In light of the Facebook scandal this week, I have deleted my Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp accounts. It feels great!

Triple J Hack on the Facebook scandal.

Facebook for me was about promoting my business and connecting with my family. My business will do fine without Facebook and we have alternative channels.

Here is the process of how I freed myself from Facebook surveillance. At the end I have included alternative apps to Facebook.

Understand your options

You have a choice to make if you want to get off Facebook: deactivate or delete. Deactivating is temporary — you can return to the site at any time. Deleting is forever — much (not necessarily all) of your content disappears, and you can’t ever get it back.

Be sure you’re ready

Your account might be tied to other apps like Spotify. Review apps you’re logged in with Facebook. These apps generally let you change to signing in with an email address. Initially I was going to only clamp down on apps I’ve signed in with Facebook, but I’m fed up with the way my data has been used.

Download a copy of your data

  1. Go to https://www.facebook.com/settings
  2. Under General, choose Download a copy of your Facebook data.
  3. Click the green “Start My Archive” button.

Let your friends and family know you’re leaving Facebook

No doubt your friends and family will be curious why. It’s a good chance to invite them to alternative apps.

Delete your Facebook account

  1. Go to https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account
  2. Take a deep breath and click the “Delete My Account” option.

Facebook will let you recover your account for two weeks, but it’ll get to work on its 90-day process of scrubbing you from the site.

Remove other Facebook apps Instagram and Whatsapp

Backup and delete your Whatsapp account

Download and delete your Instagram account

Remove unused apps

Install an adblocker

Block trackers and ads with an adblocker.

Alternative apps

Photos: iCloud and Google Photos.

Messenger: Signal, Telegram or if all your friends have Apple gear, iMessage.

Marketplace: eBay and Gumtree are obvious choices.

Pages: Google Business, a blog or website.

Go further to improve your digital security

Learn more about Surveillance Self-Defense.

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