[tomhow]

To be clear, we will redact personally identifying information and do other things to prevent someone's past HN activity from causing them any trouble in the future. We certainly don't want to cause anyone any trouble and will do whatever we can to prevent that. Our concern is only to avoid gutting past threads and ruining them for the others who participated in in them and for future readers who may find the content of the discussions interesting.

[j_w]

Which is great. The redaction of information from places like Reddit that has taken place makes some discussion/references unreadable now. Decade old HN threads still retain all their juicy context.

[GeoAtreides]

Can you confirm you have sought legal advice on whether the policy of not deleting user data on HN is compliant with GDPR and whether is indeed compliant (or not)?

[tomhow]

YC has a legal department, and they do ongoing analysis to determine our position relating to the different privacy regulatory systems around the world. As I said in the other reply, we’re willing to go to great lengths to protect people’s privacy.

[monerozcash]

FWIW this is widely accepted best practice, and Art. 85 GDPR is also very clear that data processing for journalistic, academic, artistic or literary expression is exempt.