this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2023
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Reddit Migration

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### About Community Tracking and helping #redditmigration to Kbin and the Fediverse. Say hello to the decentralized and open future. To see latest reeddit blackout info, see here: https://reddark.untone.uk/

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Another update and possibly a solution for some case where posts were not properly deleted. Seems I jumped the gun on this and the restores haven't been intentional - at least not in this particular case.

There is a limitation in the popular Powerdelete that apparently prevents mass editing. Here is a link to a new version with a build-in delay and some other alternatives:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/145fico/comment/jnl4xmr/

There are other reported cases where manually deleted post reappeared or other scripts have been used, so this doesn't solve all issues but explains how posts that were both edited and deleted withPowerdelete weren't properly deleted and reappeared after subs went back live.

Update: As some have pointed out: the restores can be rollbacks from the server issues or post haven't been properly deleted due to subs being private during blackouts. Many have experienced the same issue, I can't explain how this happens. I'll just run the script again, try the GDPR request and delete my account.

Also worth noting: according to the ToS Reddit can actually do whatever they want with existing content, apparently we agreed to this when signing up.

#redditblackout #redditmigration #kbin #lemmy

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[–] [email protected] 77 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Worth noting is that a number of US states also have strong protection laws. So, delete you comments manually and then, if you're really trying to ensure that they delete your data, submit a data removal request that cites your locale's law on data removal.

Theeeeeen in 6 months or so, send a data retrieval request to make sure they followed through... and report them if they did not comply. Might as well make them pay for that data if they can't follow the rules.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Assuming that this is, in fact, not legal and if they have money that can be gone after, I assume that someone may start a class action suit. In theory, they're worth multiple billions, so...

An individual probably doesn't care much about whatever harm is done, as the damage is too small. But this is the kind of thing where a lawyer can walk away with a big payday by aggregating cases of many users and then getting a percentage of any payout.

I am not at all certain that it is not legal, though.

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[–] [email protected] 75 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

This could be worse than anything else they've done. If they claim they own the data, are they then not responsible for it like newspapers? Is it in their terms and conditions they are free to do whatever with posted information, do they have the rights to edit users comments but in doing so become a content provider and therefore responsible. Kicking mods out doesn't land you in court this seems high risk to be manipulating content. Doesn't matter why it was deleted or edited it was deleted or edited who gets to decide what version to restore. Either you are hands off or you own the data and are responsible for it and upheld to media standards.

Edit: found a snippit of the terms and conditions in a German GDPR thread, It appears it is their terms and conditions that after you post it they can do with it what they like, even adapt it. Either way that's not a reason to be gone.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

ToS like that does often not mean anything, they can write whatever they like but it doesn't mean they can legally enforce it. So if you are an artist posting a painting you made, reddit can't just say 'oop, it's ours now' same with text

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This is shitty of them to do but this is what people have been trying to tell us since the dawn of the internet. Nothing on the internet is EVER truly deleted

[–] [email protected] 68 points 1 year ago (39 children)

I think they may underestimate EU's response here.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

DSGVO take the wheel

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (4 children)

That is such a shitty move. Forcing subreddits to go back up is one thing, but as a european this feels very wrong from a data ownership standpoint and I'm not sure it's ok in the GDPR rules?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

I think we should actively keep track of Reddit restoring user's content without people's permission. Screenshots, timestamps, everything. Monitor it all.

Maybe if Reddit go ahead with their API change whilst treating their users like such disposable crap, we could reach out to the EU to inform them of Reddit's GDPR breaches. Maybe that'd lead to their new revenue from API charges disappearing into hefty EU fines.

Update: Maybe there's going to be some loophole about actually having to use the data deletion request via Reddit's UI for there to be an actually GDPR breach though thinking about it. Going to ask around some Law friends for advise

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago

They really want to fuck around GDPR? Are they really Musk level morons?

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Earlier this week I deleted all of my comments except for some in a private sub. I just checked and all the posts I deleted are back 🤬

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

There's certainly no chance this will backfire...

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's beyond fucked up.

But also very predictable.

I think it's safe to say this fiasco isn't going anywhere without a class action lawsuit or something.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

There is EU and GDRP which reddit have to comply with.

Reddit CEO is a moron thinking they can avoid getting slapped with a fine.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (5 children)

That's awful. I wonder if there's a way to automate deleting all of our posts and replies—and repeatedly run it on a schedule via a cron job or something, maybe once an hour or something. And let it run until their API becomes locked down.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And then replace it with a Selenium script afterwards.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

I used Redact to schedule a daily deletion of my comments and posts. Hope it works. Also, I will report it.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I deleted all my content but I did it over the span of a few days, to let the different caches around reddit to update with the new void, and my content is still deleted (so far).

