Right now, deleting a post on Lemmy only hides it locally, but doesn’t fully remove it across the fediverse. I understand the technical reasons behind this, but from a user perspective it feels incomplete.
Platforms should give users the ability to fully delete their own content, or at least send a federated deletion request to other instances. This is important for privacy, safety, and user control.
Is full deletion planned, or is there a technical limitation preventing it? I’d like to understand what’s possible and whether this feature is on the roadmap.
The solution: A three‑layer deletion model This is the only model that satisfies both Lemmy’s architecture and user expectations.
Layer 1 — Local hard deletion (guaranteed) When a user deletes a post/comment:
the content is wiped from their home server
the object can remain as a placeholder to preserve thread structure
media files are fully removed
This part is already possible.
Layer 2 — Federated delete signal (best‑effort) When deletion happens, the home server sends a message:
“This content is deleted — purge your copy.”
Servers that respect federation will:
delete their cached copy
update the thread
remove the content from search
Servers that don’t care will ignore it — but that’s already true today.
This is the missing piece Lemmy needs to implement.
Layer 3 — User‑initiated purge request (optional escalation) Admins already have a purge tool that:
deletes content locally
sends a federated purge request
is accepted by most servers
Expose this to users in a controlled way:
rate‑limited
confirmation required
optional admin approval
This gives users real deletion power without enabling abuse.
You say you understand the technical limitations, then immediately ask if there are technical limitations in the next paragraph? And then this comment is clearly written by an LLM. Maybe if you tried to use your brain you’d have better luck.
I’m trying to understand the current behavior as clearly as possible, which is why I asked for clarification. The replies from others in the thread have helped fill in the gaps about how deletion works across different servers.
My goal isn’t to argue about federation limits — it’s to understand whether the user‑side deletion experience can be improved, even if perfect deletion across all nodes isn’t possible. That’s the part I’m trying to explore here.