’re done. The tutorial was lengthy but necessarily so; it is my intention that everyone from computer programmers to those new to the computing world can pull this off. By doing so we regain control over our real and internet identities, and recognize the important differences between the two. If you would like to fully wipe your computer of traces of Facebook so that you browser will never log itself back in when you click on Facebook-related links (if it somehow stored your new password/email in an HTTP cookie), I highly recommend using the free software known as CCleaner, from Piriform. You can download it here. By running it once-over your system will be wiped of any data that could somehow redirect you to the website you just escaped.

Closing Notes

Thanks for reading my tutorial. I will report any progress or failure in later articles in case this becomes outdated. In the mean time, enjoy all of the freed up space in your mental environment and all the time you will have to put towards productive, wholesome projects because you’re not spending hours chatting, forging an identity, browsing pics, and watching the news feed stream past you. You no longer need to hear endless, unimportant surface information about the lives of your friends and their second cousins. Pick up the phone. Text if you have to. Write letters. Send e-mails. Most of all, meet up on the streets!

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