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Mastodon thinks Lemmy’s privacy stinks. What say you? (raddle.me)

submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago (2 children)

but outside of your own server pretty much nobody will care. Lemmy is federated over multiple jurisdictions, so even with full deletion implemented there’ll almost certainly be instances which will ignore the deletion request - and it will be completely legal for them to do so

Lemmy also seems to federate your matrix_user_id, that is clear personal data. It does not matter how the data gets to the federated server, this is still user data within the scope of the GDPR. It does not matter that that server does not have an agreement with the user, the instance that would ignore a GPDR related deletion request would be in direct violation of the GDPR. Maybe it can do that without consequences, though.

I completely understand that making Lemmy fully GPDR compliant will probably be impossible, however I don't like the approach of "we will not succeed, so we don't make any attempt". Instances should actually delete data when that is requested, or instance hosts can get fined. For now, Lemmy has bigger issues to solve, but eventually they should do at least a best effort attempt to respect user data.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I had a look into the wording of the gdpr (more specifically the Data protection act as it is implemented in the UK) it seems to refer to organisations. I think most, if not all, instances are not hosted by organisations. (Just some group or individual hosting it on personal or rented hardware). Laws such as this are designed with centralization in mind, and kind of don't make sense in the context of decentralisation.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago

Yea these laws are super difficult in a distributed network and I think that you would not be responsible if you made an attempt to say to the other instances that this data is now deleted. But at the moment, when you delete a message on an instance, it just flips a boolean and says the message is deleted. (mods can purge comments though, so then it is actually deleted).

And you would probably be fine as an individual, but I can see larger Lemmy instances get large enough that these kinds of rules will apply to them. I have seen a few cases where small associations got fined for violating the GDPR, that would be a waste of money that was donated for hosting the instance.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Lemmy also seems to federate your matrix_user_id, that is clear personal data.

Just like specifying an email address when signing up adding a matrix identifier is your personal choice. Lemmy is perfectly usable without either.

It does not matter how the data gets to the federated server, this is still user data within the scope of the GDPR. It does not matter that that server does not have an agreement with the user, the instance that would ignore a GPDR related deletion request would be in direct violation of the GDPR.

Not a lawyer, but I'd say the instance outside of EU, not targetting EU users would not be in violation - though EU instances transmitting data there might.

Instances should actually delete data when that is requested, or instance hosts can get fined.

With that part I agree - but it should be made clear when deleting something that this is a local deletion, which may or may not propagate to other instances, and will almost certainly not remove the data from the internet.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

EU instances transmitting data there might.

This is an interesting thought, as data transfer between the US and EU has been an issue with other social networks. Federation between an EU instance and a US instance could be seen as the same thing - data for EU users is being transferred to non-EU servers.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

It's very possible that an EU instance that comes under regulatory scrutiny for whatever reason will have to start requiring Data Processing Agreements (DPAs) from every instance it federates with.

Ultimately that would likely result in a few paid, professionally run instances, which only federate with each other and maybe a few similar instances in other regions with the capacity to provide DPAs.

And next to that, a forest of independent, non-conforming instances flying under the regulatory radar; an entirely separate fediverse from the centralized one where instances disappearing is a regular occurence.