Just the cost of pissing off all the highly technical users who helped build the place.
Exactly. Just used Redact myself a few weeks ago.
I wish I’d done that. I deleted my 12 year old account right before learning about these tools.
Thanks! Doing this tomorrow
Let it run during the night, mine took 20 hours or so to finish up. Reddit throttles the requests you make to its API, so it’s slow
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I don’t either, but if no one ever tries github projects with zero stars how are they supposed to get stars?
Ah yes because the thing that makes 140 LOC you can read and understand in five minutes trustworthy is the number of other people who clicked a star button
/s
Explain how any of this is sus, you don’t need to be a programmer:
https://github.com/Aryanb1102/Redact-Reddit-Data-Deleter/blob/main/reddit_data_deleter.py
Yes, because large corporations on the Internet definitely wouldn’t try to sway this metric at all, get off your own ass man fuck you
Read it then. It’s literally a single script with 140 lines.
Well, this happens if you don’t respect your users.
…or your moderators
…or your third party developers…or MY AXE!!
Fuck the mods; bunch of thin skinned morons.
You get what you pay for…
I just realized this could be taken at least a couple different ways.
The way I intended was, Reddit relies fully on the free labor of volunteers for moderation.
It wasn’t intended to be a comment on not paying for Reddit. I believe all users on Reddit provide free value to the company whether by posting, commenting, or voting.
Fuck the owners and resulting enshitifacation too.
now hiding history to avoid bot detection by other users, but they are banning people allegedly to be bots, but not actual propaganda bots themselves.
I mean some, yeah. It’s a community-run system, so naturally for every bad user, there’s a bad mod, too.
But there’s also a good mod for every good user, basically.
When Reddit’s API debacle happened lots of people moved away. Some deleted their comments, some edited them with a message in protest. But sadly the consequences is that a lot of history and useful information got lost in the process.
I don’t know how I feel about this. I understand why it’s done and even why it needs to be done, but it still makes me sad considering the amount of times where Reddit saved me from massive headaches with IT stuff and so on…
As someone who deleted their posts… yes. The goal was to make Reddit worse, by removing my contributions to it because they forgot where their value came from.
My content had some small value to them. They didn’t deserve it.
I hope they delete all your stuff when your account gets banned because I’ve left at least three of those in my wake
I’m fairly certain they do not
Cool they can have all my toxic hatred against Republicans for their AI to learn from
They don’t delete your content, they just redact your username and disassociate each individual comment from your larger profile so nobody could, for example, click on the deleted user who posted a comment in r/abc and see they also posted a particular comment in r/xyz.
The reason tools like Redact (many of them all use this same name lol) have taken off in popularity is because they delete, or redact the contents of your posts before you delete the account, thus making even that vestigial data worthless.
Its not guaranteed. They may keep a copy of the original post around.
In fact, anyone could
I believe they are still there but hidden.
Quite possibily it depends on the type of ban you received (e.g. spam vs inflicting harm on xyz)
I know better than to threaten people online. It was all stupid political bullshit.
That’s not really what I meant.
What I was trying to say is no ban is equal. Reddit may very well have nuance to bans they can utilize that will prevent you from just participating in comments/upvotes to full on shadow-bans.
I hear these justifications a lot, but the conclusion doesn’t follow from the premises.
The value of the archival data that can be affected by deleting or editing is almost entirely only user-accessed value. Reddit isn’t harmed at all from the edits. It primarily needs active regular users to improve its stock value. Alternatively, it can sell archival data for AI training.
Editing old comments removes neither value source from Reddit. You moved away from it so deprived it of both the material value of new comments and the statistical value of being an active user. Reddit also assuredly has saved data from before the API issue and can likely spot and clean the mass edits to sell the data from training purposes.
Conversely, the value to users and society is high. So many solutions to problems that are gone forever. The Internet is decaying already and it gets harder to find useful information, and those leaving decided to just burn down a library of Alexandria.
It’s their - and your - right, sure. They’re by definition done on comments the user owns. But this is just punching desperate Internet users in the face hoping it gives Reddit a bloody nose.
Would you sign up for a social media website if all the tech support posts looked like the above?
I wouldn’t sign up for a social media website if all the useful posts were from before June, 2023.
That’s why the people deleting their posts also stop posting
This. Good points above an all, but they missed this being the main point. imo
If that were true, then why did Reddit respond to the mass deletions (that’s what people did at first, not edits) by undeleting the comments?
those leaving decided to just burn down a library of Alexandria.
More like I had my book taken off the shelves because the librarians are dicks
Ah, where are those books now? Which shelves can I find them on?
