Update:
#Purism has decided not to honor my request to be removed from their #purismforums and be provided my data, stating:
We will not delete the anonymized accounts or posts
To #purismforum users, I do not consent to any of what has happened, and I recommend abandoning that site.
To users who stay there, never link to my projects or my socials and never mention me, my socials, or my projects ever again.
For those wondering:
I find myself in this situation because transphobic posts harassing me were allowed to remain on that site while Purism moderators removed, hid, or censored some of my responses. My posts were calm, civil, and respectful, while many of the posts directed at me were none of those things. Purism’s moderators decided that it is acceptable for users to repeatedly post transphobic insults directed at a trans user, while it is strictly unacceptable for any user to say the word “fuck” in any context, including in a hidden thread that exists for discussions centered around the “politics” of pronouns.
Goodbye and good riddance
#FuckPurism
It seems they’re implying they needn’t worry you’d lodge a complaint with your DPA for an apparent GDPR article 17 violation since your content was effectively “anonymized.”
IANAL but that sounds like a theory that is easily tested.
@Septimaeus@infosec.pub
they did specifically assert that they aren’t violating GDPR, and yet they are. it’s not possible to “anonymize” my data, especially when it contains my writing/typing style and is displayed publicly and permanently.
This is strange, in the past with other staff members that are no longer there. You could have your account deleted at your request.
I should know because I was one of those staff members.
Here is an example of a forum account I deleted at the persons request, when I was there.
https://forums.puri.sm/t/foss-phone-companies/16420/50
https://forums.puri.sm/t/foss-phone-companies/16420/56
So this policy is new. And in place sometime in the last 5 months.
But there are precedents.
@joao@librem.one
@Septimaeus@infosec.pub
yes, i brought it to their attention that other users had been allowed to be forgotten, but they are determined to claim ownership of my words on that site and have denied my request for deletion. and they have also denied me the right to delete my own posts one-by-one.
in the mean time, i’ve set my repos to private and am completely disengaging with those people.
Again IANAL (and am not privvy to details here) but just from an operational compliance perspective: anonymization is indeed a process that’s valid, but has rules, best practices, precedent, and so forth. It’s routinely applied to datasets with public-facing content but it’s not some kind of trick for evading individual deletion requests from users who have identified themselves and are already publicly associated with their content in close-knit communities (if verifiable anonymization is even feasible in such a case, which I doubt).
My advice would be to make a list of your content and politely send with the template to the instance admin (not the mods). I’m sure they’ll just delete. Seriously, no content is worth the headache.
@Septimaeus@infosec.pub
thank you for the advice, but they won’t even allow me to delete the content myself. they are stubbornly claiming ownership of my words.
@user0 that’s very sad to hear…
As @Septimaeus mentioned, it might be worth requesting a data deletion via official channels if you want that content gone, I (maybe naively) expect it should work.
A bit sad to see that you also moved your repos to private, though, but thanks for all your work on mobile Firefox so far!
