Facebook: The Social Giant

Before getting into your Facebook privacy, let's take a look at the platform itself. According to Data Reportal, Facebook boasts approximately 2.989 billion monthly active users as of April 2023. The staggering numbers put Meta's flagship product first place in the list of the world’s most ‘active’ social media platforms.

Founded in 2004 as "The Facebook" before changing its name to simply Facebook in 2005, it quickly surpassed all other social networking platforms at the time. MySpace and the short-lived Google+ faded in its shadow.

Not even the mighty Google could compete with the brainchild of Zuckerberg and co. It's no surprise, then, that today Facebook is the go-to site for keeping in touch with old friends, sharing memories and announcements, planning events, and even shopping for second-hand goods from the Facebook Marketplace. In particular with the rise of smartphones since 2007, posting the various details of our lives or checking in with our friends on social media has never been easier.

However, there's another side to the coin, one we often don't think about when we share our favorite pics of our pups or make a post about the great hot yoga session we just had. All of that personal information doesn't merely sit there, and sites like Facebook are more like back-alley flea markets than bank vaults. Why? Facebook and other social media sites utilize this freely offered personal data as a never-ending goldmine.

Facebook Privacy: How Meta Uses Your Personal Information

It's no secret that many free services support themselves through advertising revenue, and Facebook is no exception. However, sites like Facebook don't simply sell advertising space, they also take advantage of all the free information their users offer to provide targeted advertising at a premium price to their millions of advertising clients. Facebook makes a whopping 98% of its income from advertising, thanks to its unique position to offer advertisers the ideal customer for their products or services. Further, their subsidiary services like Instagram can provide additional data for Facebook to utilize, and even casual web browsing can generate data that filters back to Facebook through connected applications.

In the wake of Facebook's high-profile 2018 congressional hearing over its data-gathering practices, the social media giant and similar sites have fallen under tighter public scrutiny for how they mine and utilize user data.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is constantly finding itself fined for breaking data protection laws. In fact, some of the biggest GDPR fines ever have gone to Facebook.

Nonetheless, few official constraints exist surrounding how social media sites can market user data, and while Facebook's privacy policy outlines what they collect and how they use it, the exact ramifications of this process are difficult to parse.

Demonstrating just how specific and all-encompassing these data collection practices might be, Signal conducted an independent study on Facebook and Instagram advertisements, and found themselves summarily banned from the platform for publicizing the results of their findings.

It begs the question of how transparent Facebook's posted policy truly is if they don't wish third parties to dig around under the hood of the system.

Of course, the real stinger in all of this is that the information doesn't simply stay with Facebook. Sure, they say they don't sell that personal information to other companies… they just loan it out!

'We work with third-party partners who help us and improve our Products or who use Facebook Business tools to grow their businesses, which makes it possible to operate our companies and provide free services to people around the world.' - Facebook Privacy Policy

They share 'anonymized' data with advertisers (though who knows how much of that includes data that can help fingerprint your browser), shipping and address details with 'partners offering goods and services', and other information with researchers, law enforcement, vendors, and analytics services.

Some of these things are so vaguely defined, that it's hard to say who's paying who for what, but it's your personal information in the mix.

How to Improve Your Facebook Privacy by Preventing Data Collection

Should you choose to use Facebook, there is no means of fully preventing them from making use of your data unless you delete your Facebook account. Facebook's Terms of Service states, "By using our Products, you agree that we can show you ads that we think will be relevant to you and your interests. We use your personal data to help determine which ads to show you."

However, you can limit how much data Facebook can gain by blocking third-party sharing. That said, the process to do so is a touch draconian. Almost like the Facebook privacy settings are discouraging you from protecting your data—how odd.

• On your Facebook page, head to the top right and click the down-facing arrow.
• From there, click Settings and Privacy> Settings> Your Facebook Information> Off-Facebook Activity> Manage Your Off-Facebook Activity.

You will likely have a password prompt next—which seems like a nice security feature, though it wouldn't do much in the event of your account being hacked, and it's unlikely a hacker would be interested in protecting your data.

• From there, click Manage Future Activity, and at the popup window, click the Manage Future Activity button.
• Next, click, Activity You've Turned Off> Turn Off Other Activity.

Finally, after a mere 11 steps (so simple, right?) you can now see what third-party applications and services have connected to your Facebook account and have fed them your data.

If you wish to manually select which services can communicate with Facebook, you'll need to do so one by one through this menu.

If you wish to nuke all of them, however, you can click the switch button on the preceding 'Manage Future Activity' page to disconnect all current and future third-party connections to Facebook.

This will log you out of any apps you've logged into with Facebook, and if you choose to re-enable it later, you can choose to manually permit certain services. Be careful, however, as it's easy to wind up linking many third-party sites to Facebook without realizing it.

