Warning: Lemmy doesn't care about your privacy, everything is tracked and stored forever, even if you delete it
raddle.me

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
  • lowleveldata@programming.devEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    It is reasonable that people should be able to delete their posts / comments. However I don’t see how is this related to “privacy”. How can something you post on a public forum be private?

      • __forward__@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        Blockchains have the property of being append-only, so a blockchain is precisely what makes it impossible to delete transactions. That being said, in a distributed system, once the message leaves trusted servers, it is obviously also impossible to delete it.

    • CrateDane@feddit.dkEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      That is generally true, with exceptions like leaking someone else’s private information.

      But it implicates the adjacent “right to be forgotten” rather than narrowly defined “privacy”. This could be a real legal issue in the EU.

      • hoshikarakitaridia@lemmy.fmhy.mlEnglish
        0·
        1 year ago

        It is. GDPR in the EU dictates that every user which requests their information has to get it in 30 days, and every user who removes their information has to be able to get it removed (I think the time span for that is even shorter, so more pressure for the server admins)

        • Retronautickz@beehaw.orgEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          The problem here is that your data is not only recopilated by your server and accessible to your server admins, the servers of the communities/magazines or people you interact with also recopilate any activity you have in relation to any community/magazine or user hosted in their server.

          So, while the admin of your server has the obligation of deleting your data if you ask for it, the other servers admins don’t necessarily have that obligation.

          Also, I’m reading the GDPR and the “right to be forgotten” that many are quoting seems to refer to personal information only.