Federated services have always had privacy issues but I expected Lemmy would have the fewest, but it’s visibly worse for privacy than even Reddit.

  • Deleted comments remain on the server but hidden to non-admins, the username remains visible
  • Deleted account usernames remain visible too
  • Anything remains visible on federated servers!
  • When you delete your account, media does not get deleted on any server
  • lovesyouandhugsyou@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    But is it solvable at all in principle? The only enforcement policy available is defederation, but that just means future posts won’t go to that instance, the older posts will still be there. Plus an instance could just lie when confirming delete requests and you’d never know unless the non-deleted posts leaked.

    • Dee@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      Not really, same as email. Once you send it out and it’s on somebody else’s server, you can request they delete it but that’s about it. They have a copy of your message and can do whatever they want with that.

      This is not a principle that needs solving imo, it’s the nature of Internet. If you post it online then you should know that there’s a chance it’ll be there permanently.