Specifically, does HN/Y Combinator plan to allow contributors from the EU to request their contributed content to be deleted after May 25?<p>Note that they currently do not allow bulk deletes of one contributor's messages, "as that would wreck havoc in the discussion threads".<p>Basically you can ask nicely to delete some few posts, but if you want to delete all of your contributions you will get a no. This is at odds with the GDPR.
I'm not a lawyer, but HN is not established (AFAIK) in the EU, and while it has EU users, it likely does not meet the threshold of actively offering goods or services to EU residents. Being accessible from the EU in itself isn't sufficient to trigger the GDPR.
For me the question that a lot of people will be asking after 25th May, is what happens if they don't?<p>I would bet on nothing. The GDPR is there to catch the worst offenders, the other 99% of offenders will feel nothing.
I agree it would cause problems with the discussion threads, but a solution to this would be for HN to substitute the username & message with "Removed due to GDPR request" or similar.
Maybe the easiest thing to do is for websites to place a banner that if you are a EU citizen, you are not welcome or allowed to view the website and are violating the terms of service.
A particularly ugly thing happens if the HN mods for some good or bad reason decide to ban an account: their contributions will be there forever, with no ability to append explanations to previous posts.<p>This will after May 25 be illegal for services offered in the EU, but I kind of think that the same courtesy should apply to non-europeans.