Reddit abandons user privacy - Ars Technica

I love how everybody is so busy about mining your behavior for ad tracking data and then like 2/3 of the ads I actually see are utterly irrelevant gut doctor / toenail fungus / 17 Most Embarrassing Topless Celebrity Moments crap.

(I think the reality is that they're mining that data to identify a small number of people susceptible to high-value scams - like getting addicted to an F2P mobile game and spending $1000s on it - and the rest of us just get generic infill)

And let me guess...there are a bunch of Redditors on Reddit posting on Reddit about how awful Reddit is. And they are giving each other gold stars and slaps on the back for how great their Reddit posts are on Reddit on how bad Reddit is.

Not in GDPR countries 😎

If you wanna keep your bookmarks and the subreddits (communities) that you're subscribed to before deleting your account, I made a free tool to help you store and offload that data.

It's called Reddit Account Manager, and it's 100% free.

You can also use it to manage your Lemmy account(s), of course.

I haven't been back to reddit since a couple days before the protests started, when I knew reddit was going to die and switched over to Lemmy. After reading this news I finally went back today and deleted my account. What a bunch of fuckin idiots in charge over there.

Reddit's announcement, authored by Reddit's head of privacy, going by "snoo-tuh" on the platform (Reddit has refused to confirm the identity of admins representing Reddit on the site),

Irony

It's a shame that so many people will still use it.

I guess they didn’t make API millions by charging usage fees? Scraping the bottom of the barrel now while people use the site less and less.

Ars and Reddit are under the same parent company, conde nast or however that's all structured. I also have noticed ars seems to write very frequently about Reddit, even if it is usually in a critical light.

I get mixed feelings about articles like this one.

They haven't been trustworthy in years! Reddit is heavily astroturfed by government agents. Ft Elgin was the "most reddit addicted" city and it's also where they conduct propaganda ops. They quietly scrubbed that fact. If you like reddit you must be waiting for your pension from uncle sam otherwise you're a zuck style dumb fuck

I read the announcement about changes to privacy on their website while signing in to delete my account literal second ago and clicked the link in the official post: https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/16tqihd/settings_updateschanges_to_ad_personalization/

Safety & Privacy Settings

I kid you not, this is what it shows:

Edit: misspelling

It's worth pointing out that Ars Technica's parent, Advance Publications, owns a stake in Reddit. And they have been giving no quarter to enshittifiers.

As I said in an earlier post, better get out now and migrate while the communities are still intact rather than slowly bleeding out due to these policies. There is going to be one kind of content on Reddit and that's the ad-friendly, corporate supported kind.

I think 99% of my interactions with Reddit these days are pulling RSS feeds, most of which just get marked as read. I almost never load the actual site anymore.

smug face of superiority for not using reddit, facebook, instagram, snapchat, onlyfans nor tiktok, from my linux machine 😏

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Reddit spokesperson Sierra Gamelgaard declined to provide further clarification when reached by Ars Technica for comment.

Meanwhile, Reddit's policy update aligns with its outspoken goals to become profitable and its plans to eventually go public.

Other privacy policy changes announced Wednesday include allowing users to choose to see "fewer" ads regarding alcohol, dating, gambling, pregnancy and parenting, and weight loss.

However, clickbait and shock value posts are a strong deviation from what people tend to treasure most about Reddit: real human advice, discussions, and insight.

A support page says Reddit's Contributor Program will avoid "fraud, spam, bad actors, and illegal activities" by putting users through Persona's Know Your Customer screening.

Advance Publications, which owns Ars Technica parent Condé Nast, is the largest shareholder in Reddit.

The original article contains 785 words, the summary contains 125 words. Saved 84%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

I've thought a lot about this, and I'd like to say: "Reddit can kiss my entire ass."

Glad I ripped that band aid off already. Only reason I go there is for buildapcsales now.

Finally made the jump and just deleted my account... Sad, but their own fault

I've wasted a lot of time. but not on reddit 🥀 These sites feel like the big 3 car co's. future is hard. some looking to cash out

I got a message from Reddit

https://old.reddit.com/r/u_cy_narrator/comments/16w4uzj/witness_the_carnage/

Reddit abandons users privacy

Better headline

Step 1: reanimate your old reddit account

Step 2: post inane borderline degen shit

Step 3: get every former redditor on lemmy to upboat your post

Step 4:????

Step 5: get rich

While this is the final straw for me, there is still one thing reddit is good for, searching: is [thing] worth it reddit. You were a good friend Snoo...

Thanks for the reminder. Reddit account deleted.

Well, if I hadn't already ditched it I would do so now.

This along with the new social credit, starting to wonder if Reddit is selling data to China. Say something bad about China or Winnie the Pooh and they at best turn you away, or at worst incarcerate you.

If they are storing a this data anyway to make the thing work (so you can go and un-upvote the thing you upvoted five years ago), how is "privacy" reduced if they also have the as system decide to show you an ad because people who upvoted that thing tend to click on the ad?

No new people or businesses are being given any new information bout anyone. Is it because what used to be a passive database is now starting to think, and your privacy is infringed because the system itself is now looking at you when you didn't expect it to?

whats wrong with personalized ads? is it much different from booking different TV channels for different audiences?

gentrification of reddit.
'you will all be replaced by yuppies who dont know what privacy is'