Amassing over 500 Million people, the mother of all social networks has everyone from your colleagues, friends, that creepy relative, your ex, to your friendly neighborhood paper delivery man. Not always is it easy to ‘unfriend all of these people and not always is it nice to read their status messages that read “Just work up and I have boogers !” which by the way is not a fictional status message. One of the ways we can prevent all of this is blocking people, to creating segregating lists to increasing privacy settings. However, what is clear is that with more passing time more people are joining in to find what this is all about and more the people are joining more uncomfortable it is getting to be.

Facebook is at a juncture where is has evolved into something what they really did not really think it is, a monstrosity which is trying to replace the internet into a world of pokes, corporate identities, uninteresting status updates and well population. But in the world of Facebook, users have got so incredibly tangled in the web that sometimes it looks next to impossible to actually delete your Facebook account. Especially someone like me who uses your Facebook account to log into a few hundred websites and blogs.

But really, Facebook has actually made it incredibly easy for people to actually delete their account. To get started, click on this link after you log in. There, you’ll find a box that offers you the choice to submit your decision to pull the plug on your account. Once you take a deep breath, say your goodbyes and click “Submit,” you’ll be prompted to enter your password, and to take a simple Captcha spam test.

After that, you’d think the entire process was finished. And you’d be wrong. You see, Facebook kindly gives you a full 14 days to feel guilty about your decision. Should you log in during the ensuing fortnight, or even if you click a “like” button on a third-party site, your account will suddenly jolt back to life. If you’re still having trouble loosing your contact from the Facebook world, you can always e-mail network administrators directly at privacy@facebook.com, and ask them to delete your account. It’ll probably take a few days for Facebook’s employees to answer, eventually you should get a confirmation response. Once you receive it, you should probably double check by trying to log-in to your account. If you can’t log in, and if you don’t get a message asking you to reactivate your account, your job is done.

However what you would need to remember is that although your profile is dead its spirit will still wander Facebook, thats because Facebook will retain your personal information for data mining purposes even after your friends stop their mourning about your Facebook death.

Well there is also the Online Suicide Machine for you to try, but then that is for another time. But the Social Networks are on a sort of crossroads tight now. What the standoff ultimately boils down to is a simple conflict between corporate hegemony, and consumer demand. Is Facebook confident enough to pursue its agenda against the tide of widespread protest? Or will it eventually come to terms with the fact that its future remains inextricably linked to its digital body politic?