It just feels kind of gross having parts of me hanging out on the internet for too long. Like I haven’t been able to wash my hands/face for a while. I do it manually occasionally, but I have to block off a morning or evening for it now when I used to be able to do it with a couple mouse clicks then go off to take a shit or w/e.
Theoretically, you can't. If text you posted federates out to other servers deleting it locally won't delete it out there, I don't believe.
So, once it's up, it's up, wasting evenings deleting your stuff won't really stop it
Deletions do propagate, but an instance doesn’t have to respect that.
Also, it appears that sometimes, the deletion fails, and the request doesn’t get federated, leaving the comment/post orphaned.
This ^. A very big downside of defederation. Just be more concious with what you post, and change up ur typing habits.