Lemmy account deletion is a mess

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For my main account on world (which runs an outdated lemmy version), it seemed like at least the account deletion was federated so that my user page was no longer browsable from other instances, but none of my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:

https://lemm.ee/post/1379925

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.

85 comments

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.
- 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.
- Is that supposed to be sarcasm?

Out of curiosity: What's a reason to delete all the content? I don't want to imply you shouldn't be able to do so... But I often find it very annoying when people delete large quantities of stuff. Because that also deletes the comments I made, which took me time to write. It deletes my bookmarks. And sometimes people wipe their history regularly, which removes technical questions along with the correct answers and other material that might prove useful to other people, if it weren't deleted... And I had things that I'd have liked to return to, vanish into thin air multiple times now.
I'd like to understand the perspectives and two sides of that coin. And since you say you'd like to delete content, I thought I'd ask about your perspective and the why...
- Data privacy (the "right to be forgotten") I'd say is the main reason. Say you realise that you've built up a little to much linkable information about yourself over the years and don't want it readily available for whoever might want to make use of it.
  
  Good use-case. Would it suffice to "unlink" the information in that case, instead of deleting it? I think that'd solve both problems. The posts and comments would stay in place for everyone to keep using them, but it'd say "by [deleted user]", so it's forgotten that you (or someone) wrote it.
  I'm not sure. And we somehow need to present that to the user without overwhelming them with several options, delete account without data, delete account and unlink content, delete account and content...
- I hate it so much when people delete useful information.
- Hmmh, not sure if I'm experiencing a Déjà vu, or if this is just because I've talked to some people who were complaining about some aspect of the platform and saying they're going to quit. Anyways, I wish that you're somehow going to find what you're looking for. Whether it's on this platform or somewhere else.
  Seems to me like you're having an on-and-off relationship. And those often turn out to be... difficult?

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.

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.
- 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.

Another reason why I suggest another instance than LW
Lemmy from 0.19.4 allows users to at least delete their uploaded images
- Seems better to be able to delete your uploads yourself than having to ask manual support from an admin

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.
- 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.

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.

That's so weird, because comment deletions do get federated (mostly)

Its not like the alternative reddit is any better at least here someone could design a free app to do it, while reddit you gotta pay to access the api to delete all your posts/comments

That's why Lemmy is such a GDPR nightmare :(

The way federation works, I would not ever rely on deleting things to actually work 100%.
It takes time to send the request out to everywhere that might have duplicated it.
The request may never be received.
Instances can ignore deletion requests even if they do get them.
Archival bots and even users can save it if they saw it and do not get any deletion requests.
Best practice anywhere on the internet is to simply not post anything you don't expect to stay online forever.

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.
- 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.

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.

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
- Oooo is this automatic process something that's easy to replicate?

A reason why I never joined LW.

Lemmy.world is a trash instance.
But! Without it being the honey pot that draws all the dimwits/homophobes/transphobes/racists from elsewhere (same for whatever Hexbear/Chapo domain those dipshits have now) and keeps them there, I oppose defederating from them, we should only sandbox them so any comments they make stays on the .world domain.
- Yeah, although in my mind it's pretty much always been like this.
  People on the internet are eager to say "something" even if it doesn't actually address the issue at hand.
  It's sad, but it gets easier to deal with once we stop expecting more.
  
  I just read your entire post, so don't know what the fuck you are on about my reading comprehension.
- I don't know what you're talking about, but lemmy.world definitely does not condone what you're saying.
  
  I wish a had the patience to go through my post history and link you the countless discussions there I've had with those types of people there.

85 comments