[nobody9999]

>There's no reason to believe it's a "full" account delete even in the countries covered by the GDPR considering they brazenly breach the GDPR with their "consent" flow.

Given FB's business model, and the fact that they create "shadow" profiles for folks who don't even have FB accounts, I have no doubt that while their UI might pretend that your account has been "deleted", all the data still exists for their use.

Which is why, when I left Facebook in 2014, rather than attempting to delete or disable the account, I posted a goodbye to those on FB that I cared about and explained exactly why I was leaving (their predatory and invasive business model).

I then logged out and haven't returned. I did this because I figured that any activity on their platform would be logged and stored with everything else they'd already collected.

And that was seven years ago. Given what we've seen from them since then, it's pretty clear that I was right.

Just go away and don't look back. Otherwise you'll just give them more data.

[cratermoon]

> I have no doubt that while their UI might pretend that your account has been "deleted", all the data still exists for their use.

They don't even have to pretend to delete your account, they can actually delete it. But through some linguistic slight-of-hand (i.e., lying) they obscure the fact that your account is not all the data they have on you. Your "account", in a strict sense might just be your username and password. It happens to also be associated with the entire pile of data that is a profile. Once a user no longer has an account, it's what you call a "shadow profile".

[nobody9999]

>They don't even have to pretend to delete your account, they can actually delete it. But through some linguistic slight-of-hand (i.e., lying) they obscure the fact that your account is not all the data they have on you. Your "account", in a strict sense might just be your username and password. It happens to also be associated with the entire pile of data that is a profile. Once a user no longer has an account, it's what you call a "shadow profile".

A likely scenario. Although I'd say that removing a userid and password from their auth db doesn't qualify as "deleting" an account. Rather, that's disabling an account. And IIUC (I'm not in the EU and not familiar with all the details) the GDPR/EU privacy folks would likely agree with that assessment too.

Perhaps someone with more knowledge of the GDPR could weigh in on what sorts of fines could be levied against Facebook for pulling a stunt like that on European citizens?

Edit: Levied is a more accurate term than "leveled".