This has been the case for years now. It's not new. Is there something I'm perhaps missing?

On a side note, does anybody know if this is a 'true' delete and not just yet another 'set deleted=true where profileid=xyz'?

https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=125338004213029#What-is-t...?

Ah yes. Messages are never deleted though..

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Chat. This section showed some old chat conversations. All data was rather recent, which means that chat messages were deleted sooner or later. It is unclear if this section is still existing after facebook recently merged its chat and messaging function into one, but seems if all chat messages are now following the rules of normal messages.

Note: According to facebook’s privacy policy messages will never be deleted.

Example: ... Author Max Mustermann (123456789) Recipients Petra Musterfrau (987654321) Sent 2011-06-06 19:05:56 UTC Body Hey, do you want to stay at my place tonight?

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http://europe-v-facebook.org/EN/en.html

I'm tempted to notify all my friends, delete my account, recreate it under a pseudonym, and re-add my friends, while being much more careful this time around with what I share and my privacy settings.

No matter what you do, you cannot not accept messages from people you have befriended...and those are never deleted.

This has existed for quite some time... At least over a year.

I don't think this is news.