I get the metaphorical point, but it’s a point without effect. “Removing with no possible present or future access” is the same as “burning” for society’s purposes.
where are those books now?
Lemmy
You’ve reposted all of your deleted Reddit comments to Lemmy?
Nope, all new comments. Better comments. If you miss the old ones, well sorry but it’s weird that you’re trying to claim ownership over my thoughts and self expression. I don’t owe you or the internet a damn thing.
the highest value content, is mostly political anyways, its draws in more money for a platform, because users are addicted ragebait.
Reddit undeleted a lot of the content removed during the API debacle. This comment must have been after that because you can see the latest comment is post API changes.
That’s why I didn’t close my account and still do a new turn of mass edits every 2-3 months. I have nothing deleted, just constantly overwritten. I get regularly banned from some subreddits after each wave, probably because some comments may trigger some sort of spam detection and edits alert the mods then.
reddit can detect if you did massedit as suspicious activity, a normal person cant change multiple comments at once, but with a script they will see it as botting.
The sad part of it is that they (reddit) can still access that deleleted information and sell it for AI training. Even as a “power” user you can use websites that “undelete” that content. The only ones truly affected by this are people randomly browsing reddit.
I mean it does reduce the value of the content that users created on reddit if a ton of random comments were deleted in protest. Every time you hit a thread like the OOP it reduces reddit 's value to the individual, and in aggregate it reduces reddits value
Did you actually read my comment? That’s an issue casual users have. If you want to see deleted comments, there’s a way to do that.
The only thing that actually hurts reddit is if people stop using it an generating new content.
Yup, Reddit fucked us all after we gave them our knowledge for free.
Trick people into thinking they’re contributing to a commons, steal the contributions and run. Very understandable that many people decided to retaliate after the betrayal.
I really hope decentralized knowledge bases take off. Aggregating niche knowledge from experts and non-experts everywhere the internet touches is such a valuable proposition!I had like one useful comment posted to Reddit. I’ve left it up, and once every few months I get a comment being appreciative for the info.
Reddit gets the traffic because of Google indexing the original post of a user with the problem. People are going to visit it regardless of whether they’ll find the answer or not. In fact, if they don’t find it, they’re more likely to keep browsing posts in the hope of finding something.deleted by creator
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I get that it’s annoying, but reddit deserves to burn.
Reddit as a company is 100% unaffected by this
To an extent they are. Part of the appeal of Reddit was that you could find good answers there. But yeah, the idea that “long term their reputation may suffer” is hardly affecting them in any demonstrable way now.
100% unaffected? It makes their data worth a lot less for AI training. Even if they keep comment history, these are edits - how do you determine which edit to use? Using all of them poisons the data, and picking one risks doing the same.
On top of that, reddit has quickly become a non-source for opinions… I used to append “reddit” to any search where I wanted candid feedback, but absolutely would never do that these days. That’s less traffic, which is less ad money, which comprises the vast majority of their revenue. Reputation is virtually the only thing that matters for search, and Reddit’s reputation has been sliding for years.
People paying reddit aren’t training their models by scraping the web ui.
The original comments are still in the database, which is what you’d pipe into an LLM.
That’s less traffic, which is less ad money, which comprises the vast majority of their revenue.
and how many people do the same thing you do? they don’t really care about 1% of dedicated users…
…you’re joking, right? There is not a company in the world that is happy to ignore 1/100th of their revenue disappearing.
Is it going to kill reddit? Of course not. Are they “100% unaffected?” Of course not.
There is not a company in the world that is happy to ignore 1/100th of their revenue disappearing
except we are talking about USERS disappearing, not revenue. it is likely that revenue actually increased, because x+n (where n > 0) people paying more than zero generating more than zero is bigger number than x generating zero.
Reddit’s primary source of revenue is ads, that is a simple fact. What metrics do you think matter when it comes to ad revenue?
and how many ads do you think all these now gone power users were displaying and consuming? 😂
the more technical helpful users are likely to do it, you think the vast majority of users give helpful comments?
you are forgetting that reddit is not just coders and sysadmins.
people writing comments about - i don’t know - sneakers, might not care about the reddit drama at all. and all comments are helpful as AI training material - don’t succumb to the biased idea that only what interests you is important or “helpful”
Sure, but the users are.
Good! The users add all the value to that site, moderate if for free and they couldn’t even not be cunts about it.
they want propaganda bots mostly now on reddit.
Good for whom?
