Ask HN: How to leave Facebook as a non-user?

[cantgetout]

I have a Facebook account that I setup in 2011 and never used. I made one friend, which was my wife and then disabled the account. No posts, no photos, no likes, nothing.

A few months ago I started receiving update notifications to the email account it was setup with that I've been ignoring. That was until I noticed I had received a suggestion to join a colon cancer support group a few weeks ago.

To send me that came across as highly invasive and instantly had me wondering what Facebook was silently compiling and inferring about me and my family.

I recovered my password and logged into my account, had a look at what details I had in there, changed my DOB wondering why I had added it (I normally enter a fake (correct year but Jan 1), who was being suggested as a friend, where it was suggesting I live, and then attempted to download the data dump that Facebook had on me before I delete the account permanently.

I'm now locked out unless I upload a driver's license or passport id to prove my identity.

Given that Facebook shouldn't know anything about me: no photos, no address or phone number (unless they have that from my now deleted WhatsApp account); they shouldn't be able to confirm my identity, unless they are storing information I have not given them or by inferring information via my wife.

So I'm stuck. Any suggestions other than going back to ignoring Facebook?

[beagle3]

Your DOB was likely provided by some external source. I never put my DOB in (they didn't require it in 2004, when I created my account - which I do not actually use), and it materialized there at some point; other data I did not put in also materialized, and most of it is wrong (about schools I went to, etc).

I suspect they picked it up from someone's contacts uploaded by the facebook/whatsapp/instagram app, but have no way to know.

They are also buying data from data merchants (which in the US includes your phone records, credit card purchases, and more) and integrating it.

Technically, the war has been lost a decade or so ago; Facebook co-opted everyone in your life - your friends, your bank, your phone company, etc - to spy on you. If you didn't tell THEM the wrong DOB, you are out of luck with facebook.

Legally, it may still be outlawed ... but the horses have left the barn. Facebook, every 3 letter agency, and quite a few criminal enterprises have a copy of everything Facebook ever knew about you.

[klyrs]

I was hit by a Real Names(TM) demand once. Didn't want to use my real name so I took a high quality picture of my real id; changed the name on it, and downsampled to hide the flaws. Then I put big red bars over all the info but my name and photo. They accepted it. I've heard from several others who have done a similar thing.

[cantgetout]

Thanks, that sounds like the way to go.

I'll probably change most details except for my name and the fake DOB. The bars and downgrading the image should make it unusable as far as facial recognition and extracting more information.

[snazz]

Are you in the EU? If you are, then you are covered under the 'right to be forgotten' (article 17 of the GDPR[0]). Otherwise, you are likely out of luck.

[0]: https://gdpr-info.eu/art-17-gdpr/

[clubm8]

Out of curiosity must you be a citizen to exercise this?

For example in American our bill of rights applies to anyone on US soil. So if you're a tourist you have the same right to 4th amendment prohibitions on searches (once over the border), 5th amendment right to remain silent etc.

If I flew to say, Ireland, and make a right to be forgotten request while in Ireland, is that valid? Or must I be a US citizen?

[r3bl]

It depends on who you ask, and hasn't been tested in court.

> Under Article 3, Section 2, of the Regulation, GDPR reaches data controllers and data processors who are not established in the EU when they process "personal data of data subjects who are in the Union" -- where the processing of that data relates to "the offering of goods or services... to such data subjects in the Union" and/or tracking their behavior to the extent it "takes place within the Union."

> Note the key phrase that keeps cropping up: "in the Union."

> "[T]here are lots of uncertainties as to what [GDPR's territorial scope] is and should be," Michèle Finck, a research fellow at the Max Planck Institute, told Security Now. "Most people seem to agree that the relevant criterion is whether you're based in the EU at the moment data is collected -- citizen or not."

Source: https://www.securitynow.com/author.asp?section_id=613&doc_id...

[captainperl]

> I'm now locked out unless I upload a driver's license or passport id to prove my identity.

No, If you wait long enough (12-24 months of inactivity) they'll email you a magic "open sesame" link that bypasses the login screen. No account password or session cookie needed.

There's several interesting things about this:

1) You could modify the "open sesame" link to login as anybody else who is inactive.

2) Your profile will be slightly broken, as they do numerous software updates weekly apparently without migrating inactive account data reliably.

How do I know this? My gf handles 100% of our social media presence, so I just have a FB account for occasional software testing. HTH! :)

[cantgetout]

I would probably find myself in the same situation and locked out again.

The message was: "It looks like you're trying to make a change to your account from a device or location that you don't usually use."

Given I hadn't logged in since 2011, yes it would look like that.

[mkbkn]

Yesterday night I browsed some groups on Facebook, left some non-useful groups and sent requests to about 5-6 new groups.

Also, no offensive posts or anything. Woke up today and my account has been disabled. And they want a govt. id to "re-check if I violated their TOS." Thanks, Zuckerberg, but NO.

I am missing on a ton of valuable information as some of the groups were pretty amazing. But I'm willing to bet that I'm going to be a saner person and save a ton of time.

[kurmouk]

You could add a list of all Facebook-owned IPs to your host file and resolve them to localhost.

You can get that list here: https://sizeof.cat/post/compile-a-list-of-all-facebook-owned...

[Jaruzel]

It's too late for that. The OP is asking how to remove the data FB ALREADY have on them.

[ffwacom]

There’s no one to go to, and as a user there’s nothing you can do without hassling your friends and family on their posting habits.

[Rjevski]

Make a fake ID confirming the fake date of birth and see if that works? Either way you have nothing to lose.