I was wondering, if I ever want to delete a post or an account on a service that uses ActivityPub, like Mastodon or Pixelfed, is it going to persist across the fediverse?

Let's say I made a political post on Mastodon using a profile with my real name and picture and I need to travel to the U.S. for work purposes and I don't want the CBP to find out about it and get turned back or arrested on entry.

If I delete this post, will it be completely removed across all instances that synchronized it?

Is a deleted post traceable in any way?

Is it kept in a log or a database on ferdiverse instances?

With governments across the globe increasingly surveiling us online and scrutinizing everything we say, I'm starting to think I should plainly delete any account that has personally identifiable information like my real name and photo. I initially thought it would be easier to connect with family and friends, but now I'm growing increasingly worried about how this can be used against me.

I just want to know if I can completely erase any post or any account from the fediverse or if there will always be a trace somewhere and it could get picked up by any government surveilance. Whether encrypted or not.

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[–] cobysev@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago

I can't speak for individual instances, but when I first moved to Lemmy, I used the Sync for Lemmy app. Every time I came across a deleted comment, it gave me the option to read the comment anyway. If the user hadn't edited it before deleting it, I could still read their whole comment, even though it was marked as deleted.

I've since moved to the Voyager app and it doesn't give me this option, but I know that my deleted comments are likely still readable out there.