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Reddit appears to be restoring edited/deleted comments

kbin.social

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Re: Reddit appears to be restoring edited/deleted comments

#491

Post by Karawebnetwork »

Maximus9000 wrote: post #272
bunga-bunga wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don’t you just use throwaways? I stopped reusing usernames online long long ago.

The trouble with throw away accounts is that there is technology to link the accounts by comparing your writing style to other accounts. Hacker news had a good demonstration of that awhile back. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33755016

Some might call me paranoid, but I also change my writing style between sensitive accounts.

Not all, because that would be a bother, but between accounts where I'm a moderator and those where I'm a normal user, I make sure to change my mindset.

On some accounts, I translate everything I write twice for greater anonymity.

Re: Reddit appears to be restoring edited/deleted comments

#492

Post by lonjil »

rtsil wrote: post #404
e12e wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will be interesting if reddit conducts business (sells ads) in the EU. Hard to see how having such old backups of user content isn't in violation of the GDPR.

GDPR only covers personally identifiable data, which most of these messages are not. And even if they contain personally identifiable data, the user would need to request the deletion of these ¨PI data from reddit. I am not sure simply deleting your messages yourself counts as requesting the deletion of personal data under GDP.

> GDPR only covers personally identifiable data

the concept of 'personal data' under GDPR is quite broad. the mere presence of a username relates those messages to a possibly identifiable person. and asking for something to be deleted is asking for it to be deleted.

Re: Reddit appears to be restoring edited/deleted comments

#493

Post by edgineer »

411111111111111 wrote: post #385
edgineer wrote: post #336

This reinforces the adage (that used to be true) "nothing gets deleted from the internet" and so I am for it. I hope useful posts will be un-404'd.

The adage means something very different though. It's about the fact that once you've posted it, someone will have made a screenshot or scrape of the content, which will resurface at the most inopportune times. I.e what unddit.com did for reddit What're reddit decided to do here is almost certainly against european law and I expect we'll hear more about it over the following months.

Undesirable resharing of personal information is only one consequence. In my time on the internet I've known it to be said in the context of other consequences, be it archiving, digital archaeology, datahoarding, etc.

I do like legislation that stops big players from using their resources to be exploitive, and I understand the right to be forgotten for individuals.

The other edge of the sword is all the reasons why information wants to be free. I am biased towards this side.

Either way, I think it's important to remember to operate under the axiom that nothing is deleted from the internet. Deletion (by legislation or by privacy tools and services) is a cludge, and saving and resharing is the natural force.

Re: Reddit appears to be restoring edited/deleted comments

#495

Post by 93po »

kazinator wrote: post #460
aroundtown wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For my account, it restored to the actual original content, not the overwritten.

That means they went back to five-year-old backups. Delete actions which you took five years ago were undone. This more or less tends to confirm that Reddit management handed down a mandate to restore everything being deleted, not only recently but going back as far as they have backups. The restoration isn't perfect; it doesn't patch back the posts into your timeline, so when you search for your own posts, it appear…

Sucks for me bc I always wipe all my comments and then delete the account every few months. I don’t have my old accounts to re-delete comments

Re: Reddit appears to be restoring edited/deleted comments

#496

Post by butlike »

randomdata wrote: post #415
crazygringo wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit is free, you don't need to pay to write comments. You're not paying for anything. And whether future users find value is up to them to decide, not you. You can't read their minds. And you're going out of your way to delete something you already wrote. That's extra work for you. Why do you hate the future users who might find value?

There is most definitely a cost in preparing the comments I write. I have to pay for my energy, pay for the lost opportunity, and I have to pay to recoup past investments that came together to allow me to formulate the comment. As I find entertainment in writing the comments, I am willing to pay the price, but it absolutely does not come free. Other people don't enter the picture. There is no hate towards them, they…

Your bot didn't pass the Turing test.

Re: Reddit appears to be restoring edited/deleted comments

#498

Post by comradesmith »

kazinator wrote: post #460
aroundtown wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For my account, it restored to the actual original content, not the overwritten.

That means they went back to five-year-old backups. Delete actions which you took five years ago were undone. This more or less tends to confirm that Reddit management handed down a mandate to restore everything being deleted, not only recently but going back as far as they have backups. The restoration isn't perfect; it doesn't patch back the posts into your timeline, so when you search for your own posts, it appear…

I don’t think backups were used, likely all comments are just soft deleted and versioned.

So I think they just toggled off soft deleted comments, and reverted to older comment versions. That might show up as comments missing their added “edit:”s.

Another commenter here said they think this was an accident, I’m inclined to agree

Re: Reddit appears to be restoring edited/deleted comments

#499

Post by hedora »

buro9 wrote: post #10
kaimac wrote: post #2

Clicking on the title of the kbin post takes you here where there are more comments: https://mstdn.games/@chris/110553477682106144 This seems like such an unwise thing for them to do that I feel like there must be another explanation.

This is definitely unwise. I run forums and have done for +20y. Reddit may have a user agreement that allows them to use the data forever, but historical versions that were not visible (effectively soft-deleted on edit) puts this into a risk area as it removes the ability for someone to control the data thus transferring ownership far more explicitly to Reddit. Reddit should be very cautious here... you only get a lo…

They already apparently provided a 2TB data dump of everything up to march of this year.

That's shockingly small. Like, can we just build some retro love-child of unison and NNTP, and just keep a copy of all the news groups on our laptops / the ones we care about on our phones?

Anyway, from a liability perspective, undeleting stuff older than that seems to be a moot point.

Re: Reddit appears to be restoring edited/deleted comments

#500

Post by dmix »

Leherenn wrote: post #486
dmix wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What business value would it provide?

Reddit has value no just through it's "new/live" content. Plenty of people search for "$topic Reddit" and fond some old threads with useful information. If the content is deleted, Reddit usefulness goes way down.

So you’re saying deletions are so wide scale they decided to undelete every comment in the past couple days? And this is the new policy?
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