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
  • QuestioningEspecialy@kbin.social
    5·
    1 year ago

    My rule is, never post anything you wouldn’t mind the media tracing back to you IRL and then making the top story of the day in your country.

    So don’t live, basically.
    Or you can just maintain anonymity as best as you reasonably can and hope no one goes out of their way to identify you or the account(s). Making a new account after awhile is a safe practice. The goal is to decrease the likelihood of undesirable things, not make them impossible.

    • Sabzhero@kbin.social
      8·
      1 year ago

      Odd response, you can still “live” without documenting your activities. Were people not living pre-Facebook/Instagram?

        • dfyxA
          1·
          1 year ago

          Never assume you’re anonymous on the internet. No matter how careful you are, there are dozens of ways something could still be traced back to you:

          • You might slip up and accidentally post enough personal info for someone close to you to recognize you.
          • A platform provider might not take their privacy rules seriously.
          • A third party (such as an advertiser) might connect your “anonymous” account to a clear-name account on another platform through browser fingerprinting.
          • You might forget to log out of a computer that someone else has access to.
          • Someone with way too much time might just be able to connect the dots.
          • And many more. That’s just what I came up with in a few minutes.

          Posting “anonymously” just reduces the chance that someone puts in enough effort to identify you but it never makes it zero. If that’s a risk you’re willing to take, that’s absolutely fine. But that should still be a conscious decision and if you want to be careful, always assume that anything can be tied to your name and face.

    • dfyxA
      1·
      1 year ago

      I never understood why people have the urge to post their whole life on social media. The world doesn’t need to know if I was drunk last night, what my sexual preferences are or who I spend my time with. I post if I have something that I actively want people to know. Could that be something that I would find cringy in a few years? Of course, I’m sure there’s stuff from my teenage years out there that I would rather forget. But is it something that would actively harm me if someone found it? Not to my knowledge.

      So yes, you can absolutely live without posting stuff that would harm you if it was in the news.