I just found out that not all of my Reddit comments had been deleted despite my profile page showing otherwise. : RedditMigration@kbin.social

I just found out that not all of my Reddit comments had been deleted despite my profile page showing otherwise. (kbin.social)

submitted 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) by anon@kbin.social to c/RedditMigration@kbin.social

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TL;DR: even if your delete script confirms a full wipe and your Reddit profile page shows zero comment, there may still be comments left over (that you can find through a search engine and delete manually on Reddit).

Weeks ago, I used redact.dev to delete all my Reddit comments (thousands of them over 10+ years). Redact.dev confirmed a full wipe, and my Profile > Comments page on Reddit confirmed I had no comment left.

Yet, as of today, Google still returns dozens of results for “$myredditusername site:reddit.com”. It’s not just Google’s crawler lagging; when I follow those links, those comments are still visible on the Reddit website, under my username, where I have the ability to manually delete them.

Thankfully, I hadn't yet nuked my account, because I knew of other users whose deleted comments got reinstated (although that was thought to be caused by the deletion script exceeding the API rate limit; supposedly a different case, as those missed comments would still show in the Profile page).

spez: edited for clarity.

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[–] cassetti@kbin.social 9 points 3 years ago (2 children)

I don't trust those snakes. I'm working on code to use reddit's website and edit comments one at a time (one per minute so they don't think it's bot activity) and I'm going to deploy the code a month or two from now after the API is gone - because I want them to think they've "won" before I over-write and then erase a decade's worth of content

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[–] elboyoloco@lemmy.world 3 points 3 years ago (1 child)

Is this something you would be able to share with others when it's finished. Or put it on Github and people can make suggestions or changes?

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[–] cassetti@kbin.social 3 points 3 years ago

So I'm not a traditional programmer - I don't use a lot of the common software and such. I have a lot of prior experience using AutoItScript automated software so I'll probably use that to mimic keystrokes and clicks on my computer screen once I have programmed exact positions for things - it'll likely be a very specific set of code for my computer.

But I may create an account on github and share if there's enough interest lol

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[–] TimeSquirrel@kbin.social 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

So it scrapes the page manually? I was thinking of writing a small python program myself to do that.

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[–] cassetti@kbin.social 2 points 3 years ago

More simple than that - I'll likely use AutoItScript for windows - literally automate clicking links or simulating keystrokes (like the tab key) until it reaches the desired link then clicking the edit function, revising text, tab to the save button, saving change, and repeat over and over.

It's crude and inefficient, but I have over twenty years experience using the code for various small tasks so I'm sure I'll get the job done.

Just not sure when I want to start - I feel like they are still playing tricks un-deleting content and such for people using automated API code. So for now I've simply blocked reddit at the router level for another month or two before I go back and start writing my code to automate the deletion of 10+ years worth of content.

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[–] RoboRay@kbin.social 8 points 3 years ago* (1 child)

Reddit is broken. It's not unusual for some of your comments to get disconnected from your account profile and not show up there anymore.

They still belong to your account so you can delete them from the actual thread... Just not from your profile.

It's been this way for years... Just most people don't notice because they don't try to clear out their entire history.

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[–] DarkThoughts@kbin.social 1 point 3 years ago

Or when replies to a now removed comment ended up as top level comment, making reading the comments sometimes super confusing. Reddit's backend is probably nothing but spaghetti code. Hence why the redesign & mobile app are both also such piles of garbage. It would likely need a complete rewrite, but they probably don't have any sort of way to do that and maintain all the old legacy content. That's also a good reason to go closed source, especially if you want to become a traded company. Investors are probably not having the hots for garbage code that everyone can look at & criticize.

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[–] Pandantic@kbin.social 5 points 3 years ago (2 children)

I believe that “0 comments” you can see is limited to about 1000. There’s a list of your comments that are viewable by your profile page, and that only caches the first 1000 in any category (top, new, controversial, etc).

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[–] anon@kbin.social [S] 2 points 3 years ago (1 child)

Interesting - do you have more details about that? I would expect the “top 1K” query to show the leftovers, which would have become the next most top/controversial/etc after the original top 1K got nuked.

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[–] Pandantic@kbin.social 3 points 3 years ago (1 child)

Okay, I’m not sure where it originated, but here’s a link to a relevant comment. I read it in a post about deleting Reddit comments when I first started exploring the fediverse, and I’m not sure I can find it but iirc, a Reddit admin confirmed that when you check your posts, it only shows the top 1000 and comments are only pushed off this list for “new” additions, and the list is not repopulated when you delete things. Therefore, if you delete all your comments, then check the list, it will show none (or if you delete 100 comments, it will show only 900, etc). Something about how these lists are populated in Reddit’s system. It is also relevant that some of the Reddit delete programs out there use this list and so will never delete all your comments.

I will keep looking for the original post tho.

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[–] anon@kbin.social [S] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

Thank you. I’m boosting your reply as I hadn’t heard of this behavior before (as I’m sure many others) and it’s the most plausible explanation for what’s going here, i.e., not malicious intent from Reddit but rather sloppy design of the profile’s comments feed and how it pulls data.

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[–] abff08f4813c@kbin.social 1 point 3 years ago

yeah, i've been trying to get the word out for ages, https://kbin.social/m/RedditMigration/t/47320/PSA-If-you-have-more-than-1000-posts-more-than

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[–] ono@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 years ago (2 children)

Close.

