I noticed that there were some accounts that were hijacked by the instance owners. All the posts from that user were then edited to say what happened.
This kind of surprised me, I figured instances could delete posts, but not edit them. So how much control do they have?
I assume they can’t see my password (hopefully). Can they post in my name? Do they have all the access to my posts to foreign instances that they do over local posts?
Edit: thanks for all the responses everyone! I’ve wanted my own instance for a while, but maybe I’ll get on it now
Technically that’s true.
To build trust and adhere to law, corporations will usually have processes and regulations in place that determine which employees can access and modify what. That is why spez modifying user comments is such a big deal. It showed that Reddit is not to be trusted. Nevertheless, for corporations that value customers trust, any employee who does not adhere to these procedures risks their employment.
On smallish fediverse instances none of these procedures need to be in place, the admin is bound only by his own moral code.
This is true. However keep in mind that instances survive on reputation. As soon as something like this came out, which is inevitable with time, nobody will trust that instance, or the person running that instance, again. And people are usually quite quick to find this out as already demonstrated by other online services. Hiding is very difficult. Even worse, once your reputation falls, people can move to a more respectful server and continue participating in the network, so in the end it’s a losing game for the instance owner. Password safety obviously applies, but if you take a look at big social media privacy and terms, a little password manager in my personal opinion is preferable.