It Is Almost Impossible to Delete An Item from The Internet.

After news broke that Messenger messages had been obtained by law enforcement and used to accuse a Nebraska teenager and her mother of having an illegal pregnancy, Facebook-parent Meta was under severe scrutiny. There was no evidence that any messages, in this case, were deleted previously.

Ravi Sen, a cybersecurity researcher at Texas A&M University, stated that law enforcement could recover deleted data in certain situations if they have the right tools and expertise.

Sen stated that many people don’t know where their data is stored.

Every post, regardless of whether it is an email, social comment, or direct message, will be saved on the user’s and recipient’s devices, as well as on the servers owned by the company that hosted the content. He stated that “ideally” the content should be deleted by the person who created it. But, generally, it doesn’t happen that quickly.

Sen suggested that you could reach out to companies to request the deletion of your data from their servers. However, many companies will not take this step. He said that the chances of recovering deleted messages from a user’s device diminish with time.

Privacy experts say that the best way to protect your online data is by using apps that provide end-to-end encryption. To ensure encrypted data is not accessible from other places, it’s important to manage cloud backup settings.

Matz states that even with all the precautions one can take, once something is uploaded, Matz believes you have lost control.

She explained that even though Twitter deletes the post or Facebook deletes it, someone else could have copied the image you posted.”

Matz stated that she encourages people to be more cautious about what they post on Big Tech platforms. Matz believes it is better to be cautious online, despite how pessimistic it may sound.

She said, “Just assume that everyone can use what you have put out and will live forever.”