Facebook is a behemoth of a Social Network. With over 800 million active users, 50% of which use the service daily it is by far the largest social network in existence today, not bad for a company started by a group of college room mates. The company has also grown in size at an alarming rate in the last seven years, with more than three thousand employees and an estimated revenue of $4.2 billion in 2011.
The company is also considering a flotation in New York which could raise approximately $10 billion and value the company at $100 billion, making it the largest initial public offering by an internet company is history. Should the IPO happen, and reach any of the reported numbers then it would put the company founders up there as some of the worlds wealthiest and most powerful business men. But as Peter Parker’s uncle would say, "With great power comes great responsibility".
As the social network has grown, various concerns have been raised about numerous aspects of Facebook, such as child safety and how the site handles and protects users data. A number of incidents have occurred which has only raised awareness around the issues such as the sites PHP code being displayed publicly on the site after a configuration error occurred. One substantial issue arose from the inability to delete all account information from Facebook’s servers upon termination of an account. The system was set up to make sure that a user would need to manually go through their account and delete all personal data and information before the actual account terminate takes place. This practice has subsequently been resolved with the site now stating "When you delete an account, it is permanently deleted from Facebook".
Most recently, Facebook has made some radical changes to the way profile pages and Timeline is displayed. Many users will like the new look, but one down side is that it will inevitably regurgitate some old memories in the form of wall posts and timeline entries that some people would prefer to forget. If you wish to remove this data, trust me it can be an agonizing, arduous task. Unfortunately there is no fool proof, easy way to remove the data without sifting through it manually, but thanks to the community at large these methods may work for you.
If you have yet to enable the new Timeline features, try the ‘magic button’ approach:
Developers on the userscripts community have come up with a simple approach to solving this task by developing the greasemonkey scripts. Installing these scripts allows users to modify and change how Facebook on the whole acts. It also changes the way in which registered users interact with the website. To follow this approach the ideal tool set consists of a Windows based machine running the Firefox web browser, although Google Chrome and a Mac will suffice. Follow the link for a very good tutorial on how to execute this method.
If the ‘magic button’ method fails you, then read on:
Although it seems terrifying, we will now embark on our journey into macro territory. A macro records mouse clicks and keyboard presses which allows user defined actions to be repeated over and over again with ease. Obviously the laborious task of deleting an endless amount of wall posts would be the perfect task for a macro. Creating the macro is obviously a difficult and an intricate process. This method will require you to download a piece of software called JitBit Macro Recorder which comes with a unrestricted trial, plenty enough to complete the task at hand.
If you have already enabled the Timeline, there is still a glimmer of hope:
Once the switch has been flicked to enable the new Timeline feature, there is no going back. It is a draconian ecosystem, and once that switch is on, it stays on. But worry not, your personal data is not destined to live on in the public eye forever. The option still exists to manually sieve through your past posts and delete them one at a time, although you may need to check yourself into an asylum afterwards. If you are prepared to invest a little bit of time, and trial and error into removing your data then you could follow this tutorial and see where it takes you. Good luck Facebookers.
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