2y ago

I just deleted 12 years of content. Feels weird

I nuked my Reddit accounts today. Deleted all comments and posts, then the accounts themselves. The tool I used showed each comment as it was deleted, and it was bittersweet.

I watched old gaming and movie discussions I barely remember appear and then get flagged as deleted. Communities I once participated in and then moved on as the years past flashed by. I remembered how I felt back then, and then watched them scroll on into oblivion.

Now I feel...I guess it's grief. Sadness for that part that's gone. Sadness that it'll never be there again. Like footprints on a beach wiped away by the tide. It's like it never happened. There is no trace.

And I feel anger. Mad that it came to this. Mad that I let a corporation have so much of my time and thoughts. Mad that they made it clear my life was nothing but a product to them.

It's over now. Time for a new chapter.

Anyone else have strong feelings about losing a part of the past like this?

91 comments

13 years account here. I’ve been postponing doing the same thing. In the last months I’ve grown opposed to Facebook, then Twitter, then finally Reddit. I’ve come to the conclusion that any form of corporate social media is harmful to individuals and communities.
Every discussion you’ve had has contributed to how you are today and that remains.
- And done. Bye Musk. Bye Zuck. By Spez.
- Why are they harmful? Are you saying you didn't learn a single thing while you were there? Redditors helped me greatly. Reddit was simply the platform through which we discussed incredible ideas and life tips, and I literally found and made friendships on there that we went off Reddit for and have lasted since 2014+; I even talk to one such online friend daily, and am very focused on helping another who's in dire straits IRL. Additionally, I learned a fair bit about CSS upfront as a mod of various small subs.
  If you really think "any form of corporate social media is harmful" then I have to question how you were using it.
  
  You’re conflating the platform owners with their users. In case that wasn’t clear, I’m criticizing the former. There are many users doing good, but the platform owners are ultimately there to monetize the users’ attention and will mess with the way people relate to each other and to the world in the process.
  Also maybe chill? I never said "I didn’t learn a single thing while I was there" and I don’t get how you "have to question how I was using it" to understand what I’m getting at.
I did last weekend, and 8 year old Reddit account plus my Twitter account, deleted all content I've ever published. I also uninstalled RiF and Twitter.
It felt weird but now it's liberating. I just check Jerboa and Tusky from time to time and I feel that Beehaw and lgbt.tech are such open places, far from the toxicity of Reddit and Twitter.
I feel you, but I know you'll feel better again soon! 🐝❤️
I know how you feel. Seeing how much i had contributed to them over the years was crazy. I overwrote all mine with a protest message and several hours later deleted the accounts. The site has changed for the worse with just all of us taking steps like this
- That’s a great idea, I think I wanna steal it
Just make sure to go back in a day or two to make sure your comments/posts stay deleted. Reddit restored all my posts/comments that I edited using Power Delete Suite back to their original content.
- Another report of deleted Reddit comments/submissions being restored: https://mastodon.social/@chris@mstdn.games/110553478094196259
  
  I had a few posts I left up, and I found that comments from when I had previously chatted with people were still there despite having a 100% cleared comment history. So, I'm wondering if a bunch of my old comments are actually out there, even though my profile says I have none.
13 years here, I nuked all the comments with Redact, but today I checked my comments on reddit and I still have a few dozens, so I renuked them. I will see tomorrow if some comments reappear?
I think I'll keep my account, but logoff from everywhere
EDIT: I think all the comments behind private sub cannot be deleted, this is why this morning the tool found new ones
- Gonna do the same. Nuke all my comments and keep the account. Just change the password to something unintelligible.
- You need subs to not be private to see/delete comments on them. So I'd recommend waiting for those are are going to come back to come back, then re-shred the posts. If that is your goal.
  If you use Redact.dev, you can automate/schedule this process.
went through and deleted everything I could on my profile. I don't feel bad about it I killed all my other social media accounts years ago. Life is easier that way for sure.
unfortunately I cant seem to actually delete the account itself though. that button just results in "Something went wrong while deleting your account. Come back later and try again." How convenient that must be for their sales data.
if anyone knows how to get around that please share
- figured it out. got to go through the old.reddit.com to do this apparently.
  
