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It’s never exactly easy to pull the plug on a social media account you’ve had for years. For many of us, our accounts are filled with years of photos, memories and memes that aren’t easy to part with ,even if we are ready to stop the daily scrolling habit. For Facebook, Instagram and other Meta-run services, deleting an account entirely isn’t necessarily straightforward, either.

And even though all the services are run by the same company, there isn’t one centralized way to delete all your Meta-associated accounts. The good news is that removing these accounts is in many cases a lot easier than it has been in the past, even if there are sometimes a few extra steps involved. Keep reading to find out exactly how to delete your Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp and Oculus accounts.

First, download your data

Regardless of your reasons for wanting to leave your accounts behind, it’s worth it to take the time to download all your data before you delete them for good. Downloading your data will ensure you have a record of your prior posts, messages, photos and other activity.

These data archives look a little different for each service, but in general they contain your previous posts, a record of what accounts you follow, your messages and even some of your past activity on the services. Some, like Facebook, will even provide a record of what the site’s advertisers know about you.

In other words: it’s a lot of data. And it may not seem like a lot of that is worth hanging onto, but if you’ve used an account for years it’s a good way to preserve a record of your past photos, videos and other posts. (Though you should also be prepared for it to surface some data you might not want to remember, like conversations with former partners or cringey college photos.)

On Facebook, you can access your archive from: Settings & Privacy -> Settings -> Your Facebook Information -> download your information -> request download.

On Instagram, it’s More -> Settings -> Privacy and Security -> Data download -> Request download.

On WhatsApp, it’s Settings -> Account -> Request account info. (Of note, WhatsApp’s reports don’t include the content of your actual messages. If you want to preserve a copy of your messages, you’ll need to export your chat history on each message thread you wish to hang onto.

On Messenger, downloads have to be initiated through the mobile app. On both Android and iOS, go to Account Settings (located in the “chats” tab) -> Your Facebook Information -> Download your information. You’ll then be able to specify a few aspects of the data, like the media quality, data format and date range you want the download to cover.

For Oculus and Meta Quest users, you can use the “download your information” tool linked here.

Once you have your data archives stashed away, you’ll be ready to permanently nuke your accounts. Though, like the data downloads, it can take up to several days for the process to be complete.

How to delete Facebook

Before you permanently delete Facebook, a word of caution: nuking your account will also nuke third-party accounts where you’ve also used Facebook to log-in. In some cases, you might be able to recover them via the app’s support channels, but there’s no guarantee. Follow the steps here to review which apps and websites you use Facebook as a log in.

Likewise, if your Oculus account is linked to your Facebook identity, then deleting your Facebook will also permanently delete your Oculus account, including your past purchases. (Of note, Meta now allows VR users to create a separate “Meta account” that doesn’t rely on Facebook.)

Once you’re sure you’re ready to delete, you can find the option from Settings & Privacy -> Settings -> Your Facebook Information -> Deactivation and Deletion -> Delete Account -> Continue to account deletion -> Delete Account

However, even after you’ve smashed the final “delete” button, Facebook notes that it still takes around 30 days for your information to be purged entirely. That also means that if you do happen to change your mind within 30 days, you can cancel the request. According to the company, it can take up to 90 days for the deletion process to complete, though your profile and other info won’t be visible to others on Facebook during that time.

How to delete Instagram

For Instagram, you need to go to the “delete your account” page, which can be found here. From there, you’ll have to select a reason from the drop-down menu, and enter your password.

As with Facebook, Instagram notes that it can take “up to 90 days from the beginning of the deletion process to delete all the things you’ve posted,” though posts won’t be visible to others on the platform during that time.

How to delete Facebook Messenger

If you delete a Facebook account, your Messenger account will also be permanently deleted so you don’t need to go through extra steps if you’ve already purged your Facebook presence. But it’s also worth noting that simply deactivating your Facebook won’t affect your ability to use Messenger or other users’ ability to find you on the app.

