By following the steps described below you will close of your Facebook account
Basic registration:
- Register on the homepage and click “Signup”
- I advice you ”Skip” all the steps, but you can upload a photo of yourself if you like.
- Do not add friends yet! Better think about it, especially as with these steps you are likely to invite a lot of unintended “friends” (as I found out recently, sending all my business relationships spam mail)
Immediately “View & Edit your profile”:
- Basic information: Choose to “not show your birthday in your profile”, unless you really want all your “friends” to know.
- Do not add any other information, unless you have a good reason for it. You can always add this later.
- NOTICE that there are 3 more options at the bottom of the page.
Click “Done editing”
Now you'll need to change your Facebook “Settings” , to avoid any surprises or unwanted actions with your account.
Account settings
Go to “Settings” / “Account” in the top menu bar
- Just go through all settings and see what you want people to know about you.
NOTICE there are several tabs with settings on this page!
- Tab “Notifications”: remove any tick after an action you do not want to receive an eMail about.
You might be inclined to remove all ticks, to avoid loads of messages in your inbox, but if you do not visit your account every day it might be handy to know when someone has left you a message.
- Tab “Facebook ads”: NOTICE there is a second scroll down choice at the bottom of the page.
Privacy settings
Go to “Settings” / “Privacy” in the top menu bar - Profile:
- Make sure all fields show “Only friends”. Be aware that when you choose friends of friends, that you not only have no idea who will look at your private data, but if any of your friends open their profile to the whole world (“Everyone”), that you are actually doing the same!
- Do you want friends to be able to write messages on your Wall? (tick box) This means that all your friends can read what other friends are writing to you. In general people know this and will send a private message instead if things get too personal, but do expect the occasional slip-up. And when the cat is out of the bag, you cannot put it back again.
Deleting your account
Be aware that any content or photo you publish and share with friends can be copied and used by those friends. If you decide to deactivate your account in Facebook, you can do so in your “Account settings”. However, any content that has been tagged or otherwise used by your friends is not removed from Facebook when you deactivate your account. Just accept that whatever you publish on Facebook might stay there forever.
See Facebook_has_made_us_shameless.html for more on this subject.
