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by jayajay 3427 days ago
To slightly bastardize the term "burner", people might think they don't have any burners, but everyone's got burners. I started to notice that one of my professors, around every ~25 sentences, he would capitalize the first two letters of the sentence. I mean it's a dead giveaway, because most people do this a lot less frequently.

But these figurative "burners" are everywhere. Little, tiny, seemingly untraceable ticks, invisible to the naked eye. Computers are telescopes in the bit world, eyes on us at all times. People don't seem very concerned. You can't just pour water and sand over your digital footprints to erase them... I would not be surprised if FB held on to my data 7 years after I deleted my account.
2 comments
theghostofjr 3426 days ago
'burner' in the parent comment refers to a disposable pre-paid phone without contract.

You're describing a kind of 'tell' I think. Still an interesting point you make.

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jayajay 3426 days ago
He was talking about burners being used to be seemingly undetectable, which got me thinking about people with nearly imperceptible tells, and how both of these "nearly invisible" things are seen by big brother. You are right though... it's a very questionable segue.
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nerflad 3426 days ago
I recently accidentally re-activated my old FB account from high school (deactivated 2010). It's all still there. It's more like "unpublishing" your account than really "deactivating" it.
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macns 3426 days ago
Where are you from? Not sure if that's just in Europe but there's an option[1] to permanently delete everything from fb, though I'm sure it wasn't available a few years ago. Now it is though and I'm guessing fb is obligated to provide this b/c of some european law.

[1] Sorry for the google ref link but I have fb hosts blocked and couldn't find an easy way to just copy the actual link: https://www.google.gr/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd...

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nerflad 3426 days ago
United States. I need to look again but I don't think there's the option to permanently delete. Just some kind of generic notice like "your data will eventually be permanently deleted"... eventually, like the heat death of the universe.
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kalleboo 3426 days ago
The settings menu on Facebook only has a "Deactivate your account" option, which is the one that leaves all your data there.

The link to permanently delete is only found inside help articles.

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nerflad 3426 days ago
Thanks, I will look into that.
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