this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2023
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I saw a comment somewhere saying the title and had links but I lost the comment now. One of the links was going to raddle.me which is a Reddit like site

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[–] SpezCanLigmaBalls 3 points 2 years ago (4 children)

What about privacy? Will the devs only get your info if you are a part of Lemmy.ml?

[–] ndr 15 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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?

[–] SpezCanLigmaBalls 3 points 2 years ago (4 children)

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

[–] ndr 16 points 2 years ago (2 children)

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.

[–] SpezCanLigmaBalls 1 points 2 years ago

Yeah you’re not wrong

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

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.

[–] ndr 3 points 2 years ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago (1 children)

This is how every website on the internet works. It’s why they say everything is permanent on the internet.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

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:

It’s why they say everything is permanent on the internet.

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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?

[–] SpezCanLigmaBalls 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

There’s no corporation or company in the mix here.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Yes. Instances can be hosted by anyone and the devs don’t have access to data on instances they don’t run.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

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.