Reddit Migration

Their explanation for restored content will likely be something about the nature of how their CDN works.

Granted, this excuse won't hold up much, but it's probably true and will limit their liability in the sense that it isn't intentional.

I've deleted my comments multiple times with PowerDeleteSuite and had things come back, a couple times over. However now I'm going through with shreddit (github version) using my GDPR files. It's taking a long time because things panic every so many comments (I'm backing up everything, on file 75 so far but still 46,000 lines left from a 75,000 line file, however it's panicking less now that the comments are more recent) and I haven't had it restore any of the links I've checked from that process.

Reddit changed the way they display comments in the profile a few months back. Now, you only see a limited number of comments under New, Hot, Top & Controversial. These are the lists that most deletion services access. So, if you use PowerDeleteSuite or any other service it will likely miss things. In particular, I opened up links to my older Top comments, ran the script, then found it had completely ignored replies underneath my comment that had low but positive karma - these wouldn't have appeared on the lists. My new list only went back about 3 months (although I think it's about number of comments rather than time).

You really need to use the GDPR files to get everything. These contain CSV files with links to every single post and comment you have. However, it seems that reddit are delaying following through with most requests until after 1 July, when API requests (such as those that shreddit uses) will be blocked.

Also PSA don't use the shreddit website, they charge you $15. The github version is free and will take CSV files with the appropriate tag. But, again, in my experience it panics and hangs fairly often, so it will take a lot of work to use. I've had to run it, back up the terminal output, use the last link and delete everything in posts.csv and comments.csv before the one it stuck on, then resume with ammended files.

Reddit really isn't making it easy to follow through with your rights. Make records of this, then this can be used to convince local Data Protection Authorities to collectively throw down a bigger hammer than Huffman ever wielded, or even imagined.

Also another PSA, reddit's terms do not deny you ownership of your content. So even if they try to claim ownership themselves (as Steve Huffman has frequently publicly stated) they cannot deny you the right to edit your content and restrict what they do with it. It's your information, and reddit hasn't even paid for it.

You can't sell a microwave without paying for the nuts and bolts.