Facebook Grants Deletion Permission

Instead of having to delete every single message, wall post, and photo to erase a Facebook profile, users can now remove their accounts with a single e-mail. But Harvard students are in no rush to do so.

Facebook announced on Tuesday that users can e-mail the company to request removal of their account, though there is still no simple way for members to delete their profiles on their own.

Carlos Ché Salazar ’09 said that although he does not plan on using Facebook later in life, he would not permanently delete his profile.

“It might be something like a yearbook I’d want to take out,” he said of his Facebook page.

Salazar added that he doesn’t find the online networking site particularly intrusive.

“I think it’s slightly invasive, but no more invasive than other forms of communication,” he said. “It concerns me as much as everything else—like cell phones, e-mail, invasive advertising, the military-industrial complex.”

Until this week, there were no clear instructions for removing one’s Facebook page. The process required “deleting everything that is related to your profile,” according to the growing Facebook group “How to delete your Facebook profile.”

Some Harvard students said that they weren’t troubled by this dependence on the site administrators.

“They obviously want people to stay on Facebook—that’s why they don’t make it easy to leave,” said Talal M. Alhammad ’11, a native of Saudi Arabia who added that the networking site allows him to keep in touch with most of his friends back home.

“If it weren’t for Facebook, I wouldn’t be in touch with half the people I’m in touch with now,” he said.

Although permanently deleting one’s account had been difficult until recently, temporarily deactivating one’s account has been commonplace.

“It’s really easy to disable your account,” Alhammad said. “That’s why I disable it during exams and papers, because it’s a distraction.”

Jack Cen ’11 said that the inability to delete a profile on one’s own is an important safeguard.

“It’s like having a password so that people can’t hijack your account or delete it,” he said. “It’s just an extra precaution for people who do use Facebook as a utility for networking.”

Kevin T. Burrows ’10 said that while he remains slightly suspicious of Facebook’s security, he wouldn’t delete his profile during his undergraduate years because the site provides him with information about campus events and his friends back home.

“Facebook has become a necessity,” he said.

—Staff writer Bonnie J. Kavoussi can be reached at kavoussi@fas.harvard.edu.