Let's leave syndication aside for a moment; I don't think it's unreasonable for a forum to have terms of use that you are participating in a public forum that n

Let's leave syndication aside for a moment; I don't think it's unreasonable for a forum to have terms of use that you are participating in a public forum that needs to maintain integrity. If people just go deleting their posts then it screws up the public discourse. I've actually had the experience of building and running a forum that allowed deleting your content in this way, and we had to remove the capability as trolls used it in a specifically destructive capacity. Now this position is certainly debatable, but I think it's at least a reasonable argument that you could take to regulators. Contrast that with the bullshit that Facebook, Google and a zillion ad-tech companies are doing with our data every day. You're free to object to the syndication of HN data, but personally I feel that is a distraction from the issues GDPR is meant to address, and I am hoping regulators feel the same way.