The “tedious to delete, by design” approach crosses all companies (create account = 1 click, delete account = call this number between the hours of 1:15 and 1:16 on Tuesdays and wait half an hour to speak to a representative, enduring their sales pitches first).

There should be a simple law: the mechanism for deletion of any user data must be no more complex than its creation.

It would also be nice to have deletion terms always specified at point of creation, e.g. “bookmark this link to remove what you’re about to create”.

>the mechanism for deletion of any user data must be no more complex than its creation

I don't think that'd work too well... indeed, it's already in place. You can create a single post with one click, you can delete a single post with one click. I guess we're looking for "batch deletion".

> ...you can delete a single post with one click.

Can you? Or, like the parent states, is there a confirmation for every deletion, thus two clicks?

Well multiple actions in both cases. If you're making a text post, you need to 1) write the text, 2) click submit. Likewise with an image, 1) upload image, 2) click submit.

I suppose the confirmation isn't strictly necessary but for a normal user's use-case, but having a confirmation is a good thing (accidental irrecoverable deletions are bad). But they could definitely have a one-click delete with an Undo button.

> There should be a simple law: the mechanism for deletion of any user data must be no more complex than its creation.

That's one of the nice points of GDPR, albeit around withdrawal of consent. It must be "as easy to withdraw as to give consent".

That prevents the "call or fax us to cancel consent, but give it via a single tick-box on sign-up that you can never change". Deletion is a right under GDPR; although there's no specification it must be as simple as to create (as at very least you likely want some kind of simple confirmation before losing something).

There should also be an easier way to let apps that you've connected to with Facebook before know to delete any information they gathered from you from Facebook.

Deleting data in Facebook itself isn't enough when there are apps out there that could have siphoned your personal data and details. Going through each app one by one and contacting them to delete your data is just painful and usually falls on deaf ears.

Some apps don't even provide a way to delete data or even delete your account. Some people that I have contacted about deleting my account on their app even told me that they never built such functionality. Facebook is on the news because it's a big target, but it happens everywhere.

GDPR would make that mandatory, so they're in big trouble if they dont have a way to delete your account or data.

Check out the 'Social Book Post Manager' Chrome extension. It automates the deletion of posts.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/social-book-post-m...

It's better than nothing (I've been using it for a while), but it has trouble handling confirmation dialogs unless you keep the browser window in the foreground. Also it seems to miss quite a lot of posts.

It would really be so much better if Facebook was forced to implement batch delete in their API and/or in their UI.

I've had to uncheck "Preview" and set it to 0.25x speed for best results. And a second pass at anything it didn't cover (which isn't much at that slow speed). Works OK, although it takes forever either way. Just slightly less, ironically, by making the script takes its time.

The tagging and likes are a more manual effort.

I actually started researching this. How come someone hasn't built an app that uses the Graph API to delete these things for you?

Even a delete script on Github. I just haven't found anything. Or do the APIs just not exist?

The best I found were Greasemonkey scripts, and I'm just not going to do that.

I believe Facebook's Graph API intentionally does not support DELETE actions. I've had best success with a Chrome plugin called Social Book Post Manager, but it's not particularly fast or reliable either. At least it's able to delete something.

That's right, it doesn't. Or, at least, it doesn't support DELETE actions for things that weren't created by the app that's trying to delete them.

I tried to do that very thing, but it only half-works for Twitter, because FB doesn't give you access:

https://forgetme.stavros.io/

A couple of years ago Facebook removed all of the API endpoints that allowed you to create or modify your own data.

This. A real simple deletion feature where stuff is truly gone would be awesome.

I would much prefer a feature where the user can define what gets deleted when via a policy setting in the profile, and when posting you could also modify the default (delete in 12 hours, next year, after x people read it, whatever...)

I kind of don't get this. But this is why I've never really been into SM. Just cause they make a shiny deletion UI and your stuff appears to be truly gone... as in, never reappear visibly ... this makes you trust them that is actually truly gone?

What you and many others are asking for is impossible. There’s no way to prove that something does not exist.

There is a solution for that, in a Chrome extension called Social Book Post Manager.

It looks like just the dark UX patterns of Facebook can be used to write an entire book today. Not that the other companies are any better in this regard.

To delete an item from your timeline from recollection there are three clicks involved - once of which I am pretty damn certain is blocked based on a timer in the back end. The Http request takes like three seconds to complete every time.

"Unsafe at any feed"