YouTube is ready for some more football. The streaming service has snagged the rights to the NFL Sunday Ticket package, which offers access to out-of-market games that air on Fox and CBS each Sunday. DirecTV, the current home of Sunday Ticket, has held the rights since 1994, but the bundle will move to Google’s streaming service next season. YouTube and the NFL didn’t announce the terms of the deal, but according to The Wall Street Journal, YouTube will pay $2 billion per year in a seven-year pact – around $500 million more per season than DirecTV is paying.

Having exclusive rights to a bundle with many out-of-market NFL games should draw even more users to YouTube. Live sport coverage is turning into the next battleground for streaming. Amazon Prime Video has an 11-year deal to stream Thursday Night Football games that started this season. Meanwhile, Apple is pushing further into live sports as well, with a 10-year deal to stream every Major League Soccer game via Apple TV starting in 2023.

– Mat Smith

The biggest stories you might have missed

• ByteDance fired four employees who accessed US journalists' TikTok data

• The best PlayStation 5 games for 2023

• Google is making its internal video-blurring privacy tool open source | Engadget

• Rank and file tech workers have been fed up. In 2022, they organized

• 2022 was a surprisingly great year for monitors

The best shows to binge-watch over the holidays in 2022

Catch up on some of these excellent shows.

Apple

2021 was a bit of a reset for the entertainment industry, with more of us returning to theaters and plenty of must-watch TV shows hitting streaming networks. If you've gotten used to catching up on everything on your couch, don't worry — there's still plenty to watch over the holidays. We’ve covered HBO Max, Disney Plus, Netflix and the rest.

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How to permanently delete all your Facebook and Meta-owned accounts

Breaking up with Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp can be complicated.

‘Tis the season to be done with social media. For Facebook, Instagram and other Meta-run services, deleting an account entirely isn’t necessarily straightforward, either, with no single centralized way to delete all your Meta-associated accounts. We run through how to download all your data and digitally clean up after yourself, just in case you need something fun to do over the holidays.

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The Lastpass hack was worse than the company first reported

Because of course it was.

Password manager app Lastpass announced on Thursday the most recent hack was much more damaging than initially reported. The attackers made off with users' password vaults in some cases – that is, entire collections of encrypted personal data, if not the immediate method to unlock them. "No customer data was accessed during the August 2022 incident," LastPass CEO Karim Toubba, explained. However, some of the app's source code was lifted and then used to spearphish a Lastpass employee into giving up their access credentials, those keys were then used to decrypt and copy off, "some storage volumes within the cloud-based storage service." That data could include basic customer account information like company names, billing, email and IP addresses and telephone numbers.

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Tesla reveals an angular $300 wireless phone charger

I preferred the flamethrower.

Tesla

The latest baffling peripheral from Tesla has nothing to do with its cars – even if it’s inspired by the boxy angles of the Cybertruck. It’s a wireless charger that can juice multiple compatible devices, with a suede-ish finish and a tiny Tesla logo on the edge. It’s also $300. You could buy a new phone for that, or subscribe to Twitter Blue for over two years.

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Last week, Twitter banned Jack Sweeney's @ElonJet account that tracked Elon Musk's private jet, then unveiled a new policy against sharing live locations shortly afterward. Now, Sweeney is back with a new account called @ElonJetNexDay that still tracks Musk's aircraft, but adds a 24-hour delay to the location, TechCrunch has reported.

It appears to be Sweeney's effort conform to Twitter's new rules, which state that it's permissible to share "publicly available information after a reasonable time has elapsed, so that the individual is no longer at risk for physical harm." The account has only been online for a short time, however, so it remains to be seen whether Twitter will see it the same way

Sweeney and his @ElonJet account have been on Musk's radar for a while. In January, a few months before Musk announced a deal to buy Twitter, he offered Sweeney $5,000 to delete the account. Sweeney rejected the overture, instead asking for $50,000. As CNBC notes, @ElonJet had more than half a million followers. 

The ban came about after Elon Musk said a car carrying his son X Æ A-12 was followed by a stalker in Los Angeles. Twitter soon told Sweeney that his account "broke Twitter rules," though didn't specify which ones. Musk later said that "legal action" would be taken against Sweeney and "organizations who supported harm to my family."

