[guff_se]

This is not an objection against saving hosting costs, it is the fact that the original data is not saved or backed up. To understand our future we need to know our past. Saving shelf space in the library is not a good justification to burn our history books. If you don’t like having them up, you can put them in the basement. Storage costs hardly anything.

[guff_se]

This is of course a deliberate move. By actively destroying ideas and work you don’t agree with, rather than archiving it, you make it harder for the other side to realize their vision. It’s a kind of scorched earth strategy.

[watwut]

It is easier to claim "everything functions better then before" if you destroyed data about how to worked before and have under control what is said about now.

[exe34]

Chocolate rations can increase from 60g to 40g if you don't have a record of how much you got last week.

[lazide]

Especially if done from the official archives, since you can then claim any copies are ‘fake news’/forgeries.

[computerthings]

As Hannah Arendt said, the difference between traditional and modern lies is like the difference between hiding it, and destroying it.

> Moreover, the traditional lie concerned only particulars and was never meant to deceive literally everybody; it was directed at the enemy and was meant to deceive only him. These two limitations restricted the injury inflicted upon truth to such an extent that to us, in retrospect, it may appear almost harmless. Since facts always occur in a context, a particular lie – that is, a falsehood that makes no attempt to change the whole context – tears, as it were, a hole in the fabric of factuality. As every historian knows, one can spot a lie by noticing incongruities, holes, or the junctures of patched-up places. As long as the texture as a whole is kept intact, the lie will eventually show up as if of its own accord. The second limitation concerns those who are engaged in the business of deception. They used to belong to the restricted circle of statesmen and diplomats, who among themselves still knew and could preserve the truth.They were not likely to fall victims to their own falsehoods; they could deceive others without deceiving themselves. Both of these mitigating circumstances of the old art of lying are noticeably absent from the manipulation of facts that confronts us today.

-- Hannah Arendt, "Truth and Politics"