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Comment by gurrone | Hacker News Reader

I would like to add: Do they understand that it's impossible to delete anything that got commited to the block chain once a block is accepted? I mean at least if they think about a blockchain in the sense of the Bitcoin blockchain. Implementing a deletion of prior blocks is an interesting problem.

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I expect that is exactly the point, no more "censoring overlords" :-)

"People are stashing irrevocable child porn links, dox, copyright infringement, and leaked state secrets in the blockchain" - https://boingboing.net/2018/03/19/cant-block-the-signal.html

Sometimes it's not about Big Bad Censoring Governments.

You can absolutely delete. You just append data that represents a delete, and the client doesn't show that item or shows it as deleted.

Yes, it doesn't remove that data from the chain and a client could easily end up undoing deletes, but if you think that server based deletes actually remove the data, you might be in for an unpleasant surprise depending on the servers in question.

In the case of social media, this isnt enough. Certainly someone will create a client that shows you everything that’s been deleted. Can you imagine if you had used social media since you were a pre-teen and every bit of it was public record? I’m sure no one would use that service.

But that's how it works. You should assume everything you've ever posted to another server could someday become public record. Especially with social media since it's being posted specifically to be viewed by others who may copy and redistribute that data at any time.

People redistribute snaps all the time even though they're supposed to "go away", yet people still use it.

To the parents: the solution is to not allow pre-teen social media. In my opinion.

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