If, however, you happen to use Messenger without an associated Facebook account, you can delete your account via the app. On Both iOS and Android: Account Settings -> Delete Your Account and Information and enter your password.

How to delete WhatsApp

WhatsApp accounts can be deleted directly from the app via Settings -> Account -> Delete My Account. The app will then prompt you to enter your phone number. As with facebook and Instagram, the company says the full deletion process can take up to 90 days.

How to delete an Oculus or Meta account

As noted above, if you used Facebook to login to your Oculus account, then deleting Facebook will take care of it. If, however, your Oculus login was separate, you need to log in to your account on Oculus’ website from a browser, then navigate to My Profile -> Privacy Center -> Delete Your Oculus Account.

Of note, this process will only work until January 1, 2023, when Meta will force all Oculus accounts to migrate to the new Meta accounts mentioned above. For those newer Meta accounts, you can delete your presence by heading to auth.meta.com/settings, logging in, selecting “delete your account,” entering your password again and choosing “delete your data.”

Again, keep in mind this will prevent you from using your VR headset, and will remove any past purchases you’ve made.

 

The FCC has proposed a $299,997,000 fine against “the largest robocall firm” it has ever investigated, the regulator announced. It would be the FCC’s largest fine ever, and targets a firm that made over 5 billion calls in three months, enough “to have called each person in the United States 15 times,” it wrote. 

The operation is run by Roy Cox, Jr. and Michael Aaron Jones via their Sumco Panama company, along with other domestic and foreign entities. In July of this year, the FCC issued its first ever “K4 Notice” and “N2 Order” directing all US telephone providers to stop carrying traffic related to the car warranty scam calls. “This resulted in a massive, 99 percent drop in the volume of such calls since June, according to [spam blocking app] RoboKiller,” the FCC wrote. 

The FCC proposed its largest-ever fine because it found the robocallers met the criteria for “egregious violations.” Consumers described the calls as “incessant” and “harassment,” and the robocallers used dirty practices like calling health care workers from spoofed hospital numbers. The firm also violated multiple FCC rules, like failing to identify the caller at the start of a message. 

In the calls, a message would open with something like “we’ve been trying to reach you concerning your car’s extended warranty,” and prompt you to speak to a scam “warranty specialist.” Robokiller advises users to avoid the calls in the first place if possible, not follow prompts, and above all, never provide personal information like banking details.

 

In Japan, the big premiere week of James Cameron’s Avatar sequel was hit with technical problems in some movie theaters. One venue in central Japan was forced to reduce the 48 fps frame rate down to the traditional 24 fps – one of the major technical innovations of Avatar: The Way of Water. The Avatar sequel is actually available in multiple formats, including 2D 48 fps, 3D 48 fps and regular 24 fps. If you see the 48 fps version, it only uses the HFR tech for action sequences, while dialog and slower scenes are dialed down to 24 fps by duplicating frames. Intrigued by high frame rates? Check out Devindra Hardawar’s (spoiler-free) review of Avatar: The Way of Water, right here.

Despite being the widest movie release of all time in Japan, Avatar: The Way of Water failed to claim the top ranking last weekend, beaten by the anime basketball movie called The First Slam Dunk.

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

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Hands-on with LG’s 240Hz UltraGear gaming monitors

Setting a new bar for OLED refresh rates.

Earlier this year, Alienware released what’s arguably the best all-around gaming monitor on the market right now: the AW3423DW. But last week, LG quietly announced its latest batch of UltraGear gaming monitors. LG’s monitors are available in two sizes intended for slightly different use cases. There’s the 27-inch option with a flat panel, meant for both general use and more demanding competitive play, while the 45-inch monitor has a curved display with an 800R radius, designed to deliver a more immersive experience. Regardless of which one you pick, both feature 240Hz refresh rates – the highest you can get from any OLED monitor available today.

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Ukraine strikes deal with SpaceX for thousands more Starlink antennas

Several EU countries will reportedly share the costs.