Sweeney's @ElonJet tracker bot now has 67,000 followers on Mastadon and tracks jets belonging to Musk and others on Facebook and Instagram. The bans are part of a large amount of Twitter drama around Musk that recently culminated in one of Musk's famous Twitter polls, with a decisive number of users voting that he should step down as CEO of Twitter. 

Fallout from Facebook's Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal continues over four years after it was first exposed. Parent Meta has agreed to pay $725 million to settle a long-running class-action lawsuit accusing Facebook of allowing Cambridge Analytica and other third parties to access user's private information, Reuters has reported. 

The settlement resolves user claims that Facebook violated federal and state laws by allowing the company's preferred vendors and partners to harvest their personal data without consent. It's reportedly the largest ever in a US data privacy class action and the most Meta has ever paid to resolve a class-action lawsuit. 

"This historic settlement will provide meaningful relief to the class in this complex and novel privacy case," the lead lawyers for the plaintiffs said in a statement. 

Meta admitted no wrongdoing as part of the settlement, which is still subject to approval by a federal judge. "Over the last three years we revamped our approach to privacy and implemented a comprehensive privacy program," Meta said in a statement, adding that the settlement "was in the best interest of our community and shareholders." 

Cambridge Analytica, now defunct, worked for Ted Cruz and Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaigns. It accessed the personal data of up to 87 million people by an app (thisisyourdigitallife) and used the information gathered to target individuals with personally tailored messages. The scandal was exposed by The New York Times and The Guardian in 2018, thanks in large part to whistleblower Christopher Wylie.

In 2019, Facebook agreed to pay a $5 billion fine following a Federal Trade Commission investigation and $100 million to settle US Securities and Exchange Commission claims. It also paid £500,000 (about $644,000) in fines to the UK, a pittance compared to what it would have paid had the GDPR been in place when the scandal occurred. 

Facebook hasn't put Cambridge Analytica behind it yet, either. The company is still fighting a lawsuit by the Washington DC attorney general, as well as a number of state attorneys general. 

This is a wireless phone charger that holds not one, not two, but three entire phones! And charges them wirelessly! Tesla makes it! For just $300! Shut up and take my money! Are you kidding me?! This is a phenomenal deal! JANET! HEY JANET, GET MY WALLET, IT'S ON THE NIGHTSTAND. 

"Inspired by the angular design and metallic styling of Cybertruck," with 15W of power! That sounds like a lot! I should see what my normal charger does, bet it's not half as much as this thing. Stupid normal charger, not even modeled after a truck that's not even in production yet. 

And look at this build quality. It's got everything: aluminum housing, an alcantara surface (who doesn't love the feel of a suede-like microfiber material?) and a detachable magnetic stand that both lays flat and sits at an angle! This way I can never not be looking at my three phones, even when they're charging. This is going to be so awesome. Best three hundred dollars plus tax I'll probably ever spend. JANET, WHERE ARE WE WITH THAT WALLET?

Hell yeah, it uses FreePower technology, that means I'll be able to just throw my few grand worth of Qi-compatible earbuds, mobile devices, smart watches and accessories on this thing all willy nilly. Won't have to line them up or anything because that's how I do it. I'm the type who moves fast and breaks things.

Aw, whaddya mean it's not coming out until February? In Tesla months that could be years from now! JANET! IX-NAY ON THE ALLET-WAY!

After being hacked for the second time in as many years this August, password manager app Lastpass announced on Thursday the most recent intrusion was much more damaging than initially reported with the attackers having made off with users' password vaults in some cases. That means the thieves have people's entire collections of encrypted personal data, if not the immediate method to unlock them.

"No customer data was accessed during the August 2022 incident," LastPass CEO Karim Toubba, explained. However, some of the app's source code was lifted and then used to spearphish a Lastpass employee into giving up their access credentials, then used those keys to decrypt and copy off, "some storage volumes within the cloud-based storage service."

Among the encrypted data obtained by the hackers included basic customer account information like company names, billing, email and IP addresses; and telephone numbers, Toubba continued. "These encrypted fields remain secured with 256-bit AES encryption and can only be decrypted with a unique encryption key derived from each user’s master password using our Zero Knowledge architecture," Toubba said. "As a reminder, the master password is never known to LastPass and is not stored or maintained by LastPass." 

