Goodbye forever, Facebook

It's been 10 years since I joined Facebook.

It's also been 10 years since I started to really hate Facebook.

Sure, it's a nice platform to stay connected with people you barely know and will likely never see again. But it's also by far the creepiest, most invasive, and most manipulative online cult I've ever encountered.

So last night I finally deleted my account.

Well, sort of. Technically my account is scheduled for deletion, because Facebook won’t let you just delete your account. That would be much too easy. Apparently a simple, straightforward account deletion process doesn’t make sense for a company that’s been repeatedly criticized for having a difficult, unintuitive account deletion process.

It's also striking to me that Facebook's terminology here — "Account successfully scheduled for deletion" — is very similar to how a newspaper might describe the execution of a sentenced criminal. I'm sure that's intentional.

I’m curious to see if Facebook sends me a nice automated email campaign designed to recapture whatever they call users like me. I imagine that their audience segmentation includes some fun category like "Deserters" or "The Damned," and that I am now in that category.

– Deserter