3 Steps to finding your cringe-worthy memories on Facebook

By the end of this article, you will learn the how to dig up your worst nightmares.

Do you remember those embarrassing photos you deleted on Facebook? Do you think that they do not exist anymore? Well, trust me, I thought the same until I watched a four-episode series on ProPublica about ‘What Facebook Knows About You.’ From that day, I have reconsidered the amount of content I have placed online and how you actually can never be as secretive as you think.

According to Facebook, there are over 1.4 billion daily active users on the platform. Since December 31, 2017, there has been 2.13 billion monthly active users. Facebook provides every user with the chance to request all their archived data, even the data you have already deleted.

This includes an endless list of information that you probably never wanted to remember; the phone numbers you supposedly lost after changing phones, the long inbox messages you sent your friends after a horrible date, even the misspelled comments you made on posts that were made of slang words and keyboard symbol emojis.

A student from the American University of Dubai, was in ‘awe’ the moment she tested out the process. She spent countless hours reading the deleted messages that she completely forgot about. Regardless of the memories you enjoy reminiscing, it is also “a realization, that we think the information we upload on social media is private, but more or less actually exposed to strangers who work at Facebook who we know nothing about.” stated Tasneem Gangardiwala.

“It is something worth experiencing, I never thought I would be able to see all the old messages I deleted.” stated Fatema Boxwala, from the American University of Sharjah.

We always make the assumption that the content we post is private because we are provided with the choice. But, unfortunately that is not the case, we need to reconsider what we post.

Here are the steps below: