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PSA: You can't delete photos uploaded to Lemmy. So don't (accidentally) upload a nude
(tech.michaelaltfield.net)
You're telling me my penis can have a legacy?
this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2024
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If you ask the instance admin nicely, they might delete it for you, with a small risk of taking down the instance if they mess with pictrs wrong.
How exactly does Lemmy remain in compliance with laws regarding, for example, a user's right to have all data associated with their account deleted (right to erasure, etc), or ensure that it is only kept for a time period reasonable while the user is actively using your services (data protection retention periods, etc)?
It's not a big deal for me, just strange to think Lemmy of all places would be built to be so anti user's data rights. The user is ultimately the one that decides what is done with their information/property, after all.
Lemmy is not a singular software or website, every instance on its own need to ensure compliance with their respective laws where they are domiciled.
But if instance A is domiciled in the EU, and the content mirrored to instance B in Zimbabwe, where no right to be forgotten exists, then a user of instance A can't invoke any laws beyond what the local admin can control.
That's amazing for high availability of content - it's essentially mirrored in perpetuity - but a nightmare for privacy advocates. AFAIK there haven't been any court cases related to deletion requests, so that's still virgin territory.
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I’m a developer of a Lemmy client. When you upload an image to a Lemmy instance, the instance returns a “delete token”. Later, you can ask the instance to delete the image attached to the delete token. So as long as you keep hold of the delete token for a specific image, you’re able to delete it later.
Lemmy-ui (the official frontend) will give you the option to delete an image again shortly after uploading it. However, it’s not possible to remove the image after actually creating the post, as the delete token associated with that post isn’t remembered anywhere on the Lemmy backend.
As for other Lemmy clients, YMMV. The client I work on (Mlem) deletes images if you remove them from a post before posting it, but has the same pitfall as Lemmy-ui in that it won’t delete the image if you’ve already created the post.
It would be possible to locally save the delete tokens of every image you upload, so that you can request that they be removed later. I don’t know of any clients that can do this yet, though (if someone knows of one, feel free to mention it).
Edit: clarity
as the delete token isn’t stored anywhere on the backend.
Backend of the app or the lemmy server? if it is not stored on the lemmy server then there will be no way to delete it even if the app stores the token.
Also using a singular token that never expires to modify user content sounds like a bad idea. image operations like upload and delete should probably tied to the user credentials.
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Dear aussie.zone users,
I can delete photos. Just give me the url of the photo you need killed and I'll happily delete it for you. But also, don't (accidentally) upload a nude.
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Are you sure you want to insert a cheat code?
Yes.
Allyournudesarebelongtous
Cheat activated!
Lawsuit waiting to happen.
PSA for admins and mods: GDPR fines can go up to 20 million euros per case. To give you an idea, Meta has been fined over 2.5 billion euros in recent years. If you think that's bad, the real worry is Germany's NetzDG.
hides pants in locker
Is that a John Locker?
Isn't this in violation of the gdpr?
If that were the case, wouldn't the entire Fediverse be against it? Since they can't really be deleted because it gets sent everywhere.
I suspect it is the case.
The issue doesn't seem to be the Fediverse itself, rather the fact that images uploaded to Lemmy are handled in a separate program that isn't linked to it in a way you can delete from by just deleting posts. The images aren't marked as owned by you, so can't be deleted again. You'd need some way of storing those image deletion tokens against your account, so you can manage them yourself and be able to delete them again.
And this would have to include images that you uploaded and didn't make a post about. As far as I can tell they're just left there on the server forever. Not even sure if it tells you which user uploaded it, although it might log by IP address. I haven't looked too deeply into the code but there's potential for abuse there.
Yes and no.
let's say I have a website that hosts user generated content like a forum or something. Some other person just hosts a mirror of my website that is not under my control. If some user requests me to delete his data, I can do that. i cannot delete the data from the mirror site.
Nothing else is happening in the fediverse. The only difference is, that in the fediverse the license and technology is set up to encourage mirroring content.
While being compliant with GDPR depends on the instance that pulls your data (which is the premise), the Fediverse isn't in any way close to being private if you can't delete your own data everywhere.
"Traditional" social media is not meant to be private, what you post always has been public knowledge, and stays that way.
There are certainly advantages and drawback to this open approach. So use a chat app if you want private social media, like signal story.
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