  Good to know, thank you!
  I'll be doing this for my Reddit account before the 30th rolls around and these deletion bots stop working.
I spent so much time there on reddit spreading knowledge of the things I had experience with and was passionate about (mostly piercing care, plant care, and science related stuff, which Ill admit is a pretty random combination of things).
For now, I can't bring myself to delete it.
But I do look forward to spreading the things I learned to a brand new audience, so Im keeping my head high even if Im sad its come to this
- ...Now I'm wondering what Reddit does with user data... and who they're selling it to. 🤔
  
  Don't know, but so far it seems like most marketing algorythms don't know what on earth to do with me, cause I really be here on internet doing very specific things that don't necesarilly relate.
  They throw in the most random stuff, sometimes its things from countries Im not from, other times they think Im male, others that Im female.
  On a very funny instance I got a youtube add (won't elaborate on why addblock wasn't on) recruiting me to join the sugar daddy / sugar baby business(?????? (still don't know if they wanted me to be the sugar daddy or the sugar baby, cause sure as hell I aint got the money and I aint got the goods).
  
  Considering you can append any Google search with "reddit" and find something there means the entire site is indexed by Google, so there's that at a minimum...
Imagine all the real life conversations you have had that isn't documented in any way and you have forgotten ever took place. People that you dont even know you've forgotten. That is a part of life and even if old conversations are valuable, they are not as valuable as making new ones.
You post is almost a poem. It was nice to read.
If I can offer a different more positive view. You connected with other humans, and shared your experiences and love for your hobbies. Yes it happened on reddit, but it can happen again somewhere else.
I know this is quoted to death but here are some wise words from Dr. Seuss:
Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.
Rando internet hug
I still have my account left because I'm an incurable optimist. Or rather, realist. Spaz can't keep getting away with this shit forever you know? At some point, the board is going to look at his childish antics disguised as corporate governance and say "Hey, this guy is a big fat phony!" and then.. his goose is going to be cooked.
Still, deleting tons of shit is rough. I did the same for my Digg account which had a few years on it.
But .. see it like this, you used your voice and you said "fuck you!" and left. That counts for something.
The fediverse and lemmingverse reminds me of how Reddit used to be. Sure, fewer posts, but much more salience. More actual content instead of repost bots. Less Onlyfans and more actual horny people posting stuff. More nerds and less HURR DURR retards.
I know I jumped off the cliff to be with you fellow Lemmings, but damn if it isn't fun!
- I think you are an optimist. Something that has always rubbed me the wrong way is how aggressively unempathetic Reddit is. They prioritize their own convenience and will ridicule you for caring.
  This has been no different. I just saw the NFL sub came back online and people are near-unanimously livid at the mods and endlessly mocking them. Apparently they even made a secondary sub to go to. And it's the off-season.
  