There’s been loads of times where I’ve looked everywhere for a solution, finally finding it on google page 10+ in an obscure reddit thread with like 10 votes and 4 comments where someone had found a weird, illogical solution to your exact problem, that actually worked.
It’s a shame it went to shit. The real losers are us, we lost a lot of knowledge.
That doesn’t mean I think they should get to keep that stuff. Sure, we lost a lot of knowledge there, and that sucks. But the company lost out and pushed their IPO way back for it and I enjoy seeing Spez suffer after what he did to Aaron’s legacy.
If that’s how you feel, that’s how you feel. But I personally doubt Reddit as a company have lost out. They still have all the data. And they still have a massive user-base. I’m sure Spez is suffering real bad with his hundreds of millions…
I feel like they lost prestige more broadly but I’m obviously bias being here on Lemmy. We see I guess, I predict them tanking after their IPO.
good, but it’s not enough
The comment says removed, but the user says deleted.
And because of the large number of people who not only left Reddit, but burnt bridges in doing so by using tools to delete or garble their entite post history, it’s hard to tell if this was Reddit’s doing or just that of a fed-up user who deleted their own posts when leaving the site.
it’s hard to tell if this was Reddit’s doing or just that of a fed-up user who deleted their own posts when leaving
The latter, Reddit doesn’t remove your comments and posts when your account gets deleted.
I used a tool to overwrite mine right before the API bullshit went into effect, but searching for my account, it appears they were all restored.
I overwrote all my comments, then deleted them, and they’ve been restored as well. Anyone know a working tool to permanently delete stuff?
Give your account to a European user and have them order Reddit to delete everything via gdpr.
There is none.
I’m not going to post links and supporting evidence, I can’t be bothered.
But creators and admins have gone on the record saying you never ever can remove or delete a comment, and every edit is saved. And furthermore, they just restore comments at their whim.
That’s what I’ve noticed.
I initially used power delete suite which got maybe half of mine.
Then I went and started manually editing them with random words.
Then started deleting.
I’m very sure that some sub’s have restored deleted comments. Amusingly sometimes with the random words instead of the original.
The only reason I never deleted my account is so that I can go back and mess up or delete stuff as it comes back. Fairly easy to find your comments with a search of your username.
Surprised they haven’t just locked the ability to edit or delete older stuff. It’s not like it ever really gets deleted, just removed from public view.
Yes and no.
Yes, they have every single version of every single comment you ever made and can fetch whichever one they want whenever they want.
But reddit is massive. That is WHY it depends so much on unpaid mods (like other social media sites of a much smaller size…).
So unless you are a “top influencer”, the most they’ll do is revert your deleted comments maybe one extra version. So if you use one of the tools that edit it prior to deletion, you are in good-ish shape.
Which is what we saw during the “protests”. Plenty of people (self included) saw their comments come back. But the people who ran one of the editing deleters (with a non-default message) saw their edited messages return. Because that was the most recent on the stack.
They repeatedly restored deleted content during the “protests”. Which is why most of us encouraged people to leave their accounts open to go re-wipe when Reddit corporate stopped caring.
I’ve gone back and checked a couple times, this is the first time I’ve seen them restored.
But now the API-based tool i used no longer functions
Rate limited so you might have to run it a few times over the course of a week but https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite
The former is data they can index for Google searches to make Reddit more valuable as a resource. Reddit will never remove your data.
yea it doesnt, unless you were shadowbanned. if you got permabanned or delted your account your history isnt gone. shadowban however gets all posts hidden by other users, except yourself.
tools to delete or garble their entite post history
I had a 6 year account when the API scandal hit. Paid a small fee to deny reddit whatever 2 cents my comments are worth.
13 years for me. I killed so much content.
reddit comments only say removed when the mods or admins remove it. maybe the dude used a script to make all his comments say “I hate Reddit I am going to mail a pipebomb to carlos mencia in retaliation” and reddit nuked them.
What’s wrong with doing that?
unfortunately some souls are lost and still think carlos mencia is funny
SAD!
a fed-up user who deleted their own posts when leaving the site.
9 times out of 10 that is also Reddit’s doing.
I did the same.
Reddit showed it didn’t give a fsck about my user experience with their banning of third party apps, but they still wanted to sell the content I put the effort in to providing.
Screw you guys. You want to make money off hosting my words, whatever. But don’t stick a pineapple up my arse at the same time and expect me not to feel it.
I still use old reddit and I have an extension on iOS that modifies it to be usable on a phone. However, if old Reddit ends up getting the axe then I’m done for good.
Thanks for getting me to finally run one of these scripts to scramble and delete everything in my old account. Fuck every American corporation and their user experience.
