Even if you don’t enter data into Facebook/Meta directly, they may be getting data from other games/music apps/etc.
How to check
- Navigate to the
Accounts Centermenu.- Instagram: open your profile page > 3 bar menu >
Settings>Accounts Center - Messenger: 3 bar menu > gear icon > scroll to bottom >
Accounts Center
- Instagram: open your profile page > 3 bar menu >
Your information and permissionsYour activity off Meta technologies
There should also be an option for Manage future activity
I use some apps to communicate with family, and clearly my privacy protections weren’t as good as I thought they were. I set things up a long time ago, so I imagine something changed since then.
I’m considering of either sending the apps to the work profile, or switching to only using them in the browser. If it’s because I connected my account to the other service at some point, I don’t know how to sever that connection now aside from dropping that other game/app/service
Or just stop using Meta services all together.
Ok, let me just cut off my entire family and friend circle out of my life just to stick it to some corpo that doesn’t even care about me. I sure showed 'em!
I mean god forbid using regular text and phone with them is out of the question.
It is for most scenarios in my life. And in many peoples’ lives I will wager.
For the people that are abroad I’d have to pay to call/text them each time, and I can’t even send them pictures/videos in a convenient way (no, convincing everyone to use signal just to talk to me is not happening)
And when my family/friends share photos/videos of important events in their lives that I care about I’d just have to accept I’ll be the only one missing out and be that awkward guy at family gatherings that’s all out of the loop.
And when my family is organizing events I would be the only one left out and have to convince someone to text/call me because I don’t want to be in the chat, being an inconvenience to everyone and also losing much of my input.
And I’m not even gonna mention how most workplaces and business expect you to be on WhatsApp.
And what would I get in return for being off WhatsApp? Nothing, that’s what. I’d just be seen as the weirdo that never wants to interact with anyone online.
Do I like meta? No. But avoiding everything they touch is not worth being a nuisance to everyone else around me. I’ve just learned to suck it up like most people do. It’s not ideal but it’s absolutely unrealistic to expect most people to get off whatsapp/messenger when everyone has been on it for like a decade now. It’s unfortunate but it is what it is.
The only SMS I’ve gotten in the last 5 years are the double authentication ones. WhatsApp is the default way of texting in many countries. Outside of the US, when you ask people to stop using WhatsApp, chances are you are asking them to give up texting entirely. Which you must realize is complicated to say the least
When everybody uses WhatsApp to communicate, which is a meta service, it’s a bit complicated to cut off communication with literally everybody in your country (work, friends, businesses) just to not use a service. It’s disingenuous to expect this without some sort of change within the current status quo. And this is coming from someone who doesn’t use any of their other platforms but has to use WhatsApp, because that’s literally the only choice
Direct link to the page in question
https://accountscenter.facebook.com/info_and_permissions/off_facebook_activity/
And, of course, they want you to login or sign up to be able to read that page.
It physically hurts me to say anything in facebook’s defence, but to be fair this is an account centre link to an account config page
I get that, and it makes sense. What pisses me off is that this is the type of information all users should have access to before they decide to sign up or not.
That sneaky shit is what made me start on the track of removing myself from all the mainstream networks out there.
Thank you for the tip, but is there any way to delete the activity data from Meta after de-linking?
darn. hidden in such a place!
and I couldn’t believe what I found in there. Apparently MongoDB, which I use only for my work, linked me with my facebook account. This is crazy.
Sneaky, thanks for raising this.
