It _is_ a bit of a pain to juggle the matrix of options, but the bulk go through iMessages, Keybase Chat, Twitter, and good ol' mail.
Also, I never did understand the benefit you get from deleting your FB/Instagram account - Meta still owns your content. It never gets deleted. Isn't it better to maintain your account but lock it down to your own standards? (e.g. link external content, share content to focused groups of users, etc). You can use Messenger (which is all some people actually use). What do you gain by deleting the account? Just losing control.
EDIT: One thing I think is great with FB is the ability to export all your content. I do that at least annually and have a MySQL database into which I import it all (which gives me the coveted ability to search for a specific post either by date back in 2008 for instance, by text etc). Why would I want to lose all that?
How can you verify that? This would be against the GDPR and other data protection laws in other countries.
Obviously the internal procedures Meta follows regarding content is unknown. It is probably different for different countries - you mention GDPR, well very little of my content is shared in Europe, so I'm sure the rules that apply to me are completely different from rules that apply for Europeans. It is probably different for different time periods in Facebook history, and it is definitely different for different levels of universality of sharing. That is if you post something "Publicly" then it gets shared by another user, then the original post account is deleted, in all my testing the content that was shared by the other user persists. Facebook has argued that it is "public" content [2]. I personally have seen corporate posts get LIKED and commented by users who delete their accounts, but their content endures on the corporate page.
I do not envy Meta. Knowledge of the legal environment in every country for a global operation makes programming in assembly seem trivial by comparison. I had a friend who was a federal (securities) agent who told me back in the 1980's that the legal environment in the US is deliberately complicated/obfuscated to the point where if you are in compliance with one law, you are automatically in violation of another. It is up to you to pay for representation to contest constitutionality on appeal to a high enough level for acquittal.
If you are unsure about what Facebook does and it matters to you, then test it - you will find FB still has a few human users, some of whom may be interested in running tests with you. Posting content of different types, different sharing, deleting different users etc ... test it! Just delete your account. Then later try and recover the account. It is all still there.
For me, I just assume when FB says 'it may retain copies of "some material" from deleted accounts' [2], I just assume there is no privacy and that I own nothing.
[0] https://www.facebook.com/terms.php
[1] https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/law-and-life/who-legally-...
[2] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ok-youve-deleted-facebook-but-i...
> Knowledge of the legal environment in every country for a global operation makes programming in assembly seem trivial by comparison.
That may be so but they still need to comply.
I've just signed up with the same email address I had on my old account. I can't say for certain whether my data has been permanently deleted but I can't find any of it.
I'll try to get in touch with others who have had access to my old posts and comments and see if they are still there.
Edit to add:
The deletion option on Facebook states:
Delete account
This is permanent.
When you delete your Facebook account, you won't be able to retrieve the content or information that you've shared on Facebook. Your Messenger and all of your messages will also be deleted.
'Some conservative justices do not consider privacy to be a legal right, as when discussing the 2003 case, Lawrence v. Texas (539 U.S. 558), Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia did not consider privacy to be a right, and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas argued that there is "no general right to privacy" in the U.S. Constitution in 2007. Many Republican interest groups and activists desire for appointed justices to be like Justice Thomas and Scalia since they uphold originalism, which indirectly helps strengthen the argument against the legal protection of privacy.' [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy#Argument_against_legal...
We keep in touch over Signal, WhatsApp, FaceTime, Jitsi, Messages... It's a little more work. We don't speak as often as we used to see each other's posts on Facebook but when we do get in touch it's a lot more personal and meaningful. It's not rare either. I speak to some pretty much daily, others weekly to monthly, and others perhaps more spread apart but it's always great when we do get in touch.
No vicarious experiences, no voyeurism into one another's lifes. Only pure and intentional human connection with all the imperfections that come with it. I recommend it.