Why did Adam delete his posts?

I noticed something a while ago and I've never seen anyone discuss it so I'd like to mention it here. I want to provide some background information but I promise that I will get to my point eventually.

While Adam posted on the Columbine forum, his participation was erratic. He would post for a short period of time and then stop posting. He also had a habit of periodically erasing a lot of his recent posts all at once. It is unknown why he chose to do this and how he differentiated between the posts that he was going to leave intact or delete. The dates of his mass deletions were September 20, 2010, November 1, 2010, February 11, 2011 and May 28, 2011. Around the time of the deletions, Adam would also disappear from the site for a while before returning, only to delete his posts and disappear again. Adam made over two thirds of his posts in the short period of time between August and December 2011, then disappeared for several months before returning for a few days at the end of February 2012. His last post was February 28, 2012 but he didn’t delete any of his posts after the final mass deletion in 2011.

This is what Peter Langman said about the mass deletions:
It doesn’t appear that Lanza deleted posts based on their content; the surviving “redacted” posts are no more damning than any of the non-redacted posts, and he continued to post, including his most personal entries, for a year after the last mass-deletion. From this, it appears that mass-deleting posts was done more on principle or out of habit than to hide any specific information, which jibes with the official report’s interview with an unnamed friend, who said that the shooter liked to reformat his hard drive regularly as a way of “staying off the grid.” It’s also worth noting that each mass-deletion is followed by a gap of about two months in Lanza’s posting activity. Possibly, these mass-deletions were instances where Lanza had decided to erase his presence and leave the forum, but each time he ended up coming back — until 28 February 2012, when he finally left for good, but, curiously, did not bother to delete any of his posts.

Adam discussed what seems to be his first psychotic episode in a private message to a fellow forum member.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Now, to get to my point, Adam sent this message on October 3, 2010 and he referred to the event taking place “a couple of weeks ago.” If you count back two weeks prior to this date, it would place the timing of the episode very close to September 20, 2010, which was the date of Adam’s first mass deletion of his posts.

Langman’s explanation for Adam’s forum habits makes sense and the explanation could be as simple as a habit of deleting posts to erase his internet presence but Adam didn’t do that with the majority of his posts on the forum and he never took the time to delete any of his posts from the other websites that he posted on, as far as we know. According to an online friend, he destroyed his hard drive in the summer of 2012 and “committed virtual suicide,” severing his ties to all of his old internet accounts, but he never went back to delete any of the posts made during his last run on the forum before he did this. This makes me think that it’s unlikely that mass deletion of posted content was a matter of principle or privacy for him. Even if it was true that these deletions were related to repeated decisions to erase his posts and leave the forum, I would still have to ask why Lanza would repeatedly resolve to leave the forum.

I often wonder whether these deletions were related to various episodes of intense paranoia, delusions and/or hallucinations for Adam. Whether it was on the exact day or not, it’s clear that the time period in which he first experienced a psychotic episode was also the time period in which he first decided to delete a number of his posts from the forum. Aside from that, before the deletion, Adam hadn’t even posted on the forum since early July 2010 and he would not post on the forum again until late October, yet he made a point to go through posts and delete many of them. If he was trying not to post on the forum and had already been successful at doing that for over two months, why would he come back just to delete his posts?

Could it be that Adam's deteriorating mental state was somehow related to his erratic forum participation? His activity on the forum was consistent with his activity and his state of mind in real life, in some ways. When his posting on the forum increased dramatically in August 2011, he also began increasing the amount of time that he was playing DDR at a movie theater, going from around 4 hours a day every weekend to 8-10 hours of play. At some point, Adam disappeared from the movie theater for a little while and when he returned in February 2012, he was described as "more antisocial" and he no longer played DDR with the people that he knew there. This lines up with the time that Adam stopped posting on the forum for the last time. Just like his participation in the forum was off and on, Adam's real life friend explained that at times, he would "not respond to e-mails or would generally be unavailable for a few weeks." These absences were jokingly explained as "existential crises" or "moping around" but his online friend knew that during periods of intense depression, Adam would sometimes sleep for over 12 hours at a time, suggesting that he may have been disappearing because he was experiencing intermittent but severe depressive episodes (and as I have already noted in another thread, psychosis can be triggered by episodes of depression in some people.)