How to Delete a Facebook Group

Generally speaking, Facebook Groups don't pose much additional risk to your personal information, though this may depend on your Facebook privacy settings. If your account is set to be publicly viewable, joining a large group may expose your information to many unknown parties, especially if you are active in the group.

Before joining or creating public groups, or as a general practice for Facebook interactions, you may want to consider limiting who can see your Facebook profile information or post to your profile.

You can manage who may post to your page or tag you by clicking the down-facing arrow in the top right of Facebook> Settings and Privacy> Settings> Profile and Tagging, or the three dots on the top right of your profile page, then Profile and Tagging.

More general restrictions may be applied under the Privacy tab of the Settings page, which is where you can limit who may view your content.

Facebook has also added a wizard to help adjust your Facebook privacy settings, which can be accessed from the top of the Privacy tab's list by clicking 'Check a Few Important Settings'.

Of course, you can leave a Facebook group at any time, which will remove you from its member listing and general visibility, though this will not delete any posts you have made within the group.

To do so, simply go to the group's page, click the three dots in the top right, then click 'Leave Group'. If you wish to erase your posts from the group as well, you will need to do so manually by clicking the three dots next to each individual post.

Deleting a Facebook group is slightly more complicated, as Facebook hasn't provided an easy tool to do so. Instead, you must click 'Members' from the group's page, then click the three dots next to each member and remove them, then finally leave the group yourself.

If you choose to leave a group you've made without removing all members, the group will continue to exist until any remaining admins clear the group's members, or all remaining members leave the group.

How to Delete a Facebook Page

Pages are a relatively recent addition to Facebook, allowing a new means to follow updates from a business, brand, or individual. If you wish to delete a Facebook page that you no longer need, doing so is relatively easy, so long as you are the admin.

Simply open the Pages tab from the Facebook Home sidebar on the left, and navigate to the page you wish to delete. Then from the left sidebar, click Settings, and at the bottom of the list, you will find the option to delete your Facebook page.

Note that it takes fourteen days before the page will be deleted, during which time you can cancel the page's deletion and restore it. If you don't wish to delete the page entirely just yet, you can unpublish it via the top option on this same list, which will allow you to reactivate it at a later time with all its content preserved.

How to Delete a Photo from Facebook

Embarrassing photos may be the content most would like to remove from their Facebook accounts, and luckily doing so is relatively easy if it's a photo you've uploaded. Simply navigate to the photo in question, and either from the edit button in the top right of the picture preview or from the three-dot menu in the full-screen view, select 'Delete Photo'.

Often a more troubling instance, however, is when a friend tags you in a photo or other post without your permission. Of course, Steve had his camera ready to go when you tripped and face-planted into that bucket of octopi, and now it's everywhere. You can't delete a photo you haven't posted yourself, but you can at least remove the tag.

The first option may be to ask your friend if they will delete the photo on behalf of you and your dignity. Alternatively, by the same process described above for deleting your own photos, you can use the 'Remove Tag' option to prevent your name from coming up in association with the photo (though if you have been tagged in comments on the photo, this won't remove those tags).

If someone has posted a picture of you that you don't like, you can also report it to Facebook (again by the same means described above, from the drop-down menu attached to the photo).

However, Facebook will not forcibly remove photos that do not violate their terms of use, so it is up to the person who posted the photo to comply with the request to do so. A more extreme option is to block the person who posted the photo, which will both remove the tag and prevent them from tagging you in future photos.

How to Delete a Facebook Account

If the Facebook Privacy settings aren't enough for you, then deleting your Facebook account entirely might be the best way to protect your personal information. If you'd like to see more reasons to delete your account, you might like this article by Forbes, or this one by Mashable.

Should you choose to take this step, deleting your Facebook account will also delete all of your posted content, including comments and posts on other pages. You may wish to download photos you want to save from your account before doing so if you don't have copies of them elsewhere.

Once you've determined you have everything you need and are ready to pull the plug, click the down-facing arrow in the top right of Facebook then Settings and Privacy> Settings> Your Facebook Information.

Then click Deactivation and Deletion> Delete Account> Continue. You will be prompted to enter your password to confirm. After this, hit Continue one last time and that's it. However, it will still take thirty days before Facebook fully deletes your profile, during which time you can cancel the deletion by logging into your account again, which will prompt you to cancel the process.

Protecting Your Facebook Privacy and More

Of course, the point of doing all of these things is to protect your privacy online. If not from people you know, then from Facebook themselves!

Knowing how to delete a Facebook group is useful, but it doesn't help with things like your web browser fingerprint. Consider using a privacy app like Hoody to cover all of your bases. It isn't just invasive advertisers who are interested in your personal information.

If you do want to continue using social media, here are a few tips on how to do so safely: 6 Things You Should Never Share on Social Media