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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[–] kbal@fedia.io 3 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

If the idea is to connect with family and friends, there are parts of the Fediverse where you can post stuff that's only visible to followers. Probably not possible on lemmy or piefed though, I think.

[–] SirHaxalot@nord.pub 3 points 2 hours ago

If your use case is post to a small known group, PieFed supports creating local private communities where content is t federated at all. This of course only works if your whole group can decide on a single specific instance.