  Well, we'll see. One of Bloombergs columnists just fired a warning shot across their bow by pointing out that they're rapidly losing their core audience and that a migration is practically guaranteed at this point because of their actions. Also bear in mind that Reddit is using astroturfers to aggressively push their "fuck the mods" narrative. Most people aren't buying it since now everybody is starting to see just how uniform their talking points are. And mind you, just as with the whole Wizards Of The Coast debacle, when financial institutions and newspapers start telling you that you're screwing up your stuff, that's real bad because investors tend to listen to those before making a decision.
  What Reddit's management could do would be to simply scapegoat ol Spaz and feed him to the wolves by firing him and then saying "We listened to you, here's [reasonable pricing]" Then they could not only restore their brand, but keep moderators on staff AND cash in on people doing volunteer work in creating/moderating content while paying for it.
  However, it seems that often, business intelligence people seem to lack basic insight into human motivation and empathy. And that's something that's been literally confirmed in science.
It's bittersweet to me, I love that there is new opportunities ahead and I am excited to see where technology goes from here, but there is that sadness that comes from seeing something you really loved be destroyed. I have seen things come and go so many times, I try to look on the bright side, and accept the change. No use dwelling on something you can't personally change.
My account was 14 years old and I had that same feeling. I've been pretty disgruntled with Reddit for nearly a decade, so I'm more surprised that I managed to stick with that site for so long.
I nuked a 13- and an 11-year old account yesterday after commenting over then deleting each comment. I'm a bit sad, but if I'm honest, I've been wanting a reason to drop reddit for a while now. It just hasn't been the same in a long time. It's still young here, but I like what this has the potential to become rather than what might have been if things were different over there. Ever onward!
I deleted all of the posts and comments on my 10 year-old account. After seeing what established Reddit accounts are going for on eBay, I'm considering selling.
Beautifully written, and moving. I think I understand how you feel, and I empathize with you.
Please check that your comments and accounts stay deleted!
It seems Reddit is restoring deleted comments.
- I wonder if this is a GDPR violation for us Europeans.
  
  It really doesn't sound good for them..
- yeah mine were restored after 1-2 days
  I had used the power delete suite, so they must be tracking if users are submitting hundreds of delete requests in a small time window
  https://kbin.social/m/RedditMigration/t/34112
As much as I'm unhappy with reddit I don't think I could bring myself to delete my comments. Seems like a loss for the internet at large to do so, nothing more frustrating to be searching for help on a topic only to find that the solution was removed.
- It is a loss of information. That is not your fault. The blame lies at the feet of Reddit corporate management. The users benefit from your information, and even the visitors who find their way via Google or whatever. But the one who benefits more than anyone else is Reddit. And the thought of them benefiting from my and your contributions while fucking over their entire userbase for what amounts to nothing more than greed makes me sick.
- I guess I'd be hypocritical if I did. I get so annoyed at threads that go something like
  "Hey, how do I degauss the furbilnator so that it works correctly again?"
  [deleted]
  "That worked perfect, thanks kind sir or madam!"
- Or when the solution post is still there, but someone commented something now unreadable on it and everyone just goes like "yeah, that is a serious flaw in that solution,thanks for pointing this out! But as long as you are aware of that, you're fine."
When I deleted my account a few years back, I felt similar but mostly relief actually.
The sad part is that we spend so much of our lives in our phones. I don't like that it's reddit that gets the data, it's much better if it's not under some corporation, but I wish we enjoyed our lives more instead. But they are often boring and routine since our daily energy goes into working for someone so we can pay bills and have a place.
Similar feelings here, but we can make new content! https://youtube.com/shorts/dN5sn37vNGs?feature=share
doing the same as we speak. My replacement text is "Moved to Lemmy because Reddit has become greedy with data generated by their community"
- is there a way to mass edit your comments? I'd love to change all my comments to "Moved to kbin/lemmy"
  
  Use powerdeletesuite it does what you ask for and you can download all posts and comments before overwriting as an excel file
I'm a nostalgic person by nature. My impulse has always been to save rather than delete. I could never do this. In fact, I did the opposite; I made a GDPR request for my data and ran a script to download all of the posts still available in the API. No response on the GDPR request yet but they're allowed time.
Personally, I always deleted and re-created accounts after a year at most. Still have my current but I've hardly used it since migrating.
I did this earlier this week to my 10yr old account. I used redact to delete my posts and comments as well. I didnt think it was fair since I'm one of those Apollo users.
- Could you explain to someone who is not.techy how they might do this? I typically access Reddit by Android phone. Would I need to use a computer?
  
