The 'agency' angle is interesting to dig deeper into...

Some dipshit could say something truly inflammatory, and when the blowback got bad enough, they delete their post/account and go on their merry way. No need to own their shit. That's troll heaven. But, it does give the user full agency over their content.

But once you have put something out there, and found it to be colossally wrong (like my original post), the responsible thing to do (which news agencies have been doing for centuries), is publishing a retraction of clarification or even apology... but they leave the original article in place.

To me, that seems to be the standard that we should strive to adhere to... not one of "full agency" where you can say whatever you want in any online forum, and then simply run away when it hits the fan.

But obviously, giving a user agency over their data and information - which I support - argues that they SHOULD be able to delete their content and pretend it never happened...

Clearly the internet has fallen on the side of 'anonymity over everything else', and that cat in never going back in that bag... but I wonder if we could have chosen a different path at some point...?