Words are powerful; they are the building block of any great enterprise. The right words said at the right time can just be the saver from a precarious situation.
Words can heal as well as kill. Great wars have been made necessary by the words we speak; great times of peace have been achieved by words.
The thing with words most times is that when they are voiced out or sent out either via short message service (SMS) or through social media networks such as Facebook, it becomes an almost impossible task to retrieve them.
People are moved by emotions a lot, resulting in saying things or sending messages we might not be too comfortable with later. It could be in a fit of anger; you feel like saying something nasty such that after it’s out, you regret it.
Again, you could be overwhelmed with a deep sense of affection or emotions and unintentionally send a message to the wrong person. Or that you felt it was too soon to let the cat out of the bag.
For some reason or the other, we tend to pass a message and then wish we could delete that message. Social media such as Facebook is a hub for interaction, and people get to send messages, images, video calls, etc.
In the course of all these, many times, because people get cut up in these activities, emotions tend to mix up. When emotions arise, people say things and then wish they could delete such messages, images, or videos from Facebook.
Have you ever wondered whether or not it is possible to delete those Facebook messages sent before the other party sees them?
Well, this has been a major cause of concern for some people. Ensuring that your messages can be deleted when the need arises without other parties seeing the same thread has been commented on greatly, with people suggesting different means to deal with the situation.
For instance, a Facebook user who goes by the initials, D’ commented that he had a similar experience. He sent a message to a contact, and while the other person had yet to read the message, he needed to delete the message.
The sensitivity of the issue is such that it can rock his marriage if the wife finds out. He tries to delete the thread before anyone gets to see it, but it’s still there, hence his frustration and cry for help!
People have long wondered how possible it is to delete a thread after you have sent it. You must watch out for different scenarios when dealing with such issues.
First, you must understand many guidelines surrounding the use of any product or service, including Facebook. Now let’s take a peep into the Facebook terms and conditions:
Under number 2, sharing content and information, Facebook clarifies that its users have total control over any property posted on it. However, when a user uploads any intellectual material online, Facebook can make use of such for as long as the user keeps the information on Facebook.
Once the user deletes content from Facebook, it becomes in Facebook’s control. In the case where such information has been seen or read before trying to delete, then Facebook is not liable. Many tools and algorithms scan social media; even more, you can find a person’s dating profiles online using the most advanced systems. So, it’s like an extensive database of users when everyone wants to use it and store the data.
Messages need some time to be completely removed
The terms also identified that it takes some time for deleted content on Facebook to be finally removed completely. It is similar to moving a document from a local disk to the recycle bin before being deleted permanently.
Meaning there is usually a backup copy for your messages and content on Facebook. From personal experience, have you ever noticed that Facebook sometimes brings old messages of more than one to even seven years as a reminder?
Also, is a friendship anniversary with an old contact you have forgotten about on Facebook?
When you make use of other third-party applications, they sometimes request access to your information on other platforms like Snapchat, Facebook, etc.
This information and activities sometimes could be transferred to such applications leaving the likelihood that the information still remains after deleting.
Again, posting information or content on your public profile on Facebook gives every contact access to such information even without your knowledge.
This makes it a lot more difficult to delete messages successfully and not have them already seen. It would be a lot better to narrow down your messages to specific contacts, especially important information.
Alternatively, write on their private wall, make use of Facebook Messenger, etc., in order to reduce exposure.
In looking at several user experiences, Shelly says she tried an experiment by commenting on a friend’s wall, and then before the friend could see the message, she deleted it.
After deleting, she also deactivated her account for a couple of hours and then signed in again. She checked her friend’s Facebook account to see if the message was there, and it was no more!
So this could just be a strategy to delete a message so a third party cannot see it! Why not give it a try?
Tara says she used a similar approach, but this time she reported it as spam before deleting the message. She went further to disable her account for some hours, reactivated it, and it worked!
Fawzan agrees with this; he says simply mark the intended message as spam, and Facebook would delete it from the other party’s inbox.
Going through several comments on this issue, there are a lot of views in support or against this approach; some say there is no way out, and others say it works.
However, two things are clear from this instance; first, the other party must mark the message as unread. The second point is that it must be a recent post, not one for days or weeks.
So the process, basically, is not aimed at just deleting the message from your end. But to disable or deactivate your Facebook account in order to delete the message from the other party’s end. You should remember, of course, to re-login after the process.
Why not give it a try, and let’s see if you get your groove back?
