[PSA] Lemmy account deletion is a mess
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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For my main account on world (which runs an outdated lemmy version), it seemed like at least the account deletion was federated so that my user page was no longer browsable from other instances, but none of my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 @[email protected] 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/[email protected]
https://lemm.ee/u/[email protected]
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.
A reason why I never joined LW.
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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For my main account on world (which runs an outdated lemmy version), it seemed like at least the account deletion was federated so that my user page was no longer browsable from other instances, but none of my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 @[email protected] 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/[email protected]
https://lemm.ee/u/[email protected]
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.
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.
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Lemmy.world is a trash instance.
But! Without it being the honey pot that draws all the dimwits 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.
Can you guys read?
Holy moly, this place seems to have gotten worse in the last two months lol.
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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.
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Can you guys read?
Holy moly, this place seems to have gotten worse in the last two months lol.
I just read your entire post, so don't know what the fuck you are on about my reading comprehension.
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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
I do the same (though I have automated the process). I'm thinking of also undoing any votes just in case.
Edit+delete doesn't remove content when servers defederate each other, unfortunately. I suspect this can be fixed if you control the Lemmy server your account is hosted on, but I haven't bothered exploring that yet.
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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.
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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.
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Lemmy.world is a trash instance.
But! Without it being the honey pot that draws all the dimwits 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.
I don't know what you're talking about, but lemmy.world definitely does not condone what you're saying.
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Can you guys read?
Holy moly, this place seems to have gotten worse in the last two months lol.
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.
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I do the same (though I have automated the process). I'm thinking of also undoing any votes just in case.
Edit+delete doesn't remove content when servers defederate each other, unfortunately. I suspect this can be fixed if you control the Lemmy server your account is hosted on, but I haven't bothered exploring that yet.
Oooo is this automatic process something that's easy to replicate?
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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 @[email protected] 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/[email protected]
https://lemm.ee/u/[email protected]
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.
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.
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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.
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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.
At least my point got through to one of my fellow "dimwits/homophobes/transphobes/racists" between all the braindead lemmy.world dunking and other Einstein takes. Thank you
Opening this topic was a great reminder why i did not want to have a presence on lemmy anymore though, haha.
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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.
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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.
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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 @[email protected] 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/[email protected]
https://lemm.ee/u/[email protected]
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.
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 regularly wipe their history which removes technical questions along with the correct answers and other material that might prove useful to other people, if it weren't deleted...
I'd like to understand the perspectives and two sides of that coin.
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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.
Hello Mr. Internet,
do you think that the expected behaviour of the lemmy software would be that account deletions do not get federated whatsoever?
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Great info, thanks for clueing me in.
Is that supposed to be sarcasm?
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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 regularly wipe their history which removes technical questions along with the correct answers and other material that might prove useful to other people, if it weren't deleted...
I'd like to understand the perspectives and two sides of that coin.
Because i was bummed out on lemmy and i just did not want to have a presence here anymore. And honestly this topic feels like a reminder to delete my account again, haha. But i won't, so that maybe one, two other people may delete their accounts better than me.
