Is it just user activity that's public? Curious to know about what is preserved on the backend, like if user removed posts/etc get stored somewhere accessible like this too.
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I'm torn on this personally, I like the transparency and accountability aspect, but this could be used in a harmful way
Well of course. The instance stores all data in a postgres database. How else will it be able to remember anything?
Maybe this is not obvious to non-programmers but you never see everything in the user interface for any system. There are tons of records needed for the system to track everything that goes on.
Since posts are federated, they will exist in the local db as well as on each instance.
It's not that it stores data, it's what data it stores. Your votes construct a very detailed profile that doesn't mean anything to another human but an AI can read it like a very simple book. They don't necessarily need to be so strongly associated with your account thanks to simple technology like hashing.
How do I get access to the DB? do I need to spin up my own Fedi and federate?
That’s really the problem: any sort of troll, abusive group or lunatic can access the information by spinning up a federated server.
Yes.
Not all details get propagated across the Fediverse, e.g. your email address only stays with your home instance, but there is information that get's propagated that may be non-obvious to a lot of people.