They restored all my comments a few months later, so I’ve tried it again by editing all my comments to gibberish.
I keep checking mine, no reverse yet. Been a few months, 2 since my last purge
Exactly the tool I’ve used. I purged it about a year ago and randomly discovered that everything was restored about a month ago. I don’t know when it was restored, though.
Thanks, SPEZ!
Fuck that pedophile wannabe.
Don’t forget racist, too!
I really need to go back and delete all my posts, I just dropped it and never went back.
It’s a pain in the ass to do it manually. I used this script and it helped a lot.
just say something that will you get you banned and they will delete all your comments and posts and your profile. they will appear as
[deleted]. much easier tbhthey will appear as deleted, but they are not really deleted, they still have them in the database and still make money selling them 🤷♂️
would redact solve this?
make sense if reddit is a AI whore, and wants the money, what better way to have extra content from delete comments.
I had to manually delete my account when I got banned
I do wonder how much they soft delete stuff, so they can keep the data to sell. Also if they keto a history, do even if you manually delete/edit, do they have a copy on a server somewhere?
Not sure about edits, but its highly likely they still have every deleted post. Text is small and highly compressible, so there’s no reason to delete it. So it makes more sense to keep it to sell later.
Does that help the fight? I was under the impression that they got to keep all the old info
They do, but it makes the site less useable for people, which is a win
its pretty hostile to new users, since it sees a new acc as potential spam. reddits goal is to become like FB, just run by bots, but importantly propaganda bots, so less effor to deal with users.
What I did was mass edit all my comments. According to reddit customer support (about a year ago at the time), they do not retain old versions of edited comments.
I used Redact a while back. Super easy. First replaced everything with filler text, then deleted. Just in case mods have auto-rollback for deletion.
You‘re harming people looking for help and support more than you harm Reddit.
And Reddit took people’s goodwill to give free advice their and generate revenue from it for granted.
Which harms Reddit more than anything, as people will look elsewhere.
Reddit already only allows Google to scrape them now, so as far as I am concerned it is a dead site. Removing my comments is worth it to not feed the monopoly that is Google.
50% of the site is basically bots/propaganda bots. people dont realize they are responding to bots most of the time.
Fuck Reddit and Fuck Spez.
Well said, I fully support it. Let’s hope at least this place doesn’t turn into 1984 like others.
What a spezhole
Yeah… I did this too when leaving. Made a small app to edit and delete every comment I made. I actually had a useful IT related self hosting post which was also nuked. I guess that’s the price the whole community had to pay for reddits thirst for profit.
Although, long ago, I heard of a rumor; all of reddit was frequently backed up and available for download. Is that still a thing? Was it ever a thing?
Can you post your app on GitHub? Many of us would love it. (Especially now if I ever need to visit the US I would have to delete all my JD Vance couch fucker comments)
Someone in this thread posted a similar thing that’s probably better. When I left, there wasn’t anything like it so I had to cobble something together.
I heard of a rumor; all of reddit was frequently backed up and available for download
I don’t know about “available for download” (probably not), but: modern websites tend to have their content stored in a database, and databases are (or should be) regularly backed up to tape drive or optical disks or whatever. This means, fundamentally, that everything ever posted to a social media site like reddit or facebook will be in existence permanently, regardless of what efforts users take to subsequently delete their history from the current instance of the database.
The only way to truly “delete your data” would be to re-mount each old backup and delete the data in each of them before re-backing them up (or else destroying all the backups). No social media site does this or even could do this. Furthermore, when it comes to keeping your comment history out of the clutches of AI, I would almost guarantee that when a site like reddit sells its data to companies to train the AI on, they are selling old backups from before users started mass-deleting their posts.
There was pushshift, but it’s locked down since the API thing, there’s pullpush.io, but that seems down atm. Also there is reveddit. I think most or all of these do not store content that has been deleted by the user though.
I wish I’d deleted all my comments and posts before deleting my account.
Don’t forget they’re also selling all your freely provided content to AI scrapers as well. Fuck Reddit.
I wonder what happens to your account when you get banned
Believe it or not, straight to the AI farm.
From what I can tell, it continues to exist, but you can no longer post. They’re not gonna just give up all that free data.
Cool they can have all my toxic hatred against Republicans for their AI to learn from
shadowban will however keeps your posts hidden from the public, but not from reddit itself.
This post of mine still comes up.
They will just put them back. Your stuff isn’t really deleted.
Good.
They went public and made bank on free user input. Those users rebelled so the platform would suck.
It may still be standing but I feel we won over a year ago.
