If at some point you want to delete your account and have your posts and comments be gone, you better delete it all manually before you actually delete the account, because that deletion process does not really work as advertised.
For my main account on world (which runs an outdated lemmy version), it seemed like at least the account deletion was federated so that my user page was no longer browsable from other instances, but none of my posts, comments or images had been deleted, not even on the home instance.
The homie @MrKaplan@lemmy.world helped me by manually deleting my stuff, but it seems like that has only worked for the home instance, posts and comments seem to still be readable from other instances (except for some of the images that MrKaplan manually deleted too, but that was only possible up to a date not too far in the past because lemmy used to not associate user uploads with the accounts). So my old posts from the world account can be viewed just fine from other instances:
For other instances that are more up to date the process is even worse imo, while locally things seem to get deleted, federation does not seem to happen at all. For example you can still browse my deleted slrpnk or lemmee accounts from other instances just fine:
https://slrpnk.net/u/achtungdrempels@lemm.ee
https://lemm.ee/u/AchtungDrempels@slrpnk.net
Account deletion in piefed works kinda like the old lemmy system (as on lemmy.world), and nothing gets deleted except the user page (which also seems to get federated), the posts and comments stay up.
Thought this would be interesting to some, if i had known what a mess this would be (obviously expected some federation issues, just not like that), i would have manually deleted everything. I deleted all these accounts in December, maybe this has been addressed somehow in the meantime, personally i’d have trust issues in this process.
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When deleting the account did you mark the checkbox “Delete all posts, comments and uploaded images”? Lemmy.world is running an old version so its possible that this is missing. Without that it is expected that only the profile gets deleted, while content is still available.
As for federated account deletion this is implemented and covered by test cases and should work in theory. However it is always possible that there is a bug. It would be helpful if you could open an issue with exact steps to reproduce. Use enterprise.lemmy.ml and ds9.lemmy.ml to test the latest version.
I get that world should be an outlier. World does not have the checkbox, it just says “esto eliminará permanentamente todos sus datos de esta instancia” :) Thought that would include posts etc, but if i understood that right, it was working as intended.
As for the other instances, i did use the checkbox and the accounts etc are gone from the home instance but not anywhere else - at least that is true for the slrpnk account on all the instances that i checked.
Now i’m surprised to find my lemm.ee account is actually gone from lemmy.ml and db0. But it is not from world, slrpnk.net, lemmy.ca, sopuli, blahaj, feddit.org, jlai.lu, discuss.online, infosec.pub, programming.dev, lemmy.nz, but at least something seems to have been federated with this deletion.
I deleted those accounts in late December.
I deleted a newly created account on jlaiu.lu two days ago, they’re running 0.19.5 but i think they have the checkbox (which i have then ticked) and my comment and profile deletion has federated nicely over the instances that i checked.
I would not know how to reproduce all this. I just deleted my accounts and checked the checkbox if it was available.
Originally account deletion would always delete your posts, comments and everything. This was changed in 0.19 to make the content deletion optional (otherwise a lot of posts and comments would disappear unnecessarily). Unfortunately we forgot to add the new option to the user interface for 0.19, but it was added probably around 0.19.4.
Its hard to say why the federation didnt work properly, maybe there was a network error, or a bug in older Lemmy versions that got fixed in the meantime. Or there is still a bug which only happens in some cases.
I don’t see why people get so riled up in the comment section of this post.
Is the original post a legit psa? Definitely. Will this become problematic with European law at some point? Well at least it’s going to be interesting. Should we care? Seeing as lemmy development is partially funded by the European Commission, definitely! Should we care for altruistic reasons? Also definitely. This place is supposed to be better than the centralized corporate social media to its users, especially also regarding privacy. It’s good practice to set up new accounts every once in a while against doxing and seeing how much of the community on lemmy is built by people who are sensitive to their privacy this is sth we should respect.
Should we break down in squabbles here of one instance against another? Please, if I want to hear “all people from place x are bad” I’d just switch on an election debate. Show that your adults. Take your peers and their concerns here seriously. Make something out of it when people raise legit concerns. Thank you bonjour for bringing up this topic.
Nothing is ever really deleted on the internet, especially if it was automatically replicated to dozens of other servers.
OP does have a point.
This isn’t really helpful.
My point is how could you ever count on deletion when the content is being federated?
Even if Lemmy devs made account deletion easy and cascade deletes your content, all it takes is one server run by an archivist and that content is never going away.
It seems inherently unfixable in a federated system, like trying to unsend an email.
