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
The passwords are hashed (AFAIK), but the instance admin has effectively full control of any and all data originating on their instance, right down to the database level.
There has to be some level of guaranteed trust for any instance to work. And in some capacity there is inherent trust across the entire Fediverse that instances federating content are to be trustworthy. It’s no different than any other forum from the old web days- there’s zero guarantees and there’s no way around it.