this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2023
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Technology

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Reddit makes it impossible to delete PII, refuses to do it itself violating GDPR (youtu.be)
submitted 1 year ago by ruffsl@programming.dev to c/technology@beehaw.org
41 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/251752

It is important to note that although this may be a result of Reddit's UI not displaying the content users posted to now-private subreddits, it remains a problem. Additionally, I agree with the author's comments in the video description, as it appears strategically unrealistic for Reddit to ask that users manually delete the content themselves.

This is particularly true when considering that many automated methods to accomplish this task will be hindered by Reddit's upcoming API pricing changes. Furthermore, Reddit has demonstrated a recurring pattern of rolling back databases using historical backups, thereby disregarding user deletion requests that were submitted prior to the database rollback.

See similar discussion of this video on Hacker News:

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[–] r0bbbo@programming.dev 32 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I overwrote then deleted all of my comments a few weeks ago—they were all back in their original form last week. I’ve since run the process again and already old comments are starting to reappear

[–] TemporaryBoyfriend@lemmy.ca 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The best part about this is that the more they do this, the more it costs them. Every action, especially disk transactions, cost them money. Just log in every day, run your deletion utility, and cost them a couple bucks more for being pricks about it.

[–] agressivelyPassive@feddit.de 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's peanuts for them.

If you want to hurt them, make the platform unusable. Post real looking, but garbage comments in a semi automated way (random comments every few seconds, while you're scrolling through. Vote randomly, downvote everything on /new...

[–] Auzy@beehaw.org 7 points 1 year ago

Exactly this. Post blank photos, etc. Doing things like posting pictures of John Oliver just changes the conversation but still generates the traffic.

Be boring. Up vote garbage, and force them to pay mods like other platforms do.

I'm actually surprised digg didn't try to get back into it again

[–] shirro@aussie.zone 1 points 1 year ago

I believe the reddit API might not allow full discovery of comment history. At least my experience with deletion tools was that once I had the data export to check I found only a small portion of the posts from by 12 years of history were deleted despite the reddit UI and deletion tools not showing any comments remaining.

I had to use a tool to go through the GDPR export to find all the posts and the tool has had problems due to some subs being private due to protests. I suspect a lot of people who thought they deleted their entire comment history may not have done so.