LONDON (AP) — Should I stay or should I go — from Meta’s social media platform?
Following Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement that same month, some users of Facebook, Instagram and Threads are surprised that the company Relax laws on harmful content Like hate speech and giving it up A fact-checking program And replacing it with crowdsourced notes.
The changes have been updated. interest Among some users about To delete Their meta social media accounts. If you want to stop using Meta-owned platforms, here are some pointers:
Save your data.
Before deleting your Facebook account, you should Download a copy. All of your personal information, including details about your activity on the Platform, what you share and the data the Company collects about you.
You’ll need to go to your Settings or Accounts Center — the master control panel for all your Meta accounts — where you can choose to download everything or just items like your profile, posts, messages, comments and reactions, and lists. . Friends, even the ads you’ve clicked on and the IP addresses you’ve used to connect to Facebook.
You can download information from a specific date range, such as the last month or six months, or as long as you’ve had an account. If you are downloading images, you can choose their quality level: low, medium, high.
For security purposes, you will only have four days to download your file. The process is similar for Instagram And Threads Consumers
Instagram users will need a password to download and access files and it may take up to 30 days for the platform to receive a download link via email. They say On its help page.
Maybe you don’t want to download all your personal information but instead want to get the photos and videos you’ve posted. Facebook provides a separate option to transfer these files to another online service, including Google Photos, Dropbox or Photobucket.
Stay in touch
A tip for Facebook users: Before pulling the plug, check if you have friends or connections you don’t want to lose contact with completely.
Send them a message asking for their phone, email or other non-meta contact details. You can also make a final post letting people know you’re leaving, although it’s likely that not everyone will see it.
Take a break
If you’re not ready to go all-out, Facebook allows users. Temporarily closed their accounts if they just want to take a break from social media.
You can do this through the Account Center, where you can click on the Personal Details section, and then Account Ownership and Control Settings.
Temporarily deactivating an account means that other users will no longer be able to see it, but your posts, photos and videos will not be deleted and you can still use Facebook Messenger. You can reactivate the account at any time.
Don’t change your mind too often: Instagram And Threads Users can only temporarily deactivate their accounts once a week.
To delete
Ready to take the plunge and permanently delete your account?
After tying up any loose ends, go back to the Accounts Center, click the Personal Details section, and then Account Ownership and Control, where you can choose to delete it.
After triggering the deletion process, you have 30 days to change your mind, which you can do by logging back into your account and clicking the Cancel Deletion button.
“After 30 days, your account and all of your information will be permanently deleted, and you will not be able to retrieve your information,” Facebook warns on its help center.
Note: Deleting threads The account will have no effect on your respective Instagram account. But Deleting an Instagram account This will also result in the deletion of the associated Threads account as Instagram accounts are used to manage Threads accounts.
What about WhatsApp?
Meta also owns WhatsApp, although the chat app is unlikely to be affected by Zuckerberg’s content policy changes.
Similar to Meta’s social platforms, WhatsApp users can Export a copy. Ask for information about their chat history or on their settings or channels.
If you decide you want to get rid of WhatsApp and perhaps switch to competing chat services like iMessage or Signal, it’s easy to do. App settings.
Deleting WhatsApp will remove your account information, backup of your chat history and your presence from any chat groups as well as any channels you set up where you are the sole administrator.
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