Ukraine will receive an additional 10,000-plus Starlink satellite dishes from Elon Musk’s SpaceX to help provide internet amid Russian attacks on communications infrastructure. Financial issues around the terminals have reportedly been resolved, with several European countries stepping up to share the costs, according to Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Mykhailo Federov. The 10,000 new terminals add to the 22,000 already received and will be used to “stabilize connections for critical situations,” according to Federov. “There is no alternative to satellite connections,” he added.

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The best free games for 2023

Some great games don’t cost a thing.

Free games used to mean ropey puzzle games and knock-off clones of games that had a price tag. But now, courtesy of in-app payments and the ease of offering both a sample of a title alongside its full-fat version, there are plenty of great games to play without spending a dime. Following the continued success of titles like Fortnite, the level of quality across mobile, PC and consoles has never been higher. Put your card away, and consider this your starting point. Oh and while it’s not in the current edition of our guide, check out Vampire Survivors too — my latest addiction, and free-to-play on smartphones.

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Canada plans to enforce an ambitious zero-emission vehicle sales quota by 2026

At least 20 percent of new vehicles sold will need to be zero-emission models.

The Canadian government has announced enforceable quotas for zero-emission vehicle sales. By 2026, a fifth of all new passenger cars, trucks and SUVs sold in the country will need to be zero-emission models, such as electric or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. “We’re moving forward with a regulated sales target that requires at least 20 percent of new vehicles sold by 2026 to be zero emission, increasing that to 60 percent by 2030 and 100 percent by 2035,” Julie Dabrusin, parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change. There’s still some way to go. In the first six months of 2022, EVs (including plug-in hybrid models) made up 7.2 percent of new car registrations.

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Top FTX executives close to Sam Bankman-Fried, Caroline Ellison and Zixiao “Gary” Wang, have pleaded guilty to fraud and are cooperating with prosecutors. The pair were convicted “in connection with their roles in the fraud that contributed to FTX’s collapse,” said Damian Williams, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York in a press conference.

Ellison, the former CEO of FTX sister company Alameda Research and ex-girlfriend of Bankman-Fried, pleaded guilty to seven counts and faces up to 110 years in prison. Former FTX co-founder Wang pleaded guilty to four counts and faces 50 years. Depending on the level of cooperation, however, they could receive lighter sentences. The pair also face civil fraud charges filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Future Trading Commission (CFTC). Both were released on $250,000 bonds.

The announcement was made as Bankman-Fried was being extradited from the Bahamas to New York, and add to his mounting legal woes. Wang’s lawyer Ilan Graff said that his client has “accepted responsibility for his actions and takes seriously his obligations as a cooperating witness,” according to The Washington Post. 

Despite their cooperation, the SEC didn’t mince words in laying out its case against Ellison and Wang. “Mr. Bankman-Fried, Ms. Ellison, and Mr. Wang were active participants in a scheme to conceal material information from FTX investors,” said SEC deputy director of enforcement, Sanjay Wadhwa. “By surreptitiously siphoning FTX’s customer funds onto the books of Alameda, defendants hid the very real risks that FTX’s investors and customers faced.”

Bankman-Fried, meanwhile, is accused of a long list of misdeeds by multiple agencies, including the SEC, Department of Justice and CFTC. Those include defrauding FTX investors and customers of more than $1.9 billion, multiple counts of wire fraud, conspiracy to defraud investors by sharing misleading information and “surreptitiously” siphoning customer funds. The CFTC also alleges that Bankman-Fried and his cohorts “took hundreds of millions of dollars in poorly-documented ‘loans’ from Alameda,” which they then used to purchase real estate and make political donations.

 

The two-year-old Meta Quest 2 is now faster due to a surprise performance boost in the headset’s latest update. Meta boosted the maximum frequency from 490 MHz to 525 MHz, giving all Quest 2 headsets up to 7 percent more performance. 

“No integration or coding is needed to start reaping the benefits of this improvement — the dynamic clocking system will automatically increase the frequency as it detects that your app would benefit from it,” Meta wrote. To get the extra speed, all you’ll need to do is either a doff/don (take it off and put it back on) or sleep cycle by clicking the power button twice.

