This is why, during the mass exodus, many people were sharing scripts to edit your comments with random words before deleting them. Because deleting them leaves the content available in the database, but editing actually overwrites the data. So even if Reddit later decides to undo the deletions, (which they did), then they’ll just be a bunch of gibberish undeleted comments.
Iirc using the ‘delete’ button just does the equivalent of breaking the link to a picture. The data is still there.
This is why, during the mass exodus, many people were sharing scripts to edit your comments with random words before deleting them. Because deleting them leaves the content available in the database, but editing actually overwrites the data. So even if Reddit later decides to undo the deletions, (which they did), then they’ll just be a bunch of gibberish undeleted comments.