i don't think many relays actually keep the whole kind 5 tho, or at least, it's more expensive for storage than just making an index that says "event id XXXX is deleted"
pretty sure kind 5s are considered to be ephemeral
Discussion
In practice, maybe, but they'd need a 20k-30k kind, to be ephemeral.
yeah, i just realised that i'd had this thought previously about them, that the deletes with the authenticating correct signature probably is a good thing to hold onto for a while as part of a conspiracy of honorable relay operators to be able to forward the event later and have it deleted by other honorable relay operators, you see what i mean?
technically under EU and US law and many other places too they are obliged to, anyway, but it's actually a moral obligation really
anyone else who already fetched it and copied it they are not morally obliged and the event is self authenticating
bad guys who don't want to incriminate themselves won't publish events anyway, and those who are stupid deserve to get caught out, the events are very strong corpus delicti