Following all the trouble in How to delete all your Facebook wall posts, I have just learned a link to a Facebook Delete Account button which supposedly reside under Facebook’s Help/Contact section, in a website complaining that Facebook deleted, just yesterday, many of its not-particularly-Jewish-friendly Palestinian Facebook groups (free speech anyone ?).

This same page recommends people to use the link and then join Diaspora, the open source alternative to Facebook recently developed by people from the New York University.

The link is hidden away, but after reading that page I investigated further and I can find it by going to Facebook’s Help section (http://www.facebook.com/help/?ref=pf), and the typing and submitting the search “how do I delete my account” (http://www.facebook.com/help/?search=how%20do%20i%20delete%20my%20account). It the presented me a series of miscellaneous links to be expanded, where I got one item containing a a link to a FAQ that says I am better off not deleting anything, just deactivate my account and leave all there, but if I really want to delete my account I have to follow a link to “submit your request here”.

There are no links to be found anywhere else, not even in the help section; the delete request form is not a page, but an argument passed to the Contacts page (/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account).

If you try getting to the Contact page itself with no arguments to it,

http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php

There is no Contact page.

It redirects you back to the Help page, so the Request Account Deletion functionality is not even a page, it is just an argument passed to a page that technically does not even exists.

But the button is there, once you somehow manage to find its address in full form.

I will be not surprised if the address gets changed to somewhere further hidden but yet legally “present” (as in, it exists, even tho it is so hidden away that users have to go through a lot of trouble to find it), once people start to mass deleting their accounts in the service.

Below are instructions taken from the unofficial “How to permanently delete your Facebook account” group which I find after pasting the link for the Facebook’s Delete Account form using Facebook’s search box (did that group get noticed by Facebook yet?).

Note that they say the account will stay active in its full form for two weeks, there is no way around it, and you can not touch the account in any way or form during this two weeks, or the delete request will be cancelled – that includes using sites to which you signed up to using this Facebook account, such as Digg, Yahoo, Flickr, etc.

What obviously implies that if you created an account in any of this services using Facebook Connect (ie. you clicked the Facebook icon at the Flickr website, and your account with their service was instantly created), your account in this services will not work anymore either.

As I just find this method now, I have no idea if it actually works, and you are better off asking questions in the group page, which I doubt is of much use as they are still on Facebook anyway, or, if feeling adventurous enough to try to get any information about how to reclaim and take your own data away for good, at info@facebook.com.

HOW TO DELETE YOUR ACCOUNT (long version)

Go here (working link above):
http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account

Click “Submit” and follow the instructions.

Your account will be deactivated for two weeks, and if you DO NOT USE FACEBOOK IN ANY WAY during that period, your account is permanently deleted.

I REPEAT: Your profile isn’t deleted right away! You must NOT log in to, or interact in any other way with Facebook for at least two weeks, as it will cancel the deletion request. That includes NOT logging in to Facebook using any client (like the iPhone app or IM:s like Pidgin), NOT clicking embedded Like-buttons on other websites, NOT logging in to other services using Facebook Connect (like Digg) etc etc.

Hey, while you’re at it, delete all your browsing/forms history and cookies as well, to minimize the risk of accidentally using your account!

If you want out – stay out, mmmkay?

This method is official and should be complete, i.e. no need to delete individual photos, comments, messages or items from your profile or anywhere else on Facebook! If you have any concerns whether your stuff is actually deleted (as opposed to being kept somewhere in the deep dungeons of Facebook’s HQ) your best bet is to ask them using email: info@facebook.com.