They definitely do, it’s common for such systems to never actually delete anything because storage is cheap.
It likely just is flagged deleted=true and the searches just return WHERE [post].Deleted = False on queries on the backend.
So it looks deleted to the consumer, but it’s all saved and squirreled away on the backend.
It’s good to keep all this shit for both legal reasons (if someone posts illegal stuff then deletes it, you still can give it to the feds), as well as auditing (mods can’t just delete stuff to cover it up, the original still exists and admins can see it)
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I’d be surprised if they don’t keep all of that. There were a number of sites for looking at deleted posts. They’d just go and grab everything and compare what was still there with what wasn’t and highlight the stuff that wasn’t there anymore.
Which is also possible here, though the mod log reduces the need for it. But if someone is looking for posts people change their mind about wanting anyone to see, deleting it highlights it instead of hides it for anyone who is watching for that.
Breezy@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I think that site was unddit, but yes those were posted then later deleted. Im talking about just typing out a post or comment and never posting just simply backing out of the page or hitting cancel. Im not just if any of that is stored on the site or just local.
sacredfire@programming.dev 11 months ago
You would be able to tell by monitoring the network tab of the browser developer tools. If post requests are being made (which they probably are, though I’m too lazy to go check) while you are typing a comment, they are most likely saving work in progress records for comments.
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Oh, yeah, I’ve wondered the same myself. Hell, that might have been a motivation for removing the API access.