Deleting the data doesn't delete the inference

Removing a connection deletes the line on the screen.

It doesn't delete what the platform already concluded from it.

That's the problem with consent models built around what you personally disclose.

Your social graph isn't created only from your data. It's built from what everyone around you reveals: their contacts, tags, memberships, and connections.

You may never have consented to any of it.

And there's another problem: durability.

Once a relationship has been observed and used to build a model of who you are, deleting that relationship doesn't necessarily erase the inference.

The connection was the evidence.

The inference is the asset.

And the asset can persist.

This goes far beyond social platforms. Any company holding relational data — customers, suppliers, counterparties — is sitting on inferences that its consent framework may not describe and its deletion process may not touch.

If governance only covers the data that's stored, are we governing the wrong layer?