Still, you're going to take the company's word for it? I'm not. It'll be a pain but swapping out all of your various existing site passwords for new ones — as well as picking a new master password — might ultimately prove necessary to regain your online security. Or you could just tell Lastpass to go kick rocks and switch over to 1Password or Bitwarden.

ByteDance says it has fired four employees who accessed the data of several TikTok users located in the US, including journalists. According to The New York Times, an investigation conducted by an outside law firm found that the employees were trying to locate the sources of leaks to reporters. Two of the employees were in the US and two were in China, where ByteDance is based.

The company reportedly determined that members of a team responsible for monitoring employee conduct accessed the IP addresses and other data linked to the TikTok accounts of a reporter from BuzzFeed News and Cristina Criddle of the Financial Times. The employees are also said to have accessed the data of several people with ties to the journalists. Forbes claims that ByteDance tracked three of its reporters who previously worked for BuzzFeed News. All three of those publications have published reports on TikTok, including on its alleged ties to the Chinese government. Engadget has contacted ByteDance for comment.

“The misconduct of those individuals, who are no longer employed at ByteDance, was an egregious misuse of their authority to obtain access to user data. This misbehavior is unacceptable, and not in line with our efforts across TikTok to earn the trust of our users," ByteDance said in a statement to Variety. "We take data security incredibly seriously, and we will continue to enhance our access protocols, which have already been significantly improved and hardened since this incident took place.”

In October, Forbes reported that members of ByteDance’s Internal Audit and Risk Control department planned to use TikTok to track the locations of specific US citizens. ByteDance refuted those claims, but the report tracks with the results of the internal investigation. The company told the Times it has restructured that department and prevented it from accessing any US data.

“No matter what the cause or the outcome was, [the employees'] misguided investigation seriously violated the company’s Code of Conduct and is condemned by the company," ByteDance CEO Rubo Liang reportedly told employees in a memo. "We simply cannot take integrity risks that damage the trust of our users, employees, and stakeholders. We must exercise sound judgment in the choices we make and be sure they represent the principles we stand behind as a company.”

Word of the investigation and employees' dismissal comes amid various attempts to ban TikTok in the US. More than a dozen states, including Georgia and Texas, have blocked the app on government-owned devices. Earlier this month, a bipartisan bill sought to effectively ban TikTok from US consumer devices, along with other social apps that have ties to China, Russia, Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Venezuela.

Meanwhile, the Senate has passed a $1.7 trillion spending bill, which includes a measure that would ban TikTok on most devices issued by the federal government. There will be some exceptions for elected officials, congressional staff and law enforcement. The House is yet to vote on the omnibus bill but is expected to pass it on Thursday evening. 

According to the Times, ByteDance said the fired employees accessed historical data that it plans to delete from its own data servers in the US and Singapore. The company said in June that all of TikTok's TikTok user traffic is being routed to Oracle's servers. That's now the "default storage location of US user data," but at the time ByteDance continued to back up the data on its own servers.

YouTube is ready for some more football. The streaming service has snagged the rights to the NFL Sunday Ticket package, which offers access to out-of-market games that air on FOX and CBS each Sunday. DirecTV, the current home of Sunday Ticket, has held the rights since 1994, but the bundle will move to Google’s streaming service next season.

Apple and Amazon were also believed to be in talks for Sunday Ticket. Apple was reportedly the frontrunner at one point, but it's said to have dropped out of the race last week, leaving Amazon and Google to duke it out.

Sunday Ticket will be available as an add-on for YouTube TV subscribers or as a standalone option on YouTube Primetime Channels, an à la carte service that debuted last month. YouTube hasn’t revealed how much it will charge for Sunday Ticket yet. Sunday Ticket plans for the 2022 season on DirecTV started at $294.

YouTube and the NFL didn’t announce the terms of the deal. According to The Wall Street Journal, YouTube will pay $2 billion per year in a seven-year pact. That's around $500 million more per season that DirecTV is paying. However, DirecTV is believed to have between 1.5 million and 2 million Sunday Ticket subscribers, and it has been losing money on the package for years.

In a statement, the NFL said it and "YouTube will work together to determine additional ways to support distribution of NFL Sunday Ticket in commercial establishments such as bars and restaurants." The Journal suggested that could lead to YouTube paying the league another $200 million per year.

