Facebook Adds an Email-Style Trash Can to Its Garbage Platform

Facebook Adds an Email-Style Trash Can to Its Garbage Platform

Facebook won’t remove the president’s over there.

Today, the company announced the upcoming “Manage Activity” feature which makes it easier to mass delete old posts and select them by date range and tagged people. You can move them to the trash can, they’ll stay temporarily for 30 days before Facebook deletes them forever. Like email.

[referenced url=”https://gizmodo.com.au/2020/05/facebook-says-it-will-do-fuck-all-about-trumps-post-calling-for-military-to-shoot-protestors/” thumb=”https://gizmodo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/30/g5mxgmoje4xvyehtyeo7-300×169.jpg” title=”Facebook Says It will Do Fuck All About Trump’s Post Calling for Military to Shoot Protestors” excerpt=”Facebook will not remove an incendiary post from President Donald Trump essentially calling for authorities to enter Minneapolis and open fire on Americans protesting police brutality there, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Friday. Earlier in the day, Twitter flagged identical posts on both the official White House account and the…”]

The main perk is that now you can keep a hidden stash by hiding and “archiving” old posts, including posts tagged with other people. As Wired points out, this is similar to selecting “Only Me,” but now the posts are all compiled into a personal album.

Facebook has made the change with lurking employers and regrettable exes in mind, it seems. In its blog post, the company writes:

Whether you’re entering the job market after college or moving on from an old relationship, we know things change in people’s lives, and we want to make it easy for you to curate your presence on Facebook to more accurately reflect who you are today.

I’m not complaining. Maybe you’re risking arrest and the possibility of authorities combing your social media for further suspects in building charges for an organised crime case. In that kind of situation, the tool might come in handy.

Gizmodo has reached out to Facebook to ask if the company still plans to keep backup copies of deleted posts for up to three months, as it has done in the past. We’ll update this post when we receive a reply.

Looking for ways to advocate for black lives? Check out this list of resources by our sister site Lifehacker for ways to get involved.


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