I found a way to retrieve the text of comments deleted by user or mod. I don't think it is an issue of federated instances not respecting the deletion.

Is it a bug?

Or is "deleting" always really just "hiding"?

  • thetaT [none/use name]
    ·
    7 months ago

    in general, on the fediverse assume that nothing you delete will actually be deleted. once your post/comment is viewed on another instance and thus copied over to that instance, it's possible that whatever you tried to delete will just stay on another instance until that instance vanishes.