Requesting our own user data en masse is probably a good avenue of protest. Here's the link:
Reddit appears to be restoring edited/deleted comments
131–140 of 579 posts
Re: Reddit appears to be restoring edited/deleted comments
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used Power Delete Suite to remove all comments from all public and private subs. They all came back today. So I re-deleted them again. I suspect it's more likely the site didn't process the deletions properly, rather than maliciously bringing them back, or as you suggest, that they were private. Edit: It's possible that the deletion only worked on public posts, after all, it seems?
I've got a decade old account on which I've made a habit of manually deleting comments older than 6 - 9 months, since they get so little visibility and there's no value in leaving a breadcrumb trail. Checking just now I see that comments up to 3 - 4 years old have been restored. I'm not going to speculate as to why (beyond agreeing it's more likely to be incompetence than malice) but in my case at least there are def…
I’m astounded and confused that you and a lot of other commenters are giving Reddit the benefit of the doubt. At a time when tensions between Reddit management and its users are at an all-time high, and both sides are maliciously striking back and forth, most commenters are assuming that an act like this is due to incompetence rather than malice? I don’t understand the thought process.
Re: Reddit appears to be restoring edited/deleted comments
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reading about Power Delete Suite https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite They don't mention being able to delete from private subs, and their method of deletion sounds like it would fail when the subs are set to private. I'll admit Reddit barely deserves the benefit of the doubt at this point, but I have no idea how you would delete posts on private subs except through some GDPR way that must exist.
If I comment in a sub that has since been set to private, can I not see my own comments on my own profile page? If so, do those comments not have an edit/delete button under them?
Yes, comments you made in private subs don't show in your comment history. I recently made a browser extension that deletes your entire reddit history and ran into this while testing.
Edit: Adding the link: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bulk-delete-reddit...
Re: Reddit appears to be restoring edited/deleted comments
#134I really think they are just misunderstanding something. When I look at my profile, there's no comments, but I know there should be some. Isn't it more likely that when a subreddit you posted in goes private, the comments don't show up. The people in the linked thread ran the delete script after some subreddits went private. Now when some are made public again, so are their comments. Comments that were never deleted…
I used Power Delete Suite to remove all comments from all public and private subs. They all came back today. So I re-deleted them again. I suspect it's more likely the site didn't process the deletions properly, rather than maliciously bringing them back, or as you suggest, that they were private. Edit: It's possible that the deletion only worked on public posts, after all, it seems?
Use GDPR. Even if you aren't in the EU.
Re: Reddit appears to be restoring edited/deleted comments
#135Hanlon's razor. Anyone who has used Reddit for any period of time (or basically any similar site, which includes FB, Twitter, and even HN), has seen data consistency issues during high load (like periods of activism). Shards die or fall out of quorum, work queues get purged, etc. That's the reality of systems with a lot of very low value data. Eventually consistent, but also perpetually inconsistent.
Its not a shock to anyone who knows how cheap data is, but it just proves there is no true 'delete'. I never deleted my facebook profile/pictures because I didn't want to shine a spotlight on my account.
I care more about what a 'deleted' post says, than any other post in a thread. I imagine there is a good reason for that.
Re: Reddit appears to be restoring edited/deleted comments
#136There has been a constant stream of negative top HN posts about Reddit for a few weeks now, even if they often get manually pushed down from the front page. Was there ever a comparable shitstorm on HN against a big corp? Will this go down as the fastest suicide of a social media company?
I don't think Reddit will die because of this nor I think this is the first time HN gets sensitive against a corporation's actions. It's happened several times in the past. The most recent I remember is the beef with Meta and WhatsApp, where a good chunk of HN was very sure everybody would move over to Signal and WhatsApp would be left to rot. Similar thing happened with Twitter and Mastodon. People get very emotiona…
> As time has demonstrated dozens of times
As time has demonstrated dozens of times, platforms, behaviors and manias come an go in regular (though not quite predictable) bursts.
Betting that nothing ever changes is not consistent with the general arc of developments in the broader technology space.
Actually the opposite is likely true. The digital landscape is very "disruptable" and relies on various dark patterns (oligopolies, user illiteracy) to lock-in some "stability".
The individual events you mention are not the flood, they are the thunder indicating a thunderstorm is brewing.
Re: Reddit appears to be restoring edited/deleted comments
#137Requesting our own user data en masse is probably a good avenue of protest. Here's the link: https://www.reddit.com/settings/data-request
Thank you
Re: Reddit appears to be restoring edited/deleted comments
#138I really think they are just misunderstanding something. When I look at my profile, there's no comments, but I know there should be some. Isn't it more likely that when a subreddit you posted in goes private, the comments don't show up. The people in the linked thread ran the delete script after some subreddits went private. Now when some are made public again, so are their comments. Comments that were never deleted…
I used Power Delete Suite to remove all comments from all public and private subs. They all came back today. So I re-deleted them again. I suspect it's more likely the site didn't process the deletions properly, rather than maliciously bringing them back, or as you suggest, that they were private. Edit: It's possible that the deletion only worked on public posts, after all, it seems?
It could be because people are selling there's accounts in protest.
Re: Reddit appears to be restoring edited/deleted comments
#139This is crazy! I like the following comment on kbin: > I said it before and I say it again: if you have the patience to do so then make sure you overwrite your content with chatgpt generated content, as the future AI that will feed on your post HATE feeding on already AI generated stuff. It makes the AI diverge. People should not be deleting their posts but actually just replacing them with random AI generated conten…
I am not commenting on whether this is a good thing or not, from my POV that's for each person to decide themselves.
However, if this catches on and becomes more prevalent (and I could see that happening), then I'd expect some kind of cyber-vandalism law to be enacted. They can't prosecute based on hacking, because it isn't. But it could be argued you're 'defacing/destroying' digital property by editing to add content that knowingly will mess with their algs. Sooner than that though will be an addition to the EULA, that users cannot enter AI generated content or they agree to get fined, or some such nastiness.
The Cyberpunk RPG came out in 1988, and I was in my early 20s. Each decade since I've marvelled at how much closer to that dystopian world we've gotten, and the slope of the downward slide increases every decade.
Why do I say that?
Because the image of Reddit that's been in my head until today is of an Open Source type thing started by Aaron Schwartz. He was a founder, but that is not today's Reddit. I did some cursory digging and found Reddit is primarily owned (majority shareholder) by Advance Publications, Inc. These are the same people who own, or majorly own (primary or major shareholder): Conde Nast and all its subsidiaries (which now owns Ars Technica), American City Business Journals, Charter Communications, Warner Bros. Discovery, the Ironman Triathlons, many newspapers, Turnitin.com, and probably more. In 2019 Advance Publications was named the largest privately owned American company.
Re: Reddit appears to be restoring edited/deleted comments
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've got a decade old account on which I've made a habit of manually deleting comments older than 6 - 9 months, since they get so little visibility and there's no value in leaving a breadcrumb trail. Checking just now I see that comments up to 3 - 4 years old have been restored. I'm not going to speculate as to why (beyond agreeing it's more likely to be incompetence than malice) but in my case at least there are def…
I’m astounded and confused that you and a lot of other commenters are giving Reddit the benefit of the doubt. At a time when tensions between Reddit management and its users are at an all-time high, and both sides are maliciously striking back and forth, most commenters are assuming that an act like this is due to incompetence rather than malice? I don’t understand the thought process.
It's also worth noting that reddit admins have maliciously modified comments in the past.