Notes should be considered permanent, because even if the #Nostr protocol allowed for a request delete feature, there would be no way to ensure that relays really deleted notes to begin with.
In this way, it's useful to think of #Nostr as a broadcast technology.
In other words, while Nostr might be censorship resistant from outside forces, prudence dictates a certain amount of self-censorship, and any missteps can never be taken back.
What today might be socially acceptable or a bit edgy, may tomorrow subject your family to mob justice, or worse, selective prosecution by a capricious state.
How is one to navigate this shifting landscape? Simply to stay silent, disappear and allow yourself to be swept away by these forces?
Speech, strictly speaking, is ephemoral. The written word even is subject to the ravages of time and materials - letters and books can be destroyed by fire and age, by accident or purpose.
But what is written on the internet can be saved forever, archived, aggregated, augmented, cross preferences, rebroadcast, and made into precision weapon.
And so truth tellers are at a disadvantage because the liars can use every technological advancement at their disposal, but the truth tellers must for self preservation retreat into the shadows.
This is a good point, by advertising them as removable it gives the false impression that relays can’t store indefinitely. No way to prove it was deleted either.
This is the current state of every technology company. Nobody really deletes anything. They call it soft deletion, internally.
