What it means
Profile curation controls which communities' posts and comments appear on your public Reddit profile. Deleting a post or comment changes the item at its original location, subject to platform and cache behavior. Reddit explicitly says curated-away content remains available in the original community and can appear in search results. Moderators can also see fuller history temporarily after certain interactions.
A real-world example
An old health question no longer appears on a person's profile after they hide that community. Someone with its direct link still reads it in the subreddit. The person had changed profile presentation, not the visibility of the original contribution.
What to do
If the goal is to prevent profile visitors from piecing together interests, use Content and activity curation and test as a signed-out visitor. If an individual post reveals private information, assess editing or deletion at the source and search-engine removal separately.
The distinction that matters
Neither choice can erase screenshots, quoted replies or an archive. Curation may be sufficient for casual visibility but not for sensitive disclosure. Deletion may disrupt a useful discussion and does not automatically remove third-party indexes; choose the action according to the actual privacy risk. Recheck the result from a browser where you are not signed in, because an owner view can give a misleading impression of public visibility.
Reddit profile controls
