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If you look at the DeleteFacebook hashtag,
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people are really angry.
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And I think they're sort of becoming aware of the extent to which they're being watched and tracked.
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This feels like it's a turning point for many of the people who use Facebook
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and aren't happy about how their data is being used.
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And the more they find out, the less happy they are.
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I think people underestimate how hard it is to untangle ourselves from a social network like Facebook.
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So before you delete your Facebook account,
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just remember that it's not just Facebook that you'll be losing access to.
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It's also all of the third-party apps that you use Facebook to log in to
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or that are connected or plugged into your Facebook account.
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So it's important before you make this choice to go through those apps,
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see which ones you still need access to,
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and if there are any, to switch your login from Facebook to something else.
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So you can still access it even after you've deleted your Facebook account.
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And there are just some apps that you won't have access to if you delete your Facebook account.
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Facebook has a lot of ways to track your activity
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even if you're not logged in or if you delete your account entirely,
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and it uses what it calls the social graph
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to track the activity of people across the internet beyond just Facebook.com.
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This accounts for everyone who uses the internet,
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and you don't have to have a Facebook profile to be tracked by Facebook.
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For example, if your friends have Facebook accounts or Facebook Messenger accounts
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and if they've uploaded their contacts to Facebook
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and if you're one of their contacts,
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then Facebook knows your name and your phone number and can track you.
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When you deactivate or delete your Facebook profile,
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your profile disappears and people can't see what you posted or search for you.
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But all of the data that you gave over to third-party app developers is still out there.
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And those developers are not required to delete it or do anything with it.
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They can use it however they want.
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For as long as they want.
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There's a whole list of ways that Facebook will track you outside of Facebook.com.
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To do the full cleanse, you would have to actually manually block a list of URLs that they use to track you.
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These are the lengths you'd have to go to if you truly wanted to get off of Facebook's grid.