Facebook ‘Bug’ Stopped Users from Deleting Their Accounts

A Facebook “bug” last month made it impossible for some users to delete their accounts until it was fixed this week.

According to VentureBeat, one user who reached out claimed that no matter what tactic he tried, he couldn’t delete his Facebook account.

The user told VentureBeat that “he had tried using three different browsers, his phone, and at least one other computer; had contacted Facebook multiple times; and was even considering hiring a lawyer.”

After a VentureBeat news editor offered to try deleting the account himself, he also failed to do so.

Though the problem took several weeks to resolve, Facebook finally fixed the error this week, and claimed that multiple accounts were affected because they had “a large number of posts.”

“When they tried deleting their account, Facebook would call up the number of posts that would also need to be deleted,” VentureBeat explained. “If the call was taking too long because of the large number of posts, the user would be presented with a blank page and not be able to proceed.”

This week, it was revealed that a recent update to Facebook was now forcing users to wait twice as long to delete their accounts.

Previously, a user who deleted their account would be able to restore it by logging in within two weeks of deactivation — meaning that it would take two weeks for the account to be completely deleted.

The new update has lengthened this to thirty days.

In March, WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton, who made billions of dollars through Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp, encouraged people to delete their Facebook accounts following privacy concerns in the news.

“It is time. #deletefacebook,” posted Acton on Twitter.