yeah just echoing what LeninWeave said, the threat model for this kind of thing is almost always random weirdos vs state actors, be they reactionaries who lurk this site or just disgruntled people with a grudge. someone dedicated enough could dig up the deleted stuff, true, but types like this are often not that driven or resourceful. just creating a barrier that makes them lose interest early in the process can very often be enough. definitely agree about different usernames!

That is not effective. There are logs of hexbear posts outside of hexbear. Users on other instances access hexbear posts. Other instances could be keeping records of hexbear posts. Any lemmy user could be keeping records of hexbear posts. You can't delete things from the internet. Everything posted on the internet is basically permanent record.

I am fully aware of all this, it makes no difference to the goal of making it harder for individuals and groups to doxx and harass you. That's why I said harder and not impossible. Once people have posted potentially identifying information, they can't un-post it. Deleting it is the best option available. Often just making something harder to find is sufficient to prevent harassment from occurring that otherwise would have.

Deleting an account is ineffectual and makes the website harder to browse.

I agree, but people have a right to be forgotten.

I strongly recommend for people to use different usernames on different websites.

Correct. I understand your point that people should adopt better practices to obviate the need to delete an account, I'm just speaking to the case where they already haven't and are trying to mitigate the potential fallout.