How to Cancel a Facebook Account

Canceling a Facebook account is fairly straightforward but many people still don't know how to do it. I recently wrote about how to cancel a MySpace account and why you would want to (you can read that article at http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1331181/how_to_cancel_a_myspace_account.html). Since then, people have been asking me how to cancel a Facebook account so I thought I'd write an article to explain how.

Before I explain how to cancel a Facebook account, let me start off by explaining why you might want to cancel a Facebook account. Today, many employers use sites such as Facebook and MySpace to prescreen applicants before deciding if they want to interview them. If you have pictures up of your and your friends getting drunk, or have unflattering comments posted to your page, you might turn off some potential employers and risk not getting an interview for a job you want.

Okay, not that's out of the way; here's how to cancel a Facebook account. First, you need to know your Facebook login. If you don't know your Facebook login, use the "forgot your password?" link from the main page.

Once you know your Facebook login, log into Facebook and click on "Account" in the top right corner. From there, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the link that says "Click here to deactivate your Facebook account." And yes, this is just deactivating your Facebook account, and not deleting it, but more on that later.

Once you've clicked on the link, you'll be prompted to select a reason as to why you want to deactivate you account. Select a reason and then click the "Deactivate" button.

As I mentioned above, deactivating your account is not deleting your account. You account, although no longer visible to anyone, is still residing on the Facebook server. You should contact Facebook and request that they delete your account and all of your information.