If you use two-factor authentication (2FA) to secure your Facebook account, you likely, at some point, gave Facebook your phone number. 2FA adds an almost impenetrable layer of security to your Facebook account, since it requires you to enter a code sent via text message before logging in.
What you likely didn't know was that Facebook would use that data -- your phone number -- to target you with ads.
Following a report by Gizmodo that Facebook allows advertisers to target phone numbers, Facebook has confirmed the practice with TechCrunch, stating that it uses phone numbers provided for security purposes to target users with ads.
For example, a grocery store that collects phone numbers for rewards could, in theory, target that database of phone numbers on Facebook. Facebook would cross-reference the grocery store's list with its own database of phone numbers and serve ads to users associated with those numbers.
If you'd rather not get ads targeted to your phone number, it's a good idea to know how to take those digits off of your account settings right now. This guide will show you how to remove your phone number from your general profile and two-factor authentication (while providing an alternative to using a phone number).
Open the Facebook app and select Settings & Privacy from the main drop-down menu. Select Settings and then Personal Information, which brings up your name, email address and phone number. Click Remove in the phone number field, which will prompt you to re-enter your Facebook password and then click Remove Phone in order to confirm the change. Look out for a confirmation email.
To remove your phone number from Facebook on your desktop, go to Settings under the main drop-down menu. Choose Your Facebook Information, and then choose View under Access Your Information. From there, go to Personal Information and choose Your Contact Information, where you'll see your mobile phone number(s).
Click Remove, and then Remove Phone when you're asked if you're sure.
User note: Even if you've tried to remove your phone number from the Facebook app and it appears successful, you might want to also check from a desktop if the number is still there, as it was after I thought I had deleted it from my mobile. Either way you try to delete it, you should receive a confirmation email if you're successful.
(We reached out to Facebook for comment about this discrepancy and have not heard back.)
You may have also shared your phone number with Facebook to turn on two-factor-authentication (2FA), although the service stopped requiring the use of a phone number in May, so you may have used an authentication app such as Google Authenticator to turn on 2FA.
In order to remove your phone number from your 2FA setting on Facebook, you'll have to turn off 2FA and then turn it back on using an authentication app. On mobile, go to Settings from the drop-down menu, choose Security and Login and then go to Two-Factor Authentication to turn it off and on.
Instead of using your phone number, you can use an authenticator app or a physical key as the second factor.
More on 2FA: When and how to use it.
Guidance: Why don't more people use 2FA?
by Abdullah Sam
How to remove phone number from messenger. You have found many friends thanks to Facebook and you got back in touch with them thanks to its services. When you signed up for the platform, you were able to enter various information, including your phone number.Before proceeding with the guide “how to remove the phone number from Messenger” let’s try to understand something more about the information relating to privacy on Facebook..
In this article we will see how to do this from mobile devices (iOS and Android) and computers.
Android mobile
Let’s start with a mini guide to remove mobile number from Android mobile.
Mobile iOS
To carry out the same operation from an iOS smartphone, proceed as follows:
From computer
If, on the other hand, you want to understand how to remove the phone number from Messenger from your computer, what you have to do is:
Alternatively, you can do the operation by doing this:
By following these steps you will be able to understand how to remove the phone number from Messenger for everyone.
But it is also possible to manage privacy-related information in a more personal way. For example, you could decide to make the phone number visible only to some contacts.
From smartphone
The preliminary operations to be performed are the same as those required to remove the telephone number. For this reason, before accessing the information section, you need to access the app and then access the settings:
You can choose between different opportunities: everyone, friends, just me
This is true for both Android and iOS devices.
From pc
If you want to perform the same operation but from your PC:
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Account Management
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You can add or remove a mobile phone number in your account settings. We recommend that you add an email address to your account in order to be able to restore access to your account in case of loss of a mobile phone.
To add a mobile phone number:
Click the icon in the top right corner of the Facebook window.
Scroll down and click Settings.
In the Account Settings section, click Personal Information and select Contact Information.
To enter the first phone number, click Add number. To add an additional number, select Add phone number, enter the number, and then click Continue.
