Even if you clear it, they continue to link future third-party site activity to your FB profile.<p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/off_facebook_activity/activity_list" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/off_facebook_activity/activity_list</a><p>To actually opt out, you have to click the "More Options" button, then "Manage Future Activity" at the bottom, then "Manage Future Activity" button, then toggle off the "Future Off-Facebook Activity" toggle.<p>Dark patterns. So disrespectful. Shameful. :(
This is the main point the article is making:<p>> The only thing you’re clearing is a connection Facebook made between its data and the data it gets from third parties, not the data itself.<p>However this is not the main privacy issue with Facebook in my opinion. Even if Facebook users could legitimately clear their third party data entirely, they still can't easily clear their own first party data (posts, photos, searches, likes, Instagram activity, etc). Right now, you have to go click "delete" in your activity log one-by-one on individual posts. This is so time consuming and manual that most users will never do it - which is of course by design.<p>There is a plugin that helped users delete their Facebook content (<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/social-book-post-manager/ljfidlkcmdmmibngdfikhffffdmphjae" rel="nofollow">https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/social-book-post-m...</a>), by letting you select the time period and type of content you want to delete. However, Facebook repeatedly breaks it by changing the page design for seemingly no real reason. The cat and mouse updates worked for a while but this extension has not been updated since 2019. Some creative people then built a second extension that switches Facebook to an older layout (<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/switch-to-classic-design/oancckmjgaoejmbedngcoiakblhacbog" rel="nofollow">https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/switch-to-classic-...</a>) and this allowed the above history clearing extension to work. But then Facebook made an even more drastic redesign of the Activity Log, which broke this approach of using a second extension in conjunction with the first.<p>Can any enterprising HN code ninja help solve this problem? I think we need a suite of tools to help users easily clear their history from all social media platform, whether it is Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or whatever. Ideally we'd have a law requiring such controls be provided to users but I'm not holding my breath.
There is also a reason websites have stopped using the term 'delete' and are using 'clear' instead. Because clearing something does not imply that it's gone unlike with delete, just out of view.
If someone decided to meticulously track everything I do. Follow me wherever I went. Put a GPS tracker on my car to see everywhere I visit. Peep inside my windows to see what websites I browse. Look over my shoulder at the grocery store to see what items I buy. I would consider that stalking and attempt to file a restraining order against that person.<p>Can I file a restraining order against Facebook? Or Google?
Can Facebook legitimately pivot into any other service/product and still make money? It seems like they're always going to be at odds with privacy/public trust.<p>One one hand, it is extremely sad to see talented engineers at Google/FB work hard on products designed to spy on people, but OTOH, I suppose it could be far worse if these were companies who simply sold our data.
Color me surprised. I kept hoping that with one of these privacy leaks, or any of the other atrocities that FB has committed, it would've triggered the beginning of their demise...but nope. Their stock prices just keep rising, and people continue to use the platform.
Is there a browser plugin or something that filters Facebook-related posts from HN? We get it, they don't respect your privacy, but seeing the same content voted to the frontpage multiple times a day is getting exceptionally tiring.
well this is not a surprise at all. I am pretty sure facebook engineers have outright said the system does not have the capability to delete anything. Their claim was that deleting things "is hard"... id bet that scaling to keep everything forever is much harder.
Similarly if you try to delete your Facebook account, the only option is "Deactivate Account". Or at least it was for me. They don't give a whoot- until their bottom line losses reflects the damage they cause.
I've noticed when deleting reactions from my activity history, that after they appear to be all gone if I wait a few days more pops up. It is like impossible to remove them all.
it's funny how when you open an article criticizing how Facebook tracks you the first thing you have to do is go through 70 pages to tell the site you're reading the article on to not track you.