Angry users claim they are enabled to delete their own content from the site through the "right to forget," a common name for a legal right most effectively codified into law through the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Among other things, the act protects the ability of the consumer to delete their own data from a website, and to have data about them removed upon request. However, Stack Overflow's Terms of Service contains a clause carving out Stack Overflow's irrevocable ownership of all content subscribers provide to the site
It reality irritates me when ToS simply state they will do against the law.
It's not quite that simple, though. GDPR is only concerned with personally identifiable information. Answers and comments on SO rarely contain that kind of information as long as you delete the username on them, so it's not technically against GDPR if you keep the contents.
You could argue that people can be identified by their writing style. I have no idea how far you'd get with that though.
Frankly I don’t see any way whatsoever that this would fly, and that’s a good thing!
Imagine what it would mean for software-development if one angry dev could request the deletion of all their contributions at a moments notice by pointing to a right to be forgotten. Documentation is really not meaningfully different from that.
It reality irritates me when ToS simply state they will do against the law.
It's not quite that simple, though. GDPR is only concerned with personally identifiable information. Answers and comments on SO rarely contain that kind of information as long as you delete the username on them, so it's not technically against GDPR if you keep the contents.
You could argue that people can be identified by their writing style. I have no idea how far you'd get with that though.
Frankly I don’t see any way whatsoever that this would fly, and that’s a good thing!
Imagine what it would mean for software-development if one angry dev could request the deletion of all their contributions at a moments notice by pointing to a right to be forgotten. Documentation is really not meaningfully different from that.