My point is he’s not asking for it to be deleted from the entire internet.
You’re just here to jerk yourself off over “uhm, actually! nothing is ever deleted from the internet!” which also isn’t true.
Actually he is. He wants his account deletion to delete all his comments and federate that out. However if that were how it works it would be very misleading to users because they would expect their posts to be deleted across the fediverse when that wouldn’t be the case. Some servers would retain that data and not comply with deleting all the comments.
Cheers to the lemmy.nz admin for misleading (very) their users with the futile idea of federation, all across the fediverse, to not just let this funny comment end up in a dead end locally.
How has anyone been mislead
How again would anybody be mislead if deletions were being federated? Use this answer to answer yourself.
This is such a goofy take. Yes, obviously you can never be 100% there isn’t some copy or archive laying somewhere, but wanting it to be deleted for 99% of the ways people would find it is reasonable. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
Great info, thanks for clueing me in.
Is that supposed to be sarcasm?
Yes. I know it would be good practice to mark it, but that would just ruin it for myself. I hope clarifying on request is sufficient. Wish you a nice day.
Your account is not your posts. Why would one assume that deleting the account would remove the posts? When a person stops speaking the things they said do not become unsaid. When they die their actions don’t retroactively undo themselves.
Thank you, Lord Mathias, for blessing me with this insight. I am now at peace. 🙏
The fediverse is inherently a place where it’s a lot harder to delete anything than on non-federated platforms. It always will be because everything you post here is instantly copied to hundreds (if not thousands) of other servers. Some of them may be actively hostile and intentionally not respect deletions. Some of them may just be misconfigured or for another non-malicious reason fail to delete things.
So don’t post things on the fediverse that you think you might one day regret.
That an account deletion on, say, lemm.ee does not get federated with anybody at all was kind of unexpected to me, i thought this might be interesting for others as well.
So don’t post things on the fediverse that you think you might one day regret.
I think they meant this as general advice for all lemmings and not your particular post, which btw is very much appreciated.
deleted by creator
That’s why Lemmy is such a GDPR nightmare :(
The problem isn’t in the system, but in your expectations.
You’re starting with a wrong assumption that things publicly available on the internet can simply be deleted. That’s not how any of this works.Maybe that’s our fault. Maybe we weren’t clear enough back when you started using the internets. But It’s true, deleting things online is very difficult. You shouldn’t ever expect it to be simple or easy.
Don’t you think that’s shifting the goalpost a bit? OP isn’t talking about something being archived they’re talking about a piece of content on social media still directly linking to that username.
Deleting things in as many places as possible making it harder to access is still a net positive.
It’s about as much of a part or mechanic of Lemmy as posting is.
Don’t you think that’s shifting the goalpost a bit? OP isn’t talking about something being archived they’re talking about a piece of content on social media still directly linking to that username.
What goal post? There is no actual, technical, difference, between archive and active. As soon as a post is made, it’s old, and part of the accessible archive of past posts and accounts.
A basic reality from the beginning of the internet, is that you once you make something publicly available, it’s out there. You can’t really ever take it back. It’s just a fundamental principal of how the internet works. A lot of people seem to forget that.
But deleting stuff is an easy way to limit the amount of potential viewers.
Most people aren’t going to put in the effort. If OP’s account deletion spreads across most of Lemmy, even just the larger instances, most people aren’t going to see their older posts.
That seems to be what OP is after. More in line with hiding poorly written Doctor Who fan fiction than hiding from the government in the woods.
You’re still missing the fundamental reality of the situation.
Stuff online generally doesn’t get deleted. And almost never because you want it to. I think the EU passed a law about the “right to be forgotten”. But the reality is, that’s like fighting gravity. The effort and resources it takes to truly break orbit are far beyond most people’s, and even most government’s means. Same with truly deleting anything online.
But that’s not what is being talked about. I don’t think OP is expecting an all or nothing situation. You’re talking like you’ve never deleted anything online
Yes.
Op isn’t expecting an all or nothing. I’m suggesting they should expect nothing. All isn’t even worth talking about.And yes.
I’ve never deleted anything online. Never had a reason to. If I ever imagined a reason I’d want to delete something, I wouldn’t post it to begin with. Because I know I can’t delete it. See how that works. So what if I was wrong, or embarrassing, that’s part of being human, own you’re mistakes and move on. Don’t hide them. They are who you were. They are how you got where you are. They’re responsible for who you’ve become. Take pride in the failings of your past.OP is expecting the deletion of posts and comments to federate in the same ways posting them would. I don’t think they’re necessarily going scorched earth and care about someone quoting their comment in a reply or resharing a photo.
