Hey folks! Just realized something that makes Lemmy different from Reddit. Because of the federation, your votes are not technically anonymous on Lemmy. At least, I think.
Although there’s no UI to look at a user’s voting history yet, one could conceivably be built by an instance. Perhaps coincidentally, I hear there’s instances out there populated by mostly bots?
Yes, that’s a fair point. Just because you send a “I have deleted this message” signal out into the universe doesn’t mean that everyone will receive or obey it.
I assumed that was understood.
But that’s very different from instances intentionally and malevolently keeping data despite indicating to users that it was deleted, which is what I think folks’ privacy concerns are about.
EDIT: What I mean is that the federation model is inherently non-private in a certain sense (but in the same sense that someone could take a screenshot of your Reddit comment and your deleting your comment won’t delete their copy). But Lemmy is not egregiously misusing data.
This is largely assumed by someone like yourself or I who understands the implications. I am finding it evident that a lot of people are not aware.
There is also a distinction between a potential screenshot, a scrape or archive no one visits, and a federated copy on a widly used instance you have lost access to.
I edited my comment above to include a project I am working on to hopefully help admins get this across and educate users on how to appropriately engage to their comfort level.
I appreciate your commitment to this privacy consideration. I personally don’t think it’s the hill I’d prefer to die on, but I welcome your contributions.
Thanks! I’m for mass adoption and want admins to succeed. That starts with keeping users educated (and admins covered).