Ask HN: Any way to deactivate your Hacker News account?

mikewhy · 2022-09-05T01:59:29.000Z

The recent threads regarding KF have made me realize this site is not one I'd like to associate with.

Honestly this post is probably going to be counterproductive to your goal.

Better strategy is probably to email the admin team hn@ycombinator.com

cratermoon 3 years ago |

We try not to delete entire account histories because that would gut the threads the account had participated in. However, we care about protecting individual users and take care of privacy requests every day, so if we can help, please email hn@ycombinator.com. We don't want anyone to get in trouble from anything they posted to HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

troymc 3 years ago | |

If an HN user is a citizen of an EU country, then it's my understanding that the GDPR requires you to comply with their request for account deletion.

ceasesurthinko 3 years ago | | |

That's why he said he will delete if you request, GDPR or not. They've helped me delete a previous account, change usernames, and delete comments- they are nice people and aren't trying to make anything difficult. They just don't want deleting to be as instant as reddit with a delete button which can easily disrupt archives- such as when you go into old threads on reddit on google, you see like half the comments deleted and that makes for a poor reader experience.

woojoo666 3 years ago | | |

This makes me wonder, does archive.org comply with GDPR?

Raed667 3 years ago | | |

At least, for domains that you own, yes they do. I have asked them once to remove some links from the archive because of accidental private data being exposed. The process was fast and straightforward:

1- Add a page or DNS record proving that you own the domain

2- Email receipts showing that you owned the domain for the requested range

3- Wait 24 hours

drakonka 3 years ago | | |

They also comply with this for social media accounts on domains you don't own if you can show somehow that it's your account. In my case, it was enough to email archive.org with a Twitter profile exclusion request with the same email I publicly listed in said Twitter profile.

For my domain, it was also enough to email them from the email address listed on my site's contact page without any DNS changes.

Crosseye_Jack 3 years ago | | |

Taken form the UKs ICO

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protectio...

> When does the right to erasure not apply?

> The right to erasure does not apply if processing is necessary for one of the following reasons:

> …

> for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific research, historical research or statistical purposes where erasure is likely to render impossible or seriously impair the achievement of that processing

So Internet Archive is prob covered under archiving in the public interest. But don’t IA remove pages upon request?

arunnanda 3 years ago | | |

Do they delete old records of a website if the site owner simply asks for it, or do they need any substantial reasons to do so?

Crosseye_Jack 3 years ago | | |

You just need to ask and they will remove it.

https://help.archive.org/help/how-do-i-request-to-remove-som...

mattmanser 3 years ago | | |

Of course it isn't. Archiving Trump's tweets would be in the public interest, but not Joe Blogg's. That's not what public interest means.

bawolff 3 years ago |

I have never understood why people always want to delete accounts instead of just stopping visiting sites they dont like anymore and moving on with life.

mmsnberbar66 3 years ago | |

opsec, data privacy, paranoia, etc

joshxyz 3 years ago |

No, you're forever stuck in here with us in dang's 7th circle of hell

Edit: just making yall laugh folks, i dont know about that kf yet

feet 3 years ago |

OP, I understand your sentiment and am inclined to agree. Support of such a site is appalling.

But I would also urge you to consider that people who feel like us leaving may make the HN community worse, as the percentage of people who support things like KF will be in greater percentage.

Perhaps using pseudo anonymous accounts and naming may help, that's what I do as I try to keep my online and real life partitioned

onphonenow 3 years ago |

What does KF have to do with HN?

melonrusk 3 years ago | |

Nothing, this is just how the New Faith attacks - you will be asked to approve of their previous attacks, and any failure to do so will be used to make you "those evil guys who supported the evil guys we destroyed before". Then when HN is destroyed, someone will complain about that, and so the cycle continues.

srvmshr 3 years ago |

Could HN admins help unvote stray likes (which happened accidentally) to stories and comments.

Bakary 3 years ago | |

Perhaps I am misunderstanding your question, but there is an unvote button for this purpose. It does disappear after a while.

throw03172019 3 years ago |

What is KF?

AnimalMuppet 3 years ago | |

Kiwi Farms, I suspect.

aaaaaaaaata 3 years ago | | |

Is that something people should or shouldn't be Bing-ing?

AnimalMuppet 3 years ago | | |

It's not NSFW (as far as I know). It's far worse. It seems to be a web forum that's into harassing minorities, sometimes to the point of suicide. Worse, it may be harassment with the intent of causing suicide. It's appalling.

ShamelessC 3 years ago | | |

How is it relevant to hacker news?

krapp 3 years ago | | |

I take it you've missed out on Hacker News' meltdown du jour:

Blocking Kiwifarms[0] (approaching 2k comments)

Kiwifarms Response to Cloudflare[1] (approaching 500 comments)

Kiwifarms Is Down Across All Domains[2]

Kiwi Farms: Anti-trans stalkers chasing Keffals around the world[3]

Cloudflare Pressured to drop Kiwifarms after latest doxxing effort[4]

BSNES author Byuu bullied to suicide by Kiwifarms[5]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32706673

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32722950