From Lemmy documentation:
We don’t delete anything from our database, just hide it from users. Deleted or removed Communities/Posts/Comments have a “restore” button.
But don’t take my word for it. Try it out yourself. You can make a comment, delete the comment (your username appears to remain) and then restore its content.
This isn’t too much different from how reddit works; nothing that’s “Deleted” is gone unless it’s actually hard deleted (purged) from the site.
It’s that way for a reason…so that appropriate moderators and admins can see behavior overall when appropriate.
For example on reddit if I “remove” your post from my subreddit (that I moderate); I can still see the post contents. The post is “[ removed ]” to the public eye; but still exists.
However; if you “delete” your post; it appears to me as a subreddit moderator, and to the public in general as “[ deleted ]”
I cannot be certain if reddit admins can see deleted posts/content on reddit.com; as I am not one.
It however appears that Lemmy takes one more logical step that aligns more with modern privacy expectations; and that’s to expose to the user that when they “delete” their own post that it can still be “undeleted” by either themselves or someone else who is authorized, like an Admin.
I’m guessing this is why every reddit purge scripts edit the content first and then remove, right?
Correct.
From what I understand, Reddit started keeping an edit history a few years ago to counteract those scripts.