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.

edit: Filling your previous content with random generated content also make it harder to restore because it is harder to spot, compared with the comments which are simply "deleted". Also, if all of it is really true, congratulation to reddit for demonstrating to everyone and specially the USA how useful the GDPR is for the citizen.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

I believe this is illegal for European (under GDPR).

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Would this actually be a GDPR breach? I was thinking about the right to erasure/to be forgotten earlier in relation to a post I saw about how your posts aren't deleted on other federated instances, if you delete them on your home server. But I figured it wasn't applicable because it's not personal data and I'm thinking the same about this Reddit issue. Can anyone set me straight?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, people have reported Twitter for failing to remove their tweets and places like the ICO are now actively investigating Twitter over this failure, see https://www.wired.co.uk/article/delete-twitter-dms-gdpr

Someone posted not too long ago that a person who was part of Twitter’s group over the GDPR - pre Musk - said the lawyers came to the conclusion that tweets were protected under the GDPR.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Wow, out of everything that’s happened involving Reddit over the past few weeks, this to me is the most damning and deserves the most attention.

I’m really curious to see how they try to spin this in the next PR piece and what the reactions will be.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Has anyone tried phoning a GDPR focused lawyer firm? I just did a google and they offer a "free consultation" I would like to get the facts 100% before raising my pitchfork.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Noyb.eu is the nonprofit you are looking for.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Thats messed up! fuck spez!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Motherfucker! I just checked my profile, and they DID restore the posts I edited+deleted with PowerDeleteSuite. Thankfully it's just the posts from the past week or so, I had deleted my entire 8 year history before that, and that stayed deleted. I'm assuming they monitored other API access calls past the days where the blackout started to restore those.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Same here. I’m a 12 year account on Reddit and I had been in the habit of deleting my history regularly due to an ex that likes to stalk my posts. Everything recent that I deleted this week is back but the stuff I deleted prior to that is still gone.

I just went back and edited it all again to state it’s been removed in protest in favor of moving to the fediverse.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

I manually deleted most of my comments but left a few and decided to go and edit them with AI rephrasing as someone suggested. I mostly deleted the older comments and got confused when I saw 2 comments reappear. This makes sense now.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Likely not the popular opinion here; but I’m not going to go through the trouble of re-deleting any posts they might have restored. That’s just additional frustration for me. I’m not going to go over to Reddit and provide them additional traffic to go look at something I did write on their platform at one point. I’m just moving on.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

wow I just checked and all my deleted comments are restored (used the power delete suite)

jokes on them, I’m petty enough to sit here and manually delete everything

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

Even if having backups of the data is legal, it seems highly doubtful that restoring data that a user intentionally deleted would be allowed.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I recently made a browser extension that deletes your reddit posts or comments. It's not quite as advanced as PowerDelete yet but it's easier to install and I'm actively developing it: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bulk-delete-reddit-posts/nbfdoajmaaohkohdnbpjakamhcaaleco?hl=en&authuser=0

Let me know if you try it!

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

If this is not a bug, it's pretty wild. I don't think this is even compliant to GDPR as for European users unless there is legal obligation or for archiving in public interest, scientific progress etc. I have a hard time seeing protection for Reddit here as it's just a social news site, there's no way around that. It's not a bundle of research papers and the police hasn't come knocking on their door asking them to recover content.

See The right to erasure (Article 17 & 19).

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

This just feels really shitty to me at like a basic level. The rest of the shenanigans were just your typical shitty corporate stuff. This feels a bit more like it could have pretty large ramifications.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

I’ve seen comments suggesting it’s something to do with PowerDelete. I used Shreddit to overwrite and delete mine and they’re still gone.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I deleted mine manually using the edit > delete on each comment individually and mine came back.

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[–] crazyminner 6 points 1 year ago

Just wait a bit then delete your data. They can't keep an eye on it forever.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

The Lord of Snoo, spez has unleashed a dick move towards the platform.

Gonna love the Snoo Platform, Inc. panic mode in action.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Does anyone know if we have similar rights under PIPEDA here in Canada? Can we use that to legally enforce deletion in the same way?

https://blog.rsisecurity.com/canadas-pipeda-vs-eus-gdpr-whats-the-difference/amp/

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

So, so, so glad I deleted my entire account. This is so unethical.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As I understand it (and I may not!) deleting your account leaves all your comments in place, but without your username.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

I'm sorry to say this but, they probably restored all of your posts too. It will just say "deleted" as your username but the posts and comments will be in their old place.

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