The NFL and YouTube have been partners for several years, dating back to the debut of the league's main channel on the platform in 2015. Two years ago, YouTube TV subscribers gained access to NFL Network and NFL RedZone. Those will stay on YouTube TV under the terms of the expanded pact. Additionally, the two sides will grant some YouTube creators access to certain NFL tentpole events for content opportunities.

The Sunday Ticket agreement is a major coup for Google. YouTube TV is already home to other sports networks, such as those from the NBA and MLB, but having exclusive rights to a bundle that offers many out-of-market NFL games is likely to draw more users to the streaming service. Amazon Prime Video has an 11-year deal to stream Thursday Night Football games that started this season. Apple is pushing further into live sports as well, with a 10-year deal to stream every Major League Soccer game via Apple TV starting in 2023.

Google has announced that two of its latest privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs), including one that blurs objects in a video, will be provided to anyone for free via open source. The new tools are part of Google's Protected Computing initiative designed to transform "how, when and where data is processed to technically ensure its privacy and safety," the company said.

The first is an internal project called Magritte, now out on Github, which uses machine learning to detect objects and apply a blur as soon as they appear on screen. It can disguise arbitrary objects like license plates, tattoos and more. "This code is especially useful for video journalists who want to provide increased privacy assurances," Google wrote in the blog. "By using this open-source code, videographers can save time in blurring objects from a video, while knowing that the underlying ML algorithm can perform detection across a video with high-accuracy."

The other with the unwieldy name "Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) Transpiler, allows developers to perform computations on encrypted data without being able to access personally identifiable information. Google says it can help industries like financial services, healthcare and government, "where a robust security guarantee around the processing of sensitive data is of highest importance."

Google notes that PETs are starting to enter the mainstream after being mostly an academic exercise. The White House recently touted the technology, saying "it will allow researchers, physicians, and others permitted access to gain insights from sensitive data without ever having access to the data itself." Google noted that both the US and UK governments are held a contest this year to develop PET solutions around financial crime and public health emergencies.

I don't know if this is a delayed effect of the remote working trend or simply a bunch of technologies all maturing at the same time (or possibly both), but 2022 was an unusually great year for monitors. So before we move onto a new generation of gadgets in 2023, I just wanted to take a little time to recap some of the standout displays that came out in the last 12 months.

Before we even get to specific models, this year we saw the arrival of two new major players in the gaming monitor space thanks to Sony’s Inzone brand and HyperX’s line of Armada displays. For a company like Sony that's responsible for some of the most popular consoles of all time, this move was both a surprise yet also feels a bit late. That's because while Sony has dabbled with gaming displays in the past (remember that weird Playstation 3D TV from 2011), the company has largely refrained from expanding into the wider gaming hardware and accessories market — especially when it comes to PC peripherals.

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

That said, while Sony's line of Inzone devices is made up of headphones and monitors that share a similar design with the Playstation 5 and a few exclusives features, it's important to note that the devices come from Sony Electronics (the company that makes TVs and wireless earbuds) and not Sony Interactive Entertainment (aka the Playstation people). That means you won't find any explicit Playstation logos, but what you do get is some of the fancy tech found on Sony's other premium gadgets like its flagship WH-1000XM5 wireless headphones.

As for monitors, after testing it out earlier this year, I found the Inzone M9 to be one of the best 4K gaming displays for the money. Now going for just $799 (down from its $899 launch price), you get a 27-inch display with VRR and NVIDIA G-Sync support, DisplayHDR 600 certification and full array local dimming. I also appreciate some of the smaller touches Sony included such as a built-in KVM switch and surprisingly decent onboard stereo speakers, the latter of which makes it really easy to hook up a PC or a PS5 and just start gaming without worrying about audio.

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

Meanwhile, HyperX (which is now owned by HP) has also joined the fray this year with its line of Armada gaming monitors. Similar to Sony, HyperX's first batch of displays features a small twist on the standard formula because, instead of shipping with a traditional desktop stand, both of its new monitors are only available with a bundled monitor arm. And when combined with a 25-inch panel that offers a 1080p resolution and a 240Hz refresh rate for just $450 or a 2,560 x 1440 display with a 165Hz for $500 on the 27-inch model, what you get are some great mid-range displays, particularly for anyone looking to keep clutter to a minimum.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

Another important milestone in 2022 was the release of the first batch of QD-OLED monitors, headlined by the Alienware AW3423DW. The really nice thing about QD-OLED displays is that they combine the super saturated colors and pure blacks you get with traditional OLED panels, but with much better brightness, not to mention less blooming and wider viewing angles (when compared to conventional LCD displays). When you factor in its huge ultra-wide format and 175Hz refresh rate, you get what's arguably the best overall gaming monitor on the market. And while Alienware was the first company to release a QD-OLED monitor, other companies like MSI have their own rivals coming soon.

