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Can posts and comments on Lemmy be fully deleted since they still appear with the option to "undelete" after doing so? (lemm.ee)

submitted 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I noticed when you delete a post or comment on Lemmy it still shows up on my account with the option to "undelete" it which fully restores it and makes it public again.

Does this mean you can't fully delete them and basically only "hide" them from the community but they will still stay on the server forever? Or is there any option to fully delete them or will that happen after some time?

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

No. And simply put, this is because of the nature of the fediverse. You post something then it's on anyone listening's server. Lemmy or otherwise. Now, when you delete you send a delete request to all of those servers too.

Here's the thing. What if someone forks Lemmy or just has their own server type. They don't HAVE to implement delete. It could still be there. Maybe it's hidden, but it's there.

Now assume any government or corp is listening to the fediverse.

So no. We're open, no one can take us down, but, know that anyone can listen, and they can do whatever they want

[–] [email protected] -2 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Well this would only apply to servers that are not in a country that supports right to delete correct?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

By using the fediverse you blast that comment out to any server hosted anywhere in the world hosted by anyone. Even if an instance is hosted in one of those countries it would have to be following and enforced, and you would have to follow up with every server you sent it to and verify (somehow, remember they don't need to actually have a public frontend) that your comment was deleted.

So, no. I would not ever assume that on the fediverse. Free and open means completely free and completely open. It's like the 90s here, there's no such thing as delete.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

Sure. There's room for improvement though. Right to be forgotten laws are a good thing and if the world ever starts to pull out of the scoiopolitical backslide maybe more and more countries will adopt these laws. Would be a foolish move for hosts running fediverse servers to ignore such laws. Doubt many Lemmy admin are layered up and ready to try to fight these.

90s sounds nostalgic right now, but at some point we need to move forward not back.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 weeks ago

That's not the point I was making. If you're an instance owner then yes you should abide by the laws, but most are individuals, and I'll say I had to learn a lot hosting my own. I try to be in full compliance, but I say try because you're asking one guy who knows how to run a server legal questions. If someone asked me to delete it I would, but you're dealing with thousands of server owners. I wouldn't bet that everyone will follow your request.

As for laws, well, no also. Say a 3 letter agency in the US sets up a server listening to you. They're not in the EU at all. You send a gdpr takedown request. The listening server can legally ignore this. You sent them data, it's outside of the jurisdiction of the gdpr, they don't host anything. So no. I get your sentiment, but you're quite literally blasting comments out to everyone who will listen, this is not a private space, this is as open as it gets.

You have a very "this is the way it should work" thought process, but I'm here telling you that's in theory only. In practice anyone will be listening to anything, and you should not treat Lemmy or the fediverse as private. If you want private, use matrix.