this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2023
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Asklemmy
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The political views of the main devs are controversial but it doesn’t really matter since Lemmy is free and open source. No one owns or runs it. Only lemmy.ml specifically is run by the devs.
Here is a recent response on github about privacy that you may find relevant.
What about privacy? Will the devs only get your info if you are a part of Lemmy.ml?
I don't understand this question. This is a public platform, there are no secret messages or info. What do you mean by privacy? Hide what from whom?
Look at my other comment with the link. It’s saying that even if you delete your account the only thing that happens is that you can’t access it anymore but every comment and data is still in the database
What about The Internet Archive? Search engines cache? Copies made by other people? etc.
This is a public platform; don't share things you don't want to be shared. You can't truly expect anything being deleted forever everywhere.
I mean, we can absolutely want that. And data farming is bad. Just objectively. Having a conversation in a public area irl isn't consent to being recorded (not that it is always illegal to do so). And Why should it be on the internet? If the delete option doesn't actually delete anything, it should clearly reflect that. I have no idea why you would argue against user control of their data.
This is what the devs are saying: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/2977#issuecomment-1584337286
I don't want to argue, so I'll end it here.
You can fight for a better implementation, sure. Of course I would not be against that! I just personally fail to see the real issue with the way things are now on a public platform.
But we can, its the internet. Why shouldn't we be able to delete things? I'm not a ceo, I'm not a politician. The world has no vested interest in preserving a post i make. I should have control of my data. I seriously cannot fathom how anyone could possibly argue otherwise. I'm an ordinary civilian, and my data should belong to me and I should be able to have it deleted if I so choose. Note that every single massive social media platform essentially by law has to provide you means to do this. Lemmy should not be exempt from this. Whats the point of leaving reddit to join another platform that doesn't respect its user base? It's nonsense.
And I never said it was illegal (I specified the opposite actually), but its obviously wrong to walk up to 2 people sitting on a park bench having a quiet conversation between the two of them and record it without even asking them.
Nice that you didn't comment on the fact that this is essentially law for every other social media platform lol.
Having control of my data means having control of my data, not having the ability to not post.
How you can perceive this as entitlement is beyond me. "When I delete something on this website can it actually be deleted?" How is that entitled??
You don't think recording people is morally wrong? You should try it sometime. I'm sure they'll completely agree. 😂
I dont care if someone screenshots it, thats not what we're talking about. Nice strawman. I'm saying that when I delete something, it should be deleted. I cant do anything about screenshots nor do I care. By all means, record everything I say here if that interests you. When I hit delete, I expect what I'm deleting to actually be deleted. Not an image some person took of my comment, the comment itself should be deleted.
You again ignored 90% of what I said, made a strawman and acted like you said something insightful when you beat it. Were not talking about screenshots, were talking about the delete function.
If your next comment isn't an actual argument for why Lemmy should be exempt from the industry wide standard of user data control, then dont bother sending it. Youre just making yourself look ridiculous.
Yeah you’re not wrong
This is how every website on the internet works. It’s why they say everything is permanent on the internet.
Some companies have to enforce retention policies for business and/or legal reasons, which means they actually have to delete your data if they say they will.
Some sites only "soft" delete things because it's simply easier and cheaper.
Regardless, I can't reiterate what you said enough:
Nobody should ever once in their life assume that data they post online will be discarded, ever. Maybe it will, but never assume it will. Even if you run the server yourself and delete the data files on your server and send the hard disks into the sun, if the data was ever accessed, you should treat it as if it's been captured and retained somewhere.
Okay but you're commenting on a public forum, and didn't give anyone your name or any other PII when you signed up? Why are you worried about not being able to delete the things you're posting anonymously anyway?
I never said I was worried. It’s just the general idea when actual companies usually have a data deletion policy in place. Having a data retention policy in place is usually a good look
There’s no corporation or company in the mix here.
If you don't want it there don't post it. The internet is scraped and copied and backed up. You can ask for it to be deleted but the company likely doesn't own every copy.
Let's put it this way:
Spez, reddit's ceo, used to mod r/jailbait. Did it matter to the users? It didn't. Why should this be any different?
Also, this is a public platform as much as reddit is. Reddit's TOS is horrible and yet people stayed. Lemmy is not worse than reddit in terms of privacy. I had to use a script/program before deleting my reddit accounts because reddit won't delete what's in there.
According to the current readme: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy#features you will be able to delete all your post with account deletion. This also align with the warning text before deleting your account.
Also most instance are hosted by community members, and are community funded. I think most instance don't have the interest, or even the means to sell your data.
However, by the nature of OSS, everyone can modify the code when they start a instance (however, as per AGPL, they need to release the source code of modification, but I am sure there are people out there sneaky enough that can modify the code without other noticing). So theoretically, the admins can track you. Also by nature of the federation, your data will also be present on other instances that is federated with yours, but what they got should mostly be public informations (namely information of your post). And they don't necessarily need to delete that info after you deleted your account.
That being said, the privacy aspect of these small community-funded federated service should be order of magnitude better than most other social media site, where their entire business model is to spy on you and sell your data.
Yes. Instances can be hosted by anyone and the devs don’t have access to data on instances they don’t run.