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Facebook Silently Removes Ability To Download Your Posts
dcollins writes "Facebook has a 'Download Info' capability that I've used regularly since 2010 to archive, backup, and search all the information that I've written and shared there (called 'wall posts'). But I've discovered that sometime in the last few months, Facebook silently removed this largest component from the Downloaded Info, locking up all of your posted information internally where it can no longer be exported or digitally searched. Will they reverse course if this is publicized and they're pressured on the matter?"
It does appear that the archive of your wall posts is now only available through the not-very-useful Activity Log.
Depending on where you are, you might be able to send them a Subject Access Request or your local equivalent, forcing them to provide you with all the personal data they hold about you, give or take a bit of wriggling on their part, for a token amount of money.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I have the "Download a copy of your Facebook data" on my Account Settings page. Maybe this was selectively removed from some accounts only?
Do you really think that when you delete it that it actually deletes it? It's been standard operating procedure for years where I've worked that things appear deleted as far as the end user sees, but it's still there in the database just flagged "deleted".
Doing this makes it far easier to "undelete" something when it was inadvertently deleted, investigate something that a user was trying to cover up, or just keep a record for our own data mining purposes that's separate to the end user's use of the data.
US centric: The Freedom of Information Act is designed to get information on other subjects. The Privacy Act is what you cite and a far better tool to get information on yourself.
Have you read 1984? That's what a memory hole was.
The feature has NOT been removed. It is right here:
https://www.facebook.com/settings
Simply click "Download a copy of your Facebook data."
Where is the link on slashdot to download all my comments?
Here!
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The link is here in your settings: https://www.facebook.com/settings
Link is at the bottom... "Download a copy of your Facebook data."
-- Dave
up 12 days, 22:30, 2 users, load averages: 993.20, 994.21, 994.56
*makes note to limit user processes...
RTFA. You can download an archive of some of your data. While that archive used to include your wall posts (a substantial portion of the content you generate on Facebook), that content is no longer included. I have tried and verified this.
That page only has comments going back to December for me. My complete posting history goes back over a decade.
rage, rage against the dying of the light
That page only has comments going back to December for me. My complete posting history goes back over a decade.
This is slashdot. News for Nerds.
The Slashdot search function goes something like this:
wget -U “Lynx/3.0 http://www.google.com/search?&start=1\&num=100\&q=27352+site:slashdot.org -O Search01.html
wget -U “Lynx/3.0 http://www.google.com/search?&start=101\&num=200\&q=27352+site:slashdot.org -O Search02.html
wget -U “Lynx/3.0 http://www.google.com/search?&start=201\&num=300\&q=27352+site:slashdot.org -O Search03.html
Then
lynx -dump -listonly Search01.html >> URL_list.ascii
lynx -dump -listonly Search02.html >> URL_list.ascii
lynx -dump -listonly Search03.html >> URL_list.ascii
Then grep out the webcache and google URLs and trim off anything that prepends the URL you want with a Perl substitution
s/(https?\:\/\/)(\w*\.)?(slashdot\.org\/.*)/$1$2$3/
And finally, wget again
wget -U "Lynx/22.0" -i ./URL_list.ascii
It is at this stage you realize that you have just downloaded 200MB of javascript and are found 2 days later sitting under a cold shower in the foetal position
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