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As far as I understand it, there's three account states you can be in:

- Active = Normal - Deactivated = Deactivated/Not In-Use/Asked to deactivate - Deleted = After asking for deletion, wait (don't log in) for a period of 60? days and your account is deleted.

In my particular scenario, I downloaded my data, went through deletion, waited the period and then confirmed the account was deleted (5y ago).

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Unless recently changed, I know my father temporarily re-enabled his Facebook account that had been deactivated for years prior

Deactivation is what Facebook directs everybody to, but there is actually a way to completely delete an account too. With an actually deleted account, you have to create a new one, there isn't a reactivation option.

Given that Facebook creates shadow profiles for "users" who have never had a Facebook account, I wonder what "deleted" really means in terms of Facebook's social graph. Is your identity back to being treated as a shadow profile or is there now an empty hole in the graph?

I filed a GDPR deletion request after it went in to effect. I wonder if such a shadow profile would even be allowed under it.

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