What’s more, if you have dynamic foveation enabled in your app, the GPU will boost from 490 MHz to 525 MHz to maintain higher visual quality rather than increasing foveation (foveation lowers image detail depending on what you’re looking at). The result should be better overall image quality. 

Quest 2 owners will benefit from the extra speed with no app changes, but developers could also update apps, using the extra power to boost resolution. In any case, it makes the headset more useful in the final year of its lifespan, with the Quest 3 set to launch next year. 

 

Netflix announced today that Nike Training Club workout videos are heading to the streaming service. The first batch of videos will be available for all Netflix subscribers starting on December 30th.

Nike Training Club videos were previously exclusive to the iOS and Android app, which guides users through workout programs and wellness strategies. Nike says it will upload over 30 hours of videos to Netflix, released in two parts and available in 10 languages. Before arriving on Netflix, the only way to watch them on a big screen was to connect your phone to a TV, either through an HDMI cable or wirelessly with AirPlay or a Chromecast. Considering the limitations of working out while staring at a phone screen, starting a video from Netflix should give you one less excuse to avoid exercising (while helping Nike expand the app’s reach).

The first collection includes five programs spread across 46 videos. “Kickstart Fitness with the Basics” (13 episodes), “Two Weeks to a Stronger Core” (seven episodes), “Fall in Love with Vinyasa Yoga” (six episodes), “HIT & Strength with Tara” (14 episodes) and “Feel-Good Fitness” (six episodes) all arrive at the end of December. A second batch will arrive in 2023. Once the series is available, you can find them in a Nike collection on Netflix or by searching for “Nike.”

Nike Training Club was among the first high-profile mobile apps when it launched in 2009. It asks you to input your fitness goals and then uses workout videos, customized warmups, tips and motivation to help you stay on track. The service added Apple Watch support in 2018 and adaptive workouts for people with disabilities earlier this year.

 

Okta is responding to a major security incident for the second time this year. As first reported by BleepingComputer, Okta began notifying customers earlier today via email of an event that saw an unnamed party steal the company’s source code. In early December, Okta was notified by GitHub of possible suspicious access to its online code repositories. Following an investigation, Okta determined someone had used that access to copy over its source code but that they had subsequently not gained unauthorized access to its identity and access management systems.

“We have confirmed no unauthorized access to the Okta service, and no unauthorized access to customer data,” writes David Bradbury, Okta’s chief security officer, in the email obtained by BleepingComputer. “Okta does not rely on the confidentiality of its source code for the security of its services.”

In a statement Okta shared with Engadget, the company confirmed it was notifying customers of a recent security incident, and pointed to a blog post it published moments ago. “In early December 2022, GitHub alerted Okta about possible suspicious access to Okta code repositories. We have confirmed no customer data was impacted, nor was there any other customer impact. No customer action is required and the Okta service remains fully operational and secure,” an Okta spokesperson told Engadget. “Okta does not rely on the confidentiality of its source code for the security of its services. This event does not impact any other Okta products, and we have been in communication with our customers.”

While the damage from the GitHub incident appears minimal, the event was still a significant test of Okta. Following the Lapsus$ breach that saw hackers from the ransomware gang access two active customer accounts, the company admitted it “made a mistake” in handling the disclosure of that data breach. You may recall it took Okta two months to notify customers of what had happened, and one of the things it promised to do in the aftermath of the incident was “communicate more rapidly with customers.” That pledge was put to the test.

Update 4:27PM ET: Added confirmation and comment from Okta. 

 

After two consecutive failed attempts to re-establish contact, NASA on Wednesday officially called an end to its InSight Mars mission. On December 15th, the lander made its final transmission to Earth. NASA said it would make the tough decision to call the mission dead after two failed communication attempts earlier this year. The agency will continue to listen for a signal “just in case” but notes the odds of that occurring at this point are “considered unlikely.”

