Well I guess it comes down to probability. How often does the average social media user delete their uploaded pictures because their phone storage is full? Or why would they delete those if they just got a new phone? If they are degoogling, why would they delete content on Facebook? (I know this one is pedantic, sorry). Also, transforming? What

Point being, chances a 14 year old insecure girl will delete pictures of her face off Facebook are like a hundred times more likely because she thinks she looks bad in them than for any of your odd reasons.

The more selfies one takes, the more one could delete. The more deleted selfies, the more likely the person is concerned with their personal appearances.

If I was a soulless corporation looking to exploit self confidence issues, this feels like a VERY good angle.

Why would they know or care if you delete something on your local phone? This is about if you deleted it from their platform, indicating shame and in their view, a potential customer.

Many young people use instagram as their camera app. By "detect when they delete their selfies", I'm assuming, that they were explicitly detecting when someone would take a selfie (noting it as selfie, of course), and then immediately deleting it after

possibly before they ever uploaded it as a post.

Edit: the article doesn't say anything about this though, in fact it only mentions "selfie" once other than the title.