  redact.dev is available on literally all major platforms
@mtalon Didn't you get to download your data in any way?
I deleted my 11 year old reddit account just an hour ago. I first overwrote all comments with one promoting lemmy with instructions on how to choose an instance.
No desire to download my data (just more crap to have) and seeing posts as they are deleted is likely one more time than I would have looked at them otherwise.
Ya, you know I haven't opened reddit since the blackout started. I removed "slide" from my phones home screen.
It's kinda sad, but I'm rediscovering RSS, now I've found kbin, and Im fine. I think not mindlessly scrolling reddit after my main interests have been covered has been nice for my brain.
What was the Name of the Tool?
I can't bring myself to delete stuff like that, in the same way that I don't like throwing away books. If I post less on Reddit so be it, and if I eventually stop then meh, but I want my post history to still be there.
I couldn't truly nuke my account. I'm studying for mcat and r/MCAT has a ton of better explanations for aamc (test maker) practice tests.
I sort use Lemmy 90% and reddit 10%.
I also installed blacklist to filter out reddit content (their is a toggle to show hidden reddit searches in worst case if needed). This kinda helps give visibility to other sites.
I also did this, 6 years old account, all gone.
It was a great decision cause now I can contribute here
- It would be great to contribute tho. I tried to upload some stuff but most of it didn't go through. Hopefully kbin will soon be somewhat capable to deal with the traffic or many people will lose interest.
  
  What did you tried to upload? kbin.social is working fine for me.
here's a question, wouldn't it be more impactful to encourage users to redact with a protest statement promoting fedverse first?
assuming they're doing a 30 day backup scheme then this becomes part of their working set going forward. messing with the data in this way especially if we can do it in volume might make it harder for LLMs to extract useful information from our noise.
we then can then start deleting our posts as a second protest after that.
thoughts?
- I really just wanted to be done and gone from reddit, to be honest. My reaction when something like this happens isn't to make a big scene. I just delete my content and vanish into the ether. Only time I actually made a farewell post was Facebook, and that was just to let my friends/family know how to continue to contact me. With Twitter I just nuked my posts and killed the account.
  Reddit can probably filter/censor any sort of fediverse spam anyway, so it just seemed like extra steps at this point.
For those asking, I used redact.dev to delete my stuff. It's available on lots of platforms including mobile.
Yeah. I'm feeling like doing the same. I did not post much, and what I did, did not gain much traction. But I think it's time to leave that place.
I was going to overwrite mine after 14 years but a significant event made me hold off. My home city in the UK has been in the news for all the wrong reasons and r/nottingham is useful to keep up with events without having to trawl through the mainstream media and all the right-wing trolling that follows them. Maybe next week when I get back home and things have calmed down.
Nope, I did the same yesterday without looking back. I feel happy not to use this corporate crap anymore.
Over a decade on my account, not sure the actual year. I won't be nuking my account, personally. I'm happy with kbin for now and haven't opened reddit since Monday.
- Same here for reddit. I won't remove my account just yet, but have unsubbed from a lot of fluff subs I was a part of.
  Once RiF goes away I'll use desktop when needed for searches, but I never actually sit on it at a desktop. I'm hopeful all subs I use will come over, but some may not. Namely homelab and homelabsales.
I had this feeling when deleting another social media account. On a good note, it's fleeting. Now most are in the void for me.
can anyone recommend an easy tool to do this? I don't want to leave anything behind they can scrape and profit from.
I am struggling to go and do it myself but this helps seeing someone with 12 years of history. Would love to be able to download the 10,000+ pages of stuff I wrote though to not lose it forever.
- To help, remember that those old comments are not really of any use to you anymore. Now, they are simply a resource for Reddit to mine for profit. Ditching them doesn't deprive you of anything, but it does prevent them from making money off your work and content.
- You can. Reddit will let you request a dump of your data. It's what I'm doing on my 11 yr old account, and once I have that for my own archives I'll nuke the account.
Radical problems require radical solutions.
I wasn't an active Redditor, and so far I like this community much better. Might change as the place gets more and more inhibitors.
I don’t delete my data (posts) because once you google a problem and you realize that a solution that you are looking at is written by you few years back you know you do a good job and you could be saving your future self an headache.
Why delete though? Its all still there in Reddit's database.

91 comments