First things first, when i delete any account i have i make sure to delete everything inside the account first, convos, posts, stories or any type of activity.

I'm in process of deleting my instagram and i already cleaned everything up except the final boss, my story archive, i have never toggled the archiving option off so the archive has accumulated stories for around 8 years, and of course meta won't let you bulk delete the archive.

my question is, does it really matter doing all of that before deleting when it comes to privacy?

or can i just simply ignore the fact that the story archive is still there and delete the account anyway?

I'm not even sure about all the steps that i do but i just do it so everthing feels clean when i arrive to the deletion button.

Sometimes I think, I have learned a lot about this issue and I'm well aware of the fact the whole world is going towards a state of surveillance that no one can escape, I have done everything I could to ensure my personal privacy, but what about others?

the majority of the world population does not even care about this matter, and they might even see it as a normality, the people might even know that they are being watched/listened to/surveilled, and they don't do anything to prevent it neither individually or collectively.

I also believe that protecting the individual privacy automatically contributes to the collective privacy and vice-versa, but seeing how the world is heading towards extreme surveillance that is practically impossible to resist (eg.. face recognition, chat control law), I ask, what is the point of all of this? how can i live peacfully knowing that i can be suspected of anything just because i made a joke here or said something there?

and I'm not talking 100% privacy or anonymity, i'm just talking peace of mind and well-being.