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Warning: You cannot delete posts or comments on Lemmy. It stays up forever, and is in direct violation of GDPR and other national privacy laws. (programming.dev)

submitted 11 months ago by purple_mimosa@programming.dev to c/fediverse@lemmy.world

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Title says it. Apparently lemmy devs are not concerned with such worldly matters as privacy, or respecting international privacy laws.

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[-] kglitch@kglitch.social 24 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

OP is simply incorrect.

I'm coding a Lemmy alternative right now and have been testing this functionality out extensively. Deletes of posts and comments certainly federate, I've seen the AP traffic to make it happen. Also, the docs: https://join-lemmy.org/docs/contributors/05-federation.html#delete-post-or-comment

I haven't tested what happens when the 'delete account' button is clicked... Mastodon solves this by sending a 'delete this user' Activity to every fediverse instance so there's nothing about ActivityPub that makes removing an account and all it's posts in one go impossible.

[-] ttmrichter@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago

Deletion of entities is optional in ActivityPub. That, by definition, makes known-removal of an account and all its posts in one go impossible, because a server can just ignore the deletion activity.

[-] kglitch@kglitch.social 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Yes, although the server will not ignore the deletion activity if that server is running Lemmy. We're talking about Lemmy here, not the fediverse as a whole. OP singled out Lemmy in the post title and said "lemmy devs are not concerned with..."

I'm sure there is more to be done in this area. It'd be great to know for sure which software treats deletion activities properly (I'm really unsure about Kbin, I think it does not) and which does not so instance admins can make informed decisions about who they federate with. Perhaps this information could be made available right within the UI that Lemmy admins use to control their instance, rather than an obscure documentation page somewhere...

IMO having deletes federate should be part of a minimum standard all fediverse software has to meet (plus mod tools, spam control, csam filters, etc) before it is allowed to federate but obviously we're nowhere near having that sort of social organisation.

[-] ttmrichter@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

How would you even know if deletes federate?

"Does your server respect delete activities?"

"Yeah. Yeah. Delete activities. Definitely. We totally respect them. Scout's honour."

Tell me: how much closer are you to knowing if the server is caching or not?

This is likely why deletion is optional. The people making the protocol know there's no way to enforce it.

[-] kglitch@kglitch.social 2 points 11 months ago

As long as a deleted post is no longer visible in the publicly-accessible parts of the site, that would be enough verification for me.

I don't know how the GDPR authorities verify compliance with mainstream proprietary closed source apps, do you?

[-] r00ty@kbin.life 4 points 11 months ago

I think in terms of gdpr, if you notify a site that is providing service (allows users to register from I guess) to EU countries you want something deleted, they need to comply.

But I think in terms of federated content, you cannot be expected to do more than send information about the deletion out. If other instances don't respect it, it's not the originating instance's job to police it.

Now the user could go to these other instances and chase it up. But I wonder if a third party instance doesn't allow users from EU countries, if they'd be required to comply? Federated content opens up a an interesting set of scenarios that will surely test privacy laws.

I also wonder what the EU powers are to sites in non EU countries that allow EU users but don't respect GDPR. what can they even do? Companies like twitter, Facebook, reddit etc have presences in EU countries that can be pursued, but John Smith running a lemmy instance on a $5 vps might be out of reach.

[-] HKayn@dormi.zone 1 points 11 months ago

But I think in terms of federated content, you cannot be expected to do more than send information about the deletion out. If other instances don't respect it, it's not the originating instance's job to police it.

It actually is.

When delegating the processing of PII to someone else (like another instance), you're supposed to initiate a data processing agreement with them: https://gdpr.eu/what-is-data-processing-agreement/

Unless Mastodon has somehow automated this process in inter-instance communication, they are just as liable as Lemmy is.

[-] r00ty@kbin.life 3 points 11 months ago

But pii isn't being sent. A user's nickname and the domain of their instance plus any content they create is. If they choose to put their pii in public posts or user info, that's their choice but is not pii solicited in order to operate the service, it was volunteered.

It's a crucial difference. I considered this when writing the terms and data retention information for my own instance. Federation is very frugal about the information shared.

[-] ttmrichter@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

Short of having someone inspect the databases, they can't. The GDPR is a threat, basically, that says "if (or, rather, when) the truth outs, we can nail you later". Which is why it's really only effective on big players anyway.