> They should report these actions to the police and they will investigate

They don't. The volume of death threats on the internet is far too high for that. Death threats are a routine part of internet discourse - except where deleted by moderators.

Would you think that moderators are hiding evidence for murder threats by deleting posts?

Quite often these systems are "immutable" and the post is available to the admins if required. This was found in the Parler hack, for example.

The question is kind of moot because the police don't ask for evidence and don't pursue these cases. Can you dig up a case where the police made this argument?

Edit: oh the hilarity, here's the same discussion 22 years previously on the "decentralised" system USENET: https://www.wired.com/1998/03/canceling-the-evidence-on-usen...

I believe AOL lived to cancel again.

Since it’s electronic, it’s federal. We know the feds have abdicated their duties to investigate and prosecute people on their side. We’ll see it on full display when all preemptive pardons come out next week. Preemptive because the feds didn’t bother to prosecute.