I think that’s a bit grandiose of a stance. If I misread what someone said or realized someone already said what I did I don’t think deleting it leads to any kind of growth.
That’s setting aside how draining it can be to reply to several people who are making the same argument about how you are wrong. If I couldn’t delete what I posted at that point I would just be creating a slew of edits to justify myself like people regularly do on Reddit whenever they get downvoted.
Hello Mr. Internet,
do you think that the expected behaviour of the lemmy software would be that account deletions do not get federated whatsoever?
Please, call me Steve.
Reality holds no responsibility to conform to anyone’s expectations. However, my decades in the reality of the internet have shaped my expectations. I never expect anything on the internet to be truly deleted. Accounts are locked, but they and everything associated with them still exists. If you contact support, and sufficiently prove you’re you, they can reinstate your account. In the rare cases they can’t, they make it abundantly clear, and explain why they can’t, in the deletion process.
Unless Lemmy specifically states all changes are guaranteed to be federated, I’d assume by default none will. I’ll reiterate, reality has no responsibility to conform to my expectations. Deletions may in fact be federated sometimes.
But that’s immaterial, since I don’t post anything with the expectation I’ll ever be able to delete it. An expectation built upon reality, not the reverse. An expectation I’m trying to impress on you.
Please, call me Steve.
Shut up, Steve. ;)
I think Lemmy should display a simple warning on sign-up that everything you post on the fediverse can’t be reasonably ever deleted, because it’s going to be shared to possibly infinite different parties.
The current delete function states:
“Warning: this will permanently delete your account. The deletion may not always federate to other instances.”The first part, I’m almost certain isn’t actually true.
The second part basically confirms what you’re asking for.Yah. That could be stated explicitly on signup.
But to sum up what I said in other comments here; Not being able to delete things, is like the Internet’s version of gravity. Be glad it works, and don’t waste effort fighting it.
Another reason why I suggest another instance than LW
Lemmy from 0.19.4 allows users to at least delete their uploaded images
… of course you chime in with this take 🙄
- MrKaplan deleted the images for me manually, which i am sure he would not just do for me
- the process is even worse on other instances and they can also only delete images up to a certain point.
Seems better to be able to delete your uploads yourself than having to ask manual support from an admin
I guess that is a bit nicer, although the contact with MrKaplan was totally nice too.
And if your account deletion on your super cool tiny instance is only happening locally, you may not even delete it at all. At least on world you delete your stuff from a third of the lemmyverse in one go, but i’m sure you will be happy to spread some more bad news about world, all in the name to grow the fediverse 😂
You always seemed very defensive about any criticism against LW, I never understood why
Maybe reread what i wrote and think about why i may find your dunk on world misplaced. That i was defensive about any lw criticism is just not true either.
And yeah, your crusade against world (actually all the instance beefing, you can find examples of me being defensive of criticism of .ml too in my not-deleted accounts) was also part of why i lost hope in the lemmy project. And i did not agree that you create fake traffic in other communities to ask the world mods to shut down their communities, because yours now has more traffic (although it was basically all produced all by you). I thought that was dumb as hell, but you do you. I was more interested in actual communities interested in topics, not instance beef.
I thought you were leaving the platform?
Good luck, in any case
If you want me to be gone, don’t chat me up and don’t look into this topic. Easy.
I wonder if it might lead to some issues with European laws at some point
Yeah, that’s what I also wonder. Lemmy is still too small to attract any attention from regulators, but I wonder how the GDPR would work with federation.
There are some differences with normal social media though: every instance is managed by different people, so in theory you would have to ask every federated instance for your data to be deleted.
Or, maybe, posting on the fediverse may be compared to spreading pamphlets with your messages to many different people; you can’t expect a reasonable way to “recall” everything you shared with the public.
I don’t know, I’m not a lawyer. But it’s going to be interesting. Meta, in the meantime, decided not to risk it at all and their fediverse integration just doesn’t work in the EU.
I edit over and then delete all my comments every few days. I’ve never encountered a site that truly purges your account so as annoying it is it just feels necessary at this point
edit: interesting some of us are getting downvotes for this.
Asking out of genuine naivety, why do you do that?
Once you’ve been doxxed you tend to put more effort into covering your tracks lol
Is this automatic?
Nope lol
That’s so weird, because comment deletions do get federated (mostly)
A reason why I never joined LW.
