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
In general, when you delete something you are really just setting a property in the database that says hidden.
Reality is the owner of the platform has access to your stuff forever, unless some “right to be forgotten” legislation comes into play.