Another update and possibly a solution for some case where posts were not properly deleted. There is a limitation in Powerdelete. Here is a link to a new version and alternatives:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/145fico/comment/jnl4xmr/
The restores could also be rollbacks from the serv...
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 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.
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.
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.
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
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?
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
EDIT: I mean, I agree that this is a new low even for social media. I think Stack Overflow made a similar statement when they stopped exporting to the internet archive, "their" content, not the user's content on their site. The users disagreed and I think the export has restarted, but it definitely shows you what the new group of CEOs think of their communities.
I'm definitely sticking to using only federated social media going forward, even for marketing.
Perhaps delete and replace the comment with text that explicitly claims copyright on the deleted message and denies Reddit a license to use the deleted content? It would be good to get a legal eagle willing to look at the Reddit user agreement and content licensing and see if there is a legally literate way of denying them use deleted content once it has been submitted.
You should bear in mind, PowerDeleteSuite doesn't get everything. It can only see what's in your reddit profile under New, Top, Hot & Controversial - there will be numerous posts that are too old with only 1 or a few karma that aren't displayed in these lists. In particular, if you go through your top posts of all time, you might find some replies to these posts that you made that the script did not see.
The GDPR archive gives a full list of all the comments. What we need is a FOSS script that can use these csv files to get everything. Apparently Shreddit can take the csv files, however you have to pay $15 to use this feature.
Currently I only have 2 comments still visible which for some reason the Power Delete tool couldn't remove. I will check back in a week though if someone can remind me, and see if any of mine have magically reappeared.
That link is just too request the bulk of your data. It's not a form to request deletion of all your data. Technically you could request that, but if they deny out ignore that, then there's not a whole lot you can do unless you're ready to take it to court.
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.
Been thinking about that. I don't think that overrules laws like the GDPR though - law triumphs over ToS. And under GDPR, consent can be withdrawn, you can't give an irrevokable consent.
My money is on this being a big due to the huge influx of comment updates and deletions. I can’t imagine they would do something this blatant on purpose.
Probably better to replace your comments with some gibberish generated by chatgtp instead of deleting them.
It will be much harder to figure out on mass scale if the edit was legit or not compared to them just looking for recently deleted comments or comments that mention something like “comment deleted by x tool”.