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Depending on the service, it's not always possible, or even desirable, to fully delete an account. For example, if something has an important social part to it,

Depending on the service, it's not always possible, or even desirable, to fully delete an account. For example, if something has an important social part to it, do you also delete the comments that user has left on other people's content? Or their messages in chats? If you do, then discussions end up broken. If you don't, this isn't really a "full deletion". Most social services I've seen do the latter. Some replace the name with "deleted user".

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
I’d have to look at what Apple requires, but I think deleting comments is good (maybe replacing them with a slug). That’s considered heresy, though, by today’s “data is money” crowd. I have seen apps that delete an entire thread, when a root comment is deleted; including responses by other people. I think SMF did that. In the case of our app, we leave communication between users to other apps (like Mail and Messages), so we sidestep that problem. Actually, the reason we deliberately push communication out to other apps, is so we’re not on the hook for it. There’s no reason for us to have the users communicating with each other, via our app. Long story, but privacy is a real big deal, with our user base. I’m super tinfoil about security.
- giraffe_lady 5y ago
  It's also considered heresy by HN, which doesn't remove comments of deleted accounts.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
    I think this crowd would not react well, to that. May also be technical limitations. Not so easy to do that.
  - nicoburns 5y ago
    HN is surely different in that the comments are all public.
    - amelius 5y ago
      True, but the commenters are mostly anonymous now, and may be unmasked in the future when advanced de-anonymization techniques become available. Hence it may be reasonable to request that all data be removed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_re-identification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_re-identification

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago

I’d have to look at what Apple requires, but I think deleting comments is good (maybe replacing them with a slug). That’s considered heresy, though, by today’s “data is money” crowd. I have seen apps that delete an entire thread, when a root comment is deleted; including responses by other people. I think SMF did that. In the case of our app, we leave communication between users to other apps (like Mail and Messages), so we sidestep that problem. Actually, the reason we deliberately push communication out to other apps, is so we’re not on the hook for it. There’s no reason for us to have the users communicating with each other, via our app. Long story, but privacy is a real big deal, with our user base. I’m super tinfoil about security.

giraffe_lady 5y ago
It's also considered heresy by HN, which doesn't remove comments of deleted accounts.
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  I think this crowd would not react well, to that. May also be technical limitations. Not so easy to do that.
- nicoburns 5y ago
  HN is surely different in that the comments are all public.
  - amelius 5y ago
    True, but the commenters are mostly anonymous now, and may be unmasked in the future when advanced de-anonymization techniques become available. Hence it may be reasonable to request that all data be removed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_re-identification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_re-identification