Guide to Deleting Your Facebook, Instagram, and Threads Accounts.

After Meta decided to eliminate its third-party fact-checking system and relax its content moderation policies, interest in how to delete Facebook, Instagram, and Threads accounts has significantly increased in Google searches. Many users, unhappy with this decision, criticize Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, accusing him of allying with the upcoming Trump administration, which they claim turns the company's social media platforms into a breeding ground for misinformation and polarizing discourse. Zuckerberg's statements, where he argues that fact-checkers were "too politically biased" for his vision of "free expression," likely exacerbate the situation.

If you feel like many others, tired of Meta's algorithms that exacerbate cultural or political discussions and that the company uses your data to train its artificial intelligence or for advertising, here’s how to proceed to delete your account.

To permanently delete your Facebook account, you should first download your personal data file, which includes photos, active sessions, chat history, IP addresses, facial recognition data, and ads you clicked on. It is important to perform this process from a computer. The steps to follow are:

1. Click the downward arrow under your profile picture in the upper right corner.
2. Go to Settings & privacy > Settings.
3. Scroll down the left column to Your information and select Download your information.
4. You will be directed to the Account Center, where you need to click Continue.
5. When the pop-up appears, select Download or transfer your information.
6. Choose which accounts you want to download information from (Facebook, Instagram, and Meta Horizon), and click Next.
7. Decide the amount of information to download and click Next.
8. Choose whether you want to download the information to a device or transfer it directly to another destination and click Next.
9. If you choose Transfer to destination, select the destination and schedule future transfers.
10. Once you make your selection, click Start transfer and enter your Facebook profile password.
11. If you selected Download to device, choose your file options, including a date range and the download format (HTML or JSON), as well as media quality (high, medium, or low).
12. Finally, click Submit request.

It is worth noting that if you decide to delete your Facebook account, you will not be able to recover it. Facebook takes a few days to process the deletion and will cancel the request if you log in during that time. Additionally, some information, such as message history, is not stored in your account and your friends may still have access to messages you sent after you have deleted your account.

To delete your Instagram account, you can first access the same download page from the Account Center or from Instagram settings. Once there, select the information you want to download, the download method, and follow similar steps as for Facebook.

To permanently delete your Instagram account, go to the account ownership and control section of the settings, click on Deactivation or deletion, select the account, and then Delete account. If you change your mind, you can re-register with the same username if it is still available.

Finally, to delete your Threads account, it is important to note that if you choose to delete your associated Instagram account, you will also delete your Threads profile. However, if you only want to delete Threads, go to the Threads.net page from a computer, click on the parallel lines in the lower left, select Settings, then Account, and finally Delete profile. Deletion will take about 30 days to process.