Facebook finally deleting photos

For who-knows-how-long Facebook have been keeping deleted photos in its content network long after the user has requested that they be deleted. Yes the photos may not appear on your timeline or profile but chances are they still exist somewhere on Facebook.

ARS Technica have been following this story closely for 3 years and they report Facebook has updated its deletion policy. It means photos will now be kept for a maximum of 30 days (not 3 years) before encountering permanent deletion.

Although there isn’t a click and delete policy that happens instantly like on many other photo sharing services, this is better than what Facebook have previously offered.

“The systems we used for photo storage a few years ago did not always delete images from content delivery networks in a reasonable period of time even though they were immediately removed from the site,” Facebook spokesperson Frederic Wolens told Ars in February. “We have been working hard to move our photo storage to newer systems which do ensure photos are fully deleted.”

“As a result of work on our policies and infrastructure, we have instituted a ‘max-age’ of 30 days for our CDN links, However, in some cases the content will expire on the CDN much more quickly, based on a number of factors. As you know, the photos stop being shown to other users on Facebook immediately when the photo is first deleted by the user. The 30-day window only applies to the cached images on the CDN,” said Wolens this week.

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