No. In fact, ActivityPub has no general mechanism for even knowing where content has been distributed to. So when you ask your instance to delete something, it can't actually know what other instances to ask to delete the mirrored content.

Mastodon tries its best by sending deletion requests to all known instances, in the hope that that will reach all instances that have fetched the content. But in fact, instances that are unknown to your own instance could have the content as well, though this is probably a very rare occurrence.

Bottom line: Don't write anything on the internet that you don't want publicly displayed. Anyone can save it and then you can't force them to delete it. That applies to the entire internet. It also applies to the fediverse.

[–] phdepressed@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The issue is potential copyright, the right to be "forgotten", and of course illegal porn (csam, "revenge", etc).

[–] SorteKanin@feddit.dk 12 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

I actually would really love to hear how "right to be forgotten" applies to an email you've sent. I mean you can't force anyone to delete an email you've sent to them, so how does right to be forgotten even apply for emails?

The fediverse would work in the same way, I think.

[–] Jtotheb@lemmy.world 5 points 21 hours ago

I’ve only ever seen the legal “right to be forgotten” concept applied to search engines and news publications. I think the closest to this was in Delhi high court where they ruled to have some social media “news” posts deleted. But that’s far different from having platforms erase things you’ve said and may regret. And then add yet another degree of separation for using a semi-private form of communication in email.

I am not speaking authoritatively so anyone who knows more than me jump right in.