You may be asked to enter a verification code. If you did not receive an SMS with a code, enable sending SMS to mobile devices. nine0003
Enter the confirmation code and click Confirm.
To delete a mobile phone number:
Click the icon in the top right corner of the Facebook window.
Scroll down and click Settings.
In the Account Settings section, click Personal Information and select Contact Information.
Select the phone number you want to remove and click Remove.
Click the drop-down menu to change the audience that sees your phone number (for example, select Only me). nine0003
Enter your Facebook password and click Delete number to confirm.
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90,000 around the world, but sometimes communication takes longer than we would like.
But how to remove the messenger from Facebook if this is the only right solution for active users of social networks who want to fight their addiction, or for those people who are tired of constantly having meaningless conversations? nine0003
If your device has little free memory and you have a choice of which applications to leave and which to delete, or the program is no longer used, you can easily remove Facebook Messenger from your phone. The uninstallation mechanism will depend on the device model. In modern smartphones and tablets, manufacturers install 2 main operating systems: Android and IOS.
To remove the messenger from Facebook from Samsung and other Android mobile devices, you need to:
You can go the other way: go to the menu with applications, find the program to be deleted, click on it and hold until the icon animation appears, then click on the cross.
Please note! To re-download the application, you will need to enter the name of the application in the search bar in the Play Market. To update the program, you need to go to Google Play and find it in the Messenger store, then tap "Update". nine0003
To remove messenger from Facebook from iPhone:
Please note! To reinstall the application, you need to go to the AppStore and enter the keyword from the name in the search bar. To update Messenger, open the app in the AppStore and tap Update.
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If you decide to delete a message in the Facebook messenger from your device, then you need to:
To delete a conversation in the Facebook messenger, in the "Messages" tab, touch the chat with the user and hold until the menu appears. Select "Delete". nine0003
To delete a contact from Facebook messenger:
If you touch your name, a menu will open. You can delete calls in Facebook messenger in the following way:
Facebook Messenger can be easily removed both from the phone and from the computer. But if in the first case we erase only the application, then in the second case there is a question of either deleting the unofficial client, or the chat integrated on the FB website.
In the first case, the data elimination mechanism is simple:
Please note! There are also portable versions of Messenger that are not installed on the system, but run from a file. Such software can be erased by simply moving it to the trash.
If we are talking about removing Messenger from the Facebook site, then everything is much more complicated.
Site features are limited to:
As a half-measure to combat the integrated chat, you can name a status change. To turn off the "Online" status, you need:
You can use the extension Adblock Plus to block chat as an element of the FB page:
To turn off voice and video calls, you need to configure the same chat settings. You can turn off calls for 1 hour, until 8:00, or until the user himself decides to turn them on. nine0003
To delete an account from Facebook messenger, you need to leave FB. The procedure for deleting a profile is as follows:
Please note! Before erasing your data on a social network, it is worth checking the safety of all the necessary files.
It is important to download a copy of the data when deleting an account by clicking on the "Download information" option. After clicking on “Download”, the system will redirect the user to the download page.
FB sorts all data into categories - “Publications”, “Photos and Videos”, “Calls”, “Pages, Groups”, “Friends”, etc. After the necessary categories are marked, you need to click on “ Create File". Now you should deactivate the profile. nine0003
When a user wants the messenger to remain after deleting Facebook, they need to click on "Deactivate account". However, if you do not plan to save the chat with contacts, choose to delete the account instead. To permanently erase the profile and all data, you will need to enter a password. The user will have 30 days to cancel this action and restore the account, after which information about him will be deleted from the resource.
The process for deleting a Facebook Messenger conversation from a computer or laptop is as follows:
Please note! It is impossible to restore the correspondence. The only thing that can be done is to ask the user to send screenshots of the chat, a text file, or try to find notifications from FB about incoming messages in the mail, if the appropriate settings have been set. nine0003
How do I delete messages on Facebook Messenger? If you need to delete not the whole chat, but some messages, then:
Unfortunately, the site does not have the ability to delete several correspondence at once.