I don’t know what the exact explanation is but given the timing, I have to wonder whether there was a link between Adam making the decision to delete his posts or disappear from the forum and Adam suffering from paranoid, hallucinatory experiences and/or severe depression.

Maybe he was feeling paranoid.I remember that he said that this website (the old forum I mean) looked like a place where if you log in you would be on the FBI Watchlist

It is possible that his extreme bouts of paranoia caused those acts.

Maybe he decided he didn't want to be a part of the community anymore, so he mass deleted his posts in an attempt to get away. He just kept coming back though.

Maybe hes ocd made him

I do like the idea that the mass deletions coincided with paranoid episodes. I also wonder if, given his vast knowledge of mass murderers, he was becoming aware of how his online activity would be examined after his death? I'm unaware of how close the final burst of deleted posts came to the shooting, and if that were the case I'd wonder why he would neglect to delete the rest of his activity. The fact that he attempted to destroy his hard drive is telling, too.

According to Langman, he didn't bother to delete any of his posts when he left the forum for good on February 28, 2012. If he was worried about people psychoanalyzing him after death he probably would have deleted his last posts; If he was experiencing paranoid episodes, it would make sense that he wouldn't bother to delete them since he would have know that he'd be dead before Christmas.

I have a fairly simple guess as to why Adam Lanza had such sporadic activity on the old columbine forums along with subsequent waves of posts being redacted. The timing of these events will likely match up with when Adam was internally debating in his mind on whether to commit a mass shooting along with his overall mental state.

During the time periods when he was active on the forum he was probably teetering or veering in the direction of wanting to commit a mass shooting, but of course his mood and mental state went in a cycle of diminishing returns. At times he would recover from this string of thoughts and feelings and subsequently delete/redact his posts on the principle of privacy.

This cycle would continue on and on until the last time Adam was on the forums and stopped going to the forum but this last departure did not have the accompanying purge of posts. Indicating that he likely had firmly decided on committing a mass shooting/murder by the time February 2012 rolled around.

sscc wrote:

I noticed something a while ago and I've never seen anyone discuss it so I'd like to mention it here. I want to provide some background information but I promise that I will get to my point eventually.

While Adam posted on the Columbine forum, his participation was erratic. He would post for a short period of time and then stop posting. He also had a habit of periodically erasing a lot of his recent posts all at once. It is unknown why he chose to do this and how he differentiated between the posts that he was going to leave intact or delete. The dates of his mass deletions were September 20, 2010, November 1, 2010, February 11, 2011 and May 28, 2011. Around the time of the deletions, Adam would also disappear from the site for a while before returning, only to delete his posts and disappear again. Adam made over two thirds of his posts in the short period of time between August and December 2011, then disappeared for several months before returning for a few days at the end of February 2012. His last post was February 28, 2012 but he didn’t delete any of his posts after the final mass deletion in 2011.

This is what Peter Langman said about the mass deletions:
It doesn’t appear that Lanza deleted posts based on their content; the surviving “redacted” posts are no more damning than any of the non-redacted posts, and he continued to post, including his most personal entries, for a year after the last mass-deletion. From this, it appears that mass-deleting posts was done more on principle or out of habit than to hide any specific information, which jibes with the official report’s interview with an unnamed friend, who said that the shooter liked to reformat his hard drive regularly as a way of “staying off the grid.” It’s also worth noting that each mass-deletion is followed by a gap of about two months in Lanza’s posting activity. Possibly, these mass-deletions were instances where Lanza had decided to erase his presence and leave the forum, but each time he ended up coming back — until 28 February 2012, when he finally left for good, but, curiously, did not bother to delete any of his posts.

