Go Anonymous: How to Delete Your Entire Social Media Presence

There are a variety of reasons you might want to delete your social media accounts. You may miss the days of anonymity, you might want to reclaim your privacy why online privacy matters and 5 ways to reclaim it Why Online Privacy Matters and 5 Ways to Reclaim It Privacy threats are all around us. Today, the impact and dangers of online privacy breaches are major. These few resources explain the pitfalls clearly and concisely. Read More from companies, or maybe you just aren’t interested anymore.
Whatever your reason, there are several ways you can delete your social media accounts and history. You aren’t only limited to the traditional means, such as deleting your profile through Facebook. In fact, there are lots of online services and apps that can help you with this task.
From traditional avenues to new tools, here’s an in-depth look at how to delete your social media history.

Deleting Accounts Through the Platform

Each of the major social media sites allows you to deactivate or delete accounts. However, how easy it will be depends on the site.
In fact, there is an entire segment of BackgroundChecks.org which lists how difficult it is to delete your presence on a social media site. The site section, JustDeleteMe, gives information on how to delete your accounts through the official channels as well as how easy it is to do this.
Here are the official ways to delete your accounts for some of the major media sites:

Facebook

Social media sites are especially apt at keeping track of and recording everything you’ve ever shared. Facebook, in particular, has records of How to See Every Like, Post, and Comment You've Made on Facebook Facebook's Activity Log shows pretty much everything you've ever done: what you've posted, commented on, saved, and more. Read More . Luckily, the site also provides two options for getting rid of your profile: by deactivating or deleting your account.
As the wording implies, the first option is an account deactivation and not technically a deletion. It leaves the option to restore your account at a later date, meaning that your data is still stored somewhere.
Deactivating your account disables your profile and removes your name and photos from posts you’ve shared. Other people won’t be able to find your account when they search for it on Facebook. However, your name might still appear in posts from others. Your messages with others will likely also continue to exist.
The second option is permanently deleting your account. According to Facebook, this means your account cannot be restored. To do this, you have to lodge a request with the company through their help site.
The process of deleting your data takes 90 days. This removes much of the same information that deactivating your account does, though a backup isn’t stored. Facebook notes that, like with deactivation, some data stored on other people’s accounts (such as messages) cannot be deleted.

Twitter

The process for deleting your account on Twitter is a bit more straightforward and definitely quicker. Users can choose to delete their account in their profile settings.
The site will ask the user to confirm that they want to take this action, providing a bit of information on the process.
According to the company, your data will only be stored for 30 days. During this time you will be able to reactivate and restore your account (like many celebrities are known to do). Once the 30 day period is up though, your data and account will be permanently deleted.

Instagram

Like Facebook, Instagram also allows you to either deactivate or permanently delete your account. Your account can be deactivated in your settings by selecting Edit Profile. But if you would like to permanently delete your account, you will need to visit the account deletion web page.“After you delete your account, you can’t sign up again with the same username or add that username to another account, and we can’t reactivate deleted accounts,” Instagram says.
The company adds in its terms of services that data and posts shared by others might persist even after you delete your account.

Snapchat

Snapchat has a similar deletion policy to Twitter: removing all of the user’s data after 30 days. During this waiting period, you can choose to reactivate your account. It’s a pretty simple process.When requesting to delete your account, the company will send you to their Delete Account web page, where you will need to type in your username and password.
This won’t delete content that you’ve sent users and which has been stored by those users via screenshots. But deleting your account will prevent users from contacting you or sending you files. Your profile will also be deleted.

Google+

While Google+ isn’t the most popular networking sites, many of us with Google accounts have some semblance of a Google+ profile. Like other sites, the delete option is in your account settings.
But due to the integration of Google+ into so many other Google services, not all your data is deleted. You will need to go into these separate services to delete those specific accounts. For example, deleting Google+ does not delete the photos you’ve shared. You will need to do that in Picasa.Your local reviews will also remain online, along with some other data. As a result, completely erasing your Google+ shadow is not really an option. You will be able to delete your public profile and have your posts hidden, however.
When it comes to Google’s various partner sites, deleting your presence completely is more complicated than most other social sites. In fact, accounts on sites like Picasa can only be deleted by deleting your entire Google account, which includes services you rely on such as Gmail. Sites like JustDeleteMe list Google+ and Picasa as among the more difficult profiles to delete.