NASA shared the news of InSight’s impending demise on Monday when it posted the lander’s final selfie — taken on April 24th, 2022 — to Twitter. Since arriving on the martian surface in 2018, InSight has gradually accumulated dust on its solar panels. Earlier this year, NASA predicted the debris would become too thick for the lander to power itself.

“My power’s really low, so this may be the last image I can send,” InSight’s final tweet reads. “Don’t worry about me though: my time here has been both productive and serene. If I can keep talking to my mission team, I will – but I’ll be signing off here soon. Thanks for staying with me.”

NASA is being modest when it says InSight’s time on Mars was productive. For more than four years, the lander – its name short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport – collected data about the planet’s deep interior. Using a highly sensitive seismometer, InSight detected 1,319 “marsquakes,” including at least one caused by a meteoroid impact. Using that information, NASA scientists concluded the core of Mars is about half the size of Earth’s. InSight also sent back daily weather reports and gave humans our first chance to hear some of the sounds of the Red Planet.

“InSight has more than lived up to its name. As a scientist who’s spent a career studying Mars, it’s been a thrill to see what the lander has achieved, thanks to an entire team of people across the globe who helped make this mission a success,” said Laurie Leshin, the director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the unit that managed the mission. “Yes, it’s sad to say goodbye, but InSight’s legacy will live on, informing and inspiring.”

 

Prominent news organizations are high-value targets for hackers and it appears that The Guardian is the latest to have fallen victim to an attack. A “serious IT incident” struck the publication on Tuesday evening. “We believe this to be a ransomware attack but are continuing to consider all possibilities,” editor-in-chief Katharine Viner and Guardian Media Group chief executive Anna Bateson told employees in a note. “Our technology teams have been working to deal with all aspects of this incident, with the vast majority of our staff able to work from home as we did during the pandemic.”

Some of The Guardian‘s tech infrastructure and “behind-the-scenes services” have been impacted, according to the publication. Employees were asked to work from home for the remainder of the week. The Guardian has still been able to publish stories on its website and app, and leaders were confident of being able to deliver a print edition on Thursday.

Other news organizations have suffered security breaches in recent months. Fast Company was forced offline for eight days amid a cyberattack that saw hackers deliver obscene push notifications through Apple News. The New York Post, meanwhile, claimed in October that a rogue employee took over its website and Twitter accounts and was the culprit behind racist and sexist posts.

 

Twitter appears to have cut off Google Voice numbers from two-factor authentication (2FA). Although it’s hardly the first company to block virtual phone numbers from SMS authentication, the change could be connected to CEO Elon Musk’s aggressive moves to snuff out bot accounts from the platform.

The new behavior, reported by 9to5Google, appears to block users from using a Google Voice number to authenticate their accounts. (I tried it today, and it rejected my Google Voice number.) Further, users previously authenticated with Google Voice could find themselves locked out of their accounts. Engadget reached out to Google to confirm, and we’ll update the story if we hear back. Twitter no longer has a PR department.

Since buying Twitter and taking over as CEO (a title he now says he’ll abandon once he finds a successor), Musk has been vocal about vanquishing bots from the platform. Earlier this month, Platformerreported the company blocked traffic from 30 mobile carriers worldwide — including networks in Russia, Indonesia, India and Malaysia. The move cut off access for thousands of accounts, including legitimate ones using those wireless carriers for 2FA. Musk accused the carriers of initiating the bogus texts to inflate what Twitter owed them contractually for SMS.

That report didn’t mention Google Voice, but anyone with a Gmail account can set up a free Google Voice number, making it an easy authentication tool for bots, scammers and spammers. Although it’s tempting to lump this move together with Musk’s seemingly erratic overhauls since taking over, it’s standard practice for apps ranging from financial institutions to dating apps to bar virtual numbers from 2FA.

If you set up your Twitter account with Google Voice authentication, you should be able to change the number without contacting support. You can go to Twitter Settings > Security and Account Access > Security > Two-Factor Authentication to remove that number and add your primary carrier line.