Delete your account—part 1.

This will be a 4-5 part series to help you cut out social media for (your own) good. This part covers removing third-party app logins.

Hi friends!

I’ve gone a long way around trying to avoid this suggestion, but I can’t any longer. This is going to be part 1 of 4-5 part series that I’ll be sending on Saturday morning(ish) for the next few weeks to help you completely delete these data hungry social media apps.

As always I will try my best to make this process as straightforward and painless as possible, but there’s a lot we tie up mentally, emotionally, and even physically in some cases into these apps and I don’t take that lightly. You have to do what’s right for you, and I understand that leaving entirely may feel impossible and I’m not here to force you into something you’re not ready for, but I feel that I would be doing you a disservice to avoid suggesting it outright any longer.

I actually had a whole article ready to go about how you should cull some of your friends lists for the sake of privacy. It’s great—it features Aunt Cheryl and one of her incredible internet reviews, and it covers how having less of the people you don’t know gives you more of the people you do, etc. It was a good read, truly. Thing is, I can’t in good conscience suggest that that’s doing enough. It’s too late for that. It’s time to leave.

Changing privacy settings, removing people you don’t know, deleting the data they’ve collected already… it’s all good stuff, but ultimately it’s just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic and most of it is too little, too late. They take, take, take from you all the time. They take from your family, from your friends, they take from everyone everywhere you go. As soon as you turn off one privacy stealing ‘feature’, three more will pop up like an endless game of whak-a-mole.

This is a process I went through myself in 2017 that admittedly took me several tries, but ultimately has been better for my mental health, my relationships, and my privacy, and I want that for you too.

If Facebook (I’m looking at you, too, Messenger) is the primary way that you communicate and keep in touch with your people, it’s time to get them all on Signal and create some actually private conversations and group chats. If Instagram is your primary avenue for promoting your business or your work, it’s time to get yourself a website and an email list. If X is your primary source of news and entertainment, it’s time to move to bluer skies (iykyk).

Proponents of free speech and protectors of the first amendment understand that the best way to send a message to oligarchs is to vote with your feet. Your privacy comes at a cost, and it’s them that you’re paying. You’re literally filling their pockets with so much cash that they can use it to influence decisions at the highest levels and have enough left over to buy entire countries.

People is data is money is influence is power. Leave, and you take away their power.

I could give you a million more reasons to get rid of these services, none of which include the fact that their owners are trying to destroy democracy, but I’m not gonna bother, because deep down I think you already know what they’ve taken from you. I think you already see it in every ad you try to ignore, in every sponsored post you can’t imagine they could know you were interested in, in every like, share, and subscribe you thought was just for you. You already know, and for better or worse, you’ll see more as we go through this series.

So let’s get started with Part 1. I recommend doing all of this on desktop (it’s typically impossible or much more difficult to do on mobile), so dust off the ol’ PC and let’s get to it.

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Part 1: Remove Third Party Logins

If you’ve ever used Login with Facebook or Login with Twitter/X we’re gonna have to do some account correcting.

Removing Login with Facebook

I’ve recommended against using any social media to log into other services for awhile, but if you’ve already done it, we have to undo it now. First, check what websites you’ve used your Facebook account to log into.

This link should take you straight to the connected apps in Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=applications

Once in, you’ll see a list of any Active and Expired accounts that you use/d to log into with your Facebook account. The Active accounts are the ones you’ve logged into within the last 90 days, the Expired accounts haven’t been logged into within the last 90 days.

DO NOT CLICK THE REMOVE BUTTON. Tempting as it is, you could lose access to your accounts—let’s do it the right way.

Start with the Active accounts

First, let’s deal with the Active accounts. Generally speaking, you’ll need to log into those apps/accounts, find the app’s security settings, and disconnect the Facebook login. You will likely be prompted to create a password with your email address—do that (and always do that in the future).

Quick Example—if SPOTIFY is on your list:

• Open Spotify, click on your profile icon in the top right corner

• Click Account

• Scroll down to Edit login methods

• Once in, you’ll want to click on Add a new login method which will prompt you to sign in again (with Facebook, presumably), do that

• When you log in again, you will be prompted to set up an email and password combination, do that

• Now, go back to that Facebook settings page and click the “Remove” button next to Spotify

You should do this for every Active account on the list. These are the accounts you’re currently using, so they’re the priority.

What about the Expired accounts?

Well that’s sort of up to you. If you want to make sure you can continue to get into those accounts, you might want to log back into them and do as suggested above. Go to the app’s settings, find the security section, and create a password for the account. Then feel free to remove it from this list.

If it’s something old that you no longer use or care about, go ahead and just click the Remove button and never think about it again. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Removing Login with Twitter/X

This link should take you straight to the connected apps in Twitter/X: https://x.com/settings/connected_apps

You’ll have to follow the same steps as above to FIRST set up email/passwords for each account that you still actively use, THEN go back and click into each one and click Revoke app permissions to remove access.

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All right, I know this was a long email, but I promise the next few will have considerably less introduction. Next week, we’ll get into downloading your data from each of these services, even if you never look at it again.

I’d love to hear how this process goes for you also, so please feel free to respond to this email if you run into anything or have any thoughts as you’re going through it (if you’re going through it, of course!).

Delete, delete, delete!
KL