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

Alternatively, for people who don't care about costs and just want the biggest and baddest gaming display on the market, Samsung's Odyssey Ark was one of the most memorable gadgets I've used all year. With a massive 55-inch 4K panel and a 1000R curve, the Ark wraps around you like some kind of spaceship cockpit. And if that wasn't enough, you can even rotate it into portrait mode, which delivers one of the most unique gaming setups I've ever experienced. The downside is that while the Ark has four HDMI inputs and a special Multi View mode (which is basically a souped-up picture-in-picture feature), due to a limitation with HDMI, it can only display content from one external source at a time. But if you have$3,500 lying around and want the most jaw-dropping monitor that came out this year, the Odyssey Ark can't be beat.

I also recently had the chance to check out LG’s latest UltraGear gaming monitors with their new 240HZ displays, which is the highest refresh rate you can get from any OLED monitor on sale today. LG’s new panels mean you can get both the deep blacks and vibrant colors OLED screens are known for and the kind of refresh rates that previously were only available from IPS displays. The downside though is that with a max brightness of just 200 nits, the new UltraGears aren’t ideal for gaming in bright rooms.

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

But as someone who’s been waiting a long time for OLED panels to become more mainstream, it’s really encouraging to see more products get added to the mix. That’s because while there are a handful of OLED monitors out right now (like the aforementioned Alienware AW3423DW), pickings are still pretty slim. Some like the LG C2 are actually just TVs that are also being pushed as large-format desktop displays. Meanwhile, ASUS' ROG Swift OLED line uses the exact same panels LG uses in the C2, but with a few tweaks like a built-in heatsink and a DisplayPort 1.4 jack for improved gaming performance.

But perhaps the bigger issue is that, essentially, all the OLED monitors available right now are rather large. The smallest C2 and ROG Swift OLED models measure 42 inches across, while the Alienware AW3423DW isn't much better with its 34-inch ultra-wide panel. But with LG's new UltraGear OLED, we're finally getting something in a more manageable size along with one of the highest refresh rates we've seen on an OLED monitor to date.

LG

Meanwhile, for anyone who isn’t a gamer, there were also some interesting new productivity displays that came out this year. That's because while technically it was announced last year, 2022 also saw the release of LG's DualUp monitor with its funky 16:18 aspect ratio. When combined with its included arm, you’ll enjoy a setup that boasts a ton of vertical screen real estate without needing to stack multiple displays or having to deal with a screen that's too skinny when rotated into portrait mode. And, thanks to a color gamut that covers 98 percent of the DCI-P3 spectrum, the DualUp can handle a lot more than just really tall spreadsheets. LG even included support for power output of up to 90-watts, so you can get video from a laptop and keep it charged all with a single USB-C cable.

Finally, while it still needs a bit of refinement, Corsair just released its huge 45-inch gaming monitor with a bendable display called the Xeneon Flex. Now I know that the ability to manually transform a monitor from flat to curved might seems kind of silly (and it probably is, especially when gadgets like the LG OLED Flex exists and features built-in motors), but it's nice to see more companies experiment with bendy screen tech. And who knows, maybe they can add a feature where the monitor goes into gaming mode when you bend it allowing your battle station to shift gears depending on the kind of work (or play) you're doing.

Regardless, with more people working remotely than ever, it's nice to have more choices when it comes to kitting out your setup. And I haven't even talked about some of the other innovations from adjacent categories like TVs, laptops and phones such as the 240Hz OLED display option on the Razer Blade 15, new LED.EX TVs from Panasonic or the improved under-display-camera on the Galaxy Z Fold 4. (I recently used the UDC on my Z Fold 4 to dial into a video meeting, and not a single person complained about its image quality). Still, 2022 has been a great year for monitors and as we get closer to CES 2023, I'm expecting to see that momentum continue into next year.

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

Dado Ruvic / reuters

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

Wachiwit via Getty Images

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

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

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.