Adam discussed what seems to be his first psychotic episode in a private message to a fellow forum member.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Now, to get to my point, Adam sent this message on October 3, 2010 and he referred to the event taking place “a couple of weeks ago.” If you count back two weeks prior to this date, it would place the timing of the episode very close to September 20, 2010, which was the date of Adam’s first mass deletion of his posts.

Langman’s explanation for Adam’s forum habits makes sense and the explanation could be as simple as a habit of deleting posts to erase his internet presence but Adam didn’t do that with the majority of his posts on the forum and he never took the time to delete any of his posts from the other websites that he posted on, as far as we know. According to an online friend, he destroyed his hard drive in the summer of 2012 and “committed virtual suicide,” severing his ties to all of his old internet accounts, but he never went back to delete any of the posts made during his last run on the forum before he did this. This makes me think that it’s unlikely that mass deletion of posted content was a matter of principle or privacy for him. Even if it was true that these deletions were related to repeated decisions to erase his posts and leave the forum, I would still have to ask why Lanza would repeatedly resolve to leave the forum.

I often wonder whether these deletions were related to various episodes of intense paranoia, delusions and/or hallucinations for Adam. Whether it was on the exact day or not, it’s clear that the time period in which he first experienced a psychotic episode was also the time period in which he first decided to delete a number of his posts from the forum. Aside from that, before the deletion, Adam hadn’t even posted on the forum since early July 2010 and he would not post on the forum again until late October, yet he made a point to go through posts and delete many of them. If he was trying not to post on the forum and had already been successful at doing that for over two months, why would he come back just to delete his posts?

Could it be that Adam's deteriorating mental state was somehow related to his erratic forum participation? His activity on the forum was consistent with his activity and his state of mind in real life, in some ways. When his posting on the forum increased dramatically in August 2011, he also began increasing the amount of time that he was playing DDR at a movie theater, going from around 4 hours a day every weekend to 8-10 hours of play. At some point, Adam disappeared from the movie theater for a little while and when he returned in February 2012, he was described as "more antisocial" and he no longer played DDR with the people that he knew there. This lines up with the time that Adam stopped posting on the forum for the last time. Just like his participation in the forum was off and on, Adam's real life friend explained that at times, he would "not respond to e-mails or would generally be unavailable for a few weeks." These absences were jokingly explained as "existential crises" or "moping around" but his online friend knew that during periods of intense depression, Adam would sometimes sleep for over 12 hours at a time, suggesting that he may have been disappearing because he was experiencing intermittent but severe depressive episodes (and as I have already noted in another thread, psychosis can be triggered by episodes of depression in some people.)

I don’t know what the exact explanation is but given the timing, I have to wonder whether there was a link between Adam making the decision to delete his posts or disappear from the forum and Adam suffering from paranoid, hallucinatory experiences and/or severe depression.

I usually do the same every now and then , i'm not saying that i have it as intense or it IS the reason he deleted those post but a lot of the time the reason i delete posts is because i often think that people know "too much" about me. If his goal was to stay off the grid I would say that posting a lot about your opinions/yourself would not be a good way to do that.
I believe that it was a mix of his severe depression and paranoia , I know that many people have thought "why am I even trying , doing this has no point" which then causes inactivity on any sort of platform. But then that "episode" will stop and you'll go back to doing whatever again because you used to enjoy it.

If we had those deleted post it would be a whole other discussion only because it would prove that he was possibly trying to hide information about himself from other people.

Same reason why he destroyed his hard drive, to not leave a trace behind. Then again it could just be his OCD.

I don't understand why any wannabe mass shooter would delete their posts. Surely they would want to leave behind a digital footprint?

AmyistWarrior wrote:

I don't understand why any wannabe mass shooter would delete their posts. Surely they would want to leave behind a digital footprint?

Just stop spamming, please.

xDarkRazoR wrote:

AmyistWarrior wrote:

I don't understand why any wannabe mass shooter would delete their posts. Surely they would want to leave behind a digital footprint?

Just stop spamming, please.

I'm not spamming. I'm just bored.