Was there even a mass exodus? I largely avoid Reddit now, but I do kind of doubt that they’ve been hurt in any meaningful way by all the protests and people leaving…

    • Azzu
      1·
      1 year ago

      Yes, but “the controller” is one instance, and it’s certainly easy for one instance to allow a user to be forgotten. You can purge the user from the instance. Then they are forgotten, as far as the instance is concerned.

      As an example, just because someone makes a GDPR request on YouTube to delete a video, does not require Google to actually remove the video from the whole internet. There are plenty of websites that archive content which are unaffected by that GDPR request. It’s the exact same thing with different Lemmy instances, just because you ask lemm.ee to delete your content does not mean that lemmy.world needs to delete your content.

      • King
        2·
        1 year ago

        The GPDR doesn’t require Lemmy to remove personal data from the entire internet. But when a Lemmy instance gives data to other Lemmy instance, there are legal responsibilities.

        https://gdpr-info.eu/art-17-gdpr/ Where the controller has made the personal data public and is obliged pursuant to paragraph 1 to erase the personal data, the controller, taking account of available technology and the cost of implementation, shall take reasonable steps, including technical measures, to inform controllers which are processing the personal data that the data subject has requested the erasure by such controllers of any links to, or copy or replication of, those personal data.

        ==========

        Maybe this is open to interpretation, but I feel that the same Federation protocol that federates out my personal data (my posts and comments), should also federate out my delete requests. I’m unsure why this would be controversial.