An application that deletes one in six users' Facebook accounts in a digital form of Russian roulette was blocked by the social network just hours after its launch.

Social Roulette's founder Kyle McDonald told TechCrunch the app was designed to give users a fun way to take a break from social media.

"It took us four hours to create the project, and it took another four hours for Facebook to respond," he said.

The Social Roulette website goes much further than simply "deactivating" users' accounts, deleting all their content without a chance to recover the information.

A statement on the Social Roulette website boasts: "We can completely remove all your posts, friends, apps, likes, photos, and games before completely deactivating it."

If users' are the five in six who "win" at the game, users' accounts remain unaffected except for a message posted onto their Facebook wall with the message: "I just played Social Roulette and survived."

Facebook issued a statement that said: "We take action against apps that violate our platform policies as laid out here: https://developers.facebook.com/policy/, in order to maintain a trustworthy experience for users."

Mr McDonald said he was hopeful to have the app back up and running within the next few days.

Online Editors