Definitely doesn't have to be on purpose.
Try building a scalable database to billions of users on ad revenue and make it retrieve all data from years ago within the time constraints that users want to see newsfeed items in, you'll see ;)
Re:Facebook announces Clear History feature
by tripzilch on Thursday May 03, 2018 @08:24AM
(#16985302)
Purposefully prioritising "everything but".
Re:Facebook announces Clear History feature
by billysielu on Wednesday May 02, 2018 @04:15AM
(#16974997)
Yeah that's my opinion too.
The UX is useless by design to make it really hard to bulk delete, the backend is shitty and you can't see your content on friend's walls that disabled their account.
It is bad to the point that you wonder if it is on purpose. My guess is that it is. "Shitty product" as a deterrent to deletion.