If an HN user is a citizen of an EU country, then it's my understanding that the GDPR requires you to comply with their request for account deletion.

That's why he said he will delete if you request, GDPR or not. They've helped me delete a previous account, change usernames, and delete comments- they are nice people and aren't trying to make anything difficult. They just don't want deleting to be as instant as reddit with a delete button which can easily disrupt archives- such as when you go into old threads on reddit on google, you see like half the comments deleted and that makes for a poor reader experience.

This makes me wonder, does archive.org comply with GDPR?

At least, for domains that you own, yes they do. I have asked them once to remove some links from the archive because of accidental private data being exposed. The process was fast and straightforward:

1- Add a page or DNS record proving that you own the domain

2- Email receipts showing that you owned the domain for the requested range

3- Wait 24 hours

They also comply with this for social media accounts on domains you don't own if you can show somehow that it's your account. In my case, it was enough to email archive.org with a Twitter profile exclusion request with the same email I publicly listed in said Twitter profile.

For my domain, it was also enough to email them from the email address listed on my site's contact page without any DNS changes.

Taken form the UKs ICO

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protectio...

> When does the right to erasure not apply?

> The right to erasure does not apply if processing is necessary for one of the following reasons:

> …

> for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific research, historical research or statistical purposes where erasure is likely to render impossible or seriously impair the achievement of that processing

So Internet Archive is prob covered under archiving in the public interest. But don’t IA remove pages upon request?

Do they delete old records of a website if the site owner simply asks for it, or do they need any substantial reasons to do so?

You just need to ask and they will remove it.

https://help.archive.org/help/how-do-i-request-to-remove-som...

Of course it isn't. Archiving Trump's tweets would be in the public interest, but not Joe Blogg's. That's not what public interest means.