XKCD: It's more than a comic

If nothing else account delation posts are self defeating because said post will shortly be deleted alongside your account.

I'm not sure, wouldn't they still appear on people's walls regardless? On Facebook at least?

What happens to these old posts when their poster deletes their account? I have a hunch that they will be there forever.

On Facebook it is really difficult to delete your account. Normally, you can "deactivate" it, which means that you cannot receive any messages, but all your content remains intact.

Anecdotally a lot of people say they're leaving but don't actually delete or deactivate anything.

Well, you can "leave" without actually deleting your account. You can just stop reading it.

I don't know if this is the default behaviour, but I have seen the entire posted content of people who left Facebook disappear (though it reappeared when they rejoined). Gave a somewhat Orwellian impression by the way (and made some conversations in comments nonsensical for a while).

Yeah, those companies keep everything, even if they delete the public end of it. Farmville did something similar, actually. It claims it will delete your account after, what, a month of inactivity? But after six months, my account was still up.

Facebook has a form to request deletion of all your personal content. They say it can take a few months to process.

Not that they'll actually do it like they're supposed to, or even get meaningful consequences if they break laws.

The EU is usually the body that will actually pass and enforce laws on big companies, but while the fines sound impressive, I'm not sure if they're actually big enough to hurt giant international megacorps.

Trum-

I don't know about the EU, but in the US big companies just eat the fines as the cost of doing business and pass the expense onto the consumer. In some cases they even lobby to have regulations placed on themselves because they know they can weather the fines, but their smaller competitors can't.

Taking money away from a money making machine is little more than annoyance. Actual jail time is needed to stop them.

Abigail Washingtoast for prez 2020!

Beverages. This one's kind of weird. :S

I'm not sure what that bulge in the middle is supposed to be. I'd be worried if your esophagus bulged out that much while drinking.

Accidentally took a big swallow. You know, the kind where your throat hurts as it goes down, then you belch afterward.

And now I'm finding myself flashing back on a time I took too big of a swallow of more solid food, and got it stuck in there... *shudder*

Am I the only person who the random button is being persistently broken for?

Doesn't work for me, either.

Curve-Fitting

There is definitely some positive correlation between the x and y coordinates, but all of these regressions are just doing a horrible job.

More to the point, attempting regressions on statistically unclear data gives you unsound results.

Unfulfilling Toys. This one was just the laugh I needed after the day of work I had. XD

Yeah, the magnetic Rubik's cube does sound cool. It's like those magnetic ball bearings you can make neat little sculptures and things out of.

I understand that magnets are how they assemble puzzle cubes in bottles.

Also there are trick yoyos that do have the strings unattached.