That first one… It makes me laugh. It has never affected me when companies use derogatory or belittling language. I decline them with a smile on my face but I can see how it might work on others.
Dude barged in Lemmy 2 months ago, made 40+ posts with average of 20 comments. I’d consider that performance, translated to Reddit size over 5 years, to earn quite the lower percentile among the posters. So yeah, Reddit is probably sitting on a small fortune thanks to this generous person.
I’m not sure about what the backup schedule and stuff has to do with it, but I don’t think it helps much:
deleted posts don’t come up in Google searches after a while
deleted comments might be counted in the comment count on a post someone navigates to (not sure), so at most the post will initially appear to have more content which might get someone to click
Marginal change at best, it’s probably not worth your time thinking about it
I really don’t understand why companies use these tactics. Makes me instantly hate them and leave their website/cancel purchase processes etc. never to return again unless it’s absolutely completely unavoidable. Rather pay a bit more than dealing with scummy/scammy businesses.
Yeah but you are not the average customer. It is the same logic for spam (& chain) emails: so long as it works on a sufficient (even if small) number of people, it makes it worth their while. And then like every conflict situation ever, most people just put up with it and remain neutral. Hence, they continue to do it - b/c they can (get away with it).
PowerDeleteSuite was a good tool for overwriting your comments and deleting them. Now you need a rate-limited fork of it. It still works, but I don’t have the link handy.
Edit all of your comments and posts to some useless text, then delete them.
Overwriting or editing a post will almost certainly just create a new revision of it in their database. All these tools work on the basis that doesn’t happen, but that deletion is a flag rather than a drop, which is pretty inconsistent. The reality in every large cms/forum software I’ve used is that revisions are the norm.
Reddit have the ability to keep all revisions of all posts made on their servers - they may even be legally required to do so. If a police agency requires evidence relation to a post on reddit linked to terrorism, they’re not going to be pleased if it is so easily eradicated. Some people think that GDPR gives them the absolute right for their data to be removed - but not if it conflicts with other laws and legal requirements, and even sometimes commercial interests (See “legitimate interest”)
Bottom line is - if you don’t want something to potentially exist forever, don’t post it on the internet and pass control of it to others.
You’re saying there is no point, and the comment below agrees with you, because the only point is that it removes threads and that’s getting old.
No it’s not getting old, that’s the entire point of deleting posts. Reddit should not get post traffic through google for something I did, and I can take that away. Me alone won’t have a big impact, but if we all do it Reddit will have more struggles.
In order of efficacy:
Don’t post to Reddit: this is what reddit needs to keep going. Reddit doesn’t produce anything.
If you have popular posts people come back to (like help communities) delete them, this still drives traffic and app downloads for reddit.
Commenting/upvoting/downvoting on posts drives engagement. If you have to visit reddit, don’t click on votes and don’t comment.
A reminder that reddit is still struggling to IPO and sell off, in large part due to the.exodus.
Dude I’m not interested in going scorched earth on one of the most useful repositories of practical information and discussion, and I’m disturbed that you’re so zealous to do so.
For fucking real. If I ever come across a niche question about some obscure router setting and the only answer on the internet was some comment in a ten year old Reddit post and the comment says “DELETED BY SUCH AND SUCH APP - fuck u/spez” I’m gonna cry.
That should be the only way, but I seriously doubt that Reddit admins would keep the links intact in that case. Out of their greed and malice they would probably mess with the Lemmy link, then put the blame narrative on the poster for deleting/making the information unavailable.
It can be a bit annoying like how c/hackernews post only external links with topic titles, but that is the (temporary) cost of freedom and privacy.
Yeah as someone who has gotten into Linux and DIY computer builds in the last year, I’ve been pretty sad at some deletions. Ultimately the fault is on Reddit itself but still pretty sad.
Yeah, looking up how to do something on an 8 year old post and finding deleted comments is getting really old. It’s even worse now that Google’s search engine has gone down in a bullshit flaming AI crapshoot and adding reddit to your search is the only way to find a human answer anymore.
Personally it brings me joy to see that you’re falling on empty posts from top google searches, and hope you find many more in the future. You’re just saying that you prefer to give money to Reddit if it’s convenient for you.
That’s the entire point of leaving reddit with our 10+ years of contribution; leaving reddit wasn’t convenient for me, I’m not gonna help it be convenient for you. Get rekt spez.
Your ad blockers and “not logged in” protections aren’t actually protections. You’re still tracked on VPN and icognito. Sure now it’s not necessarily your account (although they can make good guesses), but to them it’s someone. Every month youre making it on charts of “real active user data”, helping reddit continue to look profitable as a business. They’ll likely be able to hold on a bit longer and get funding until adblockers go away.
Just visiting reddit isn’t in my list though, it doesn’t help reddit that much. Either way I don’t see why I should leave my helpful content up for others to view. I don’t get to pick to show my post only to adblock people, so OP definitely has an impact deleting them.
That’s totally fair, I deleted my comments and account as well. Definitely not interacting with the site anymore besides the occasional search for niche info
Users deleted comments was the only power we really had. How is reddit worth anything when all the people who shared information now lead to deleted comments?
I deleted a lot of my guides because of reddit. I still have them, but they’re no longer online due. Reddit is even kind enough to say that my account which I deleted no longer exists, maybe because it was banned. So that’s nice, all of us who deleted it in protest have been labeled as banned users.
I’ve had to use search “reddit” a couple times for various niche things but I stopped after multiple “answers” were just directing to deleted comments.
Did you delete them outright or modify the text and then delete it? That is the tinfoil hat way! If you lived in Europe you could request your data to be deleted. You can also request your data and they are supposed to comply at some point. If you did that you could see what they have.
The rabbit hole will drive you a little bonkers so maybe don’t overthink it for now and take a look at www.reveddit.com and archive.org to see if your username pops up.
Just an FYI but if you posted anything prior to March 2023, the Pushshift project archived it. Even if you requested Reddit itself to remove all of your data, everything will exist in that archive forever.
They monetize your posts by serving ads next to them. If no one can see the content, it’s not monetized. The other thing is using them to train language models and such. That’s a little more abstract, and hard to account for.
Also, not sure if this is still a good way to do things, but there are tools to overwrite all your comments with useless text before deleting it. The thinking is that reddit and any third party websites aren’t going to bother storing multiple versions of a deleted comment.
Yes, the important point here is editing all posts, let them sit a day so they are snapshot and then delete. They will typically only restore from the last snapshot.
Of my 2000+ deleted comments only a handful were restored by them. I just re-edited them with more spez scorn.
Well slightly different topic but I have to accept that damn Google ‘privacy’ thing to be able to develop for the vr headset that I paid for. We really need stronger laws to handle these practices.
Yeah! You see it? At the end of the day, everyone, even if they want to become independent from these invasive policies, must accept and eat these policies.
Well I didn’t accept it and will purchase another headset.
For my work I use different accounts. But I know some developers wouldn’t accept it for their work either. They only use foss. But ya you need enough leverage and the right market.
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