Each of Reddit's listings (top submissions, recent comments, etc.) is generated from a database index. Those indexes are limited to 1000 entries, by dropping older ones as new ones arrive, and they don't re-index for deletions.

That means that once a listing goes over 1000 items, the oldest items can no longer be found through it. The messages are still in the database somewhere, but can only be reached from some other index (different sorting order) or a search or a direct link.

So, the messages are not being deleted and then restored; they're not being deleted in the first place, because the tools have no way to find them.

This is why a formal data deletion request is often more effective than a deletion tool on Reddit.

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[–] Pandantic@kbin.social 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

Thank you for the clarification!

And I think if you get your GDPR data request from Reddit, you can get the direct links and that allows some of the comment deletion/editing tools to do their full job, but I’m not sure on the full details on that.

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[–] abff08f4813c@kbin.social 2 points 3 years ago

Correct, github shreddit for example can do this, it has builtin support for checking the GDPR archive and finding comments and posts to delete/overwrite that way.

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[–] ColdCreasent@lemmy.ca 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

But they have refused in the past to comply with a formal deletion request. They say, you may delete your account, but if you want your comments/submissions deleted, then you will have to do all of them yourself. My source is Louise Rossman on YouTube talking about how Reddit is willing to do illegal things to stop people leaving their platform.

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[–] abff08f4813c@kbin.social 2 points 3 years ago (1 child)

For the path of least resistance, getting the copy of the archive and then using a tool like github shreddit to delete works 100% without needing to do anything beyond setting up an API key manually.

To refuse to comply with a formal deletion request (where reddit does the deleting instead of you (even via a tool like shreddit)) is illegal, and reddit should lose in the end, but it will take some years go to through the courts and such.

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[–] ColdCreasent@lemmy.ca 1 point 3 years ago

I appreciate the input of a link/name of the GitHub that can delete comments. I agree they should lose in the end for refusing to delete all content and it’s just a matter of getting them there.

Also, anyone still planning to delete their comments and then delete their account: make sure your comments are gone and then wait a few weeks to make sure the comments stay gone.

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[–] eleitl@lemmy.world 5 points 3 years ago

My data takeout request arrived yesterday, so next I'll be filing a GDPR request which I will use to rewrite my history before deleting it and then filing another GDPR request which then better be empty.

[–] thingsiplay@kbin.social 5 points 3 years ago* (1 child)

@anon Reddit is known for bringing deleted comments back, without your consent. That's especially bad for people who also delete the account, because they have no control anymore (I mean even less). Pretty scummy. More people should be aware of this issue.

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[–] Madison_rogue@kbin.social 2 points 3 years ago* (1 child)

It looks like that's the case. I found a comment that was mine from 10 months ago. It looks as if Reddit recovered my deleted comments after I deleted my account.

At this point, I don't care. I left all that behind.

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[–] quirzle@kbin.social 2 points 3 years ago (2 children)

Is it possible the sub was private when you deleted the comments? This and known, since-fixed issues with PowerDeleteSuite explain nearly all of the "undeleted" comments I've looked into in-depth.

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[–] Madison_rogue@kbin.social 1 point 3 years ago

No, the sub wasn't private. They participated only for the two day blackout.

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[–] anon@kbin.social [S] 1 point 3 years ago (9 children)

I used redact.dev and confirmed on reddit.com that all my comments were deleted well before the blackouts.

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[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 years ago (1 child)

Don't understand why people are surprised that a private company would like to hold on to your data and keep it active no matter what you want or think or do. It's their system, they can do whatever they want with it regardless of what you want. This isn't about morals, it's just business.

I have four or five accounts on Reddit ... I'm not sure because I haven't logged to one or two of them in years.

I'm just abandoning the accounts ... I got off the site about a month and a half ago and I haven't used my accounts since ... and it will stay that way. I won't be creating any more activity with that dumb site ... anything you do there is just adding to their monetization of your activity ... the best thing to do is to do nothing ... absolutely nothing.

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[–] abff08f4813c@kbin.social 2 points 3 years ago (1 child)

Don’t understand why people are surprised that a private company would like to hold on to your data and keep it active no matter what you want or think or do.

Maybe because reddit literally says they will allow you to change this on their privacy policy?

https://www.reddit.com/policies/privacy-policy

Your Rights and Choices
Accessing and Changing Your Information
You can access your information and change or correct certain information through the Services.

anything you do there is just adding to their monetization of your activity … the best thing to do is to do nothing

Well, saving a copy of your content, overwriting it, and then deleting it - I don't see how this leads to additional monetization. It's actually better than doing nothing because it prevents further monetization.

Ditto with deleting of accounts (as opposed to deletion of content) vs abandoning of accounts. The latter means that reddit can inflate their number of accounts in some ways, etc.

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[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 1 point 3 years ago

Your comment made me rethink about what to do with me Reddit accounts .... I've taken the past two days to auto delete all my comments, posts and submissions, deactivate all my mod accounts, unsubscribe from all the subs I followed .... and in a day or two, I'll complete delete the accounts.

I know Reddit will still hold onto pieces of my account everywhere ... but at least they'll have a harder time justifying it all.

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[–] SpaceCadet2000@kbin.social 3 points 3 years ago (2 children)

This is correct, most of those scripts can only delete 1000 comments from new/top/controversial.

The method to delete all your comments is as follows:

Do a GDPR request for a copy of your data using: https://www.reddit.com/settings/data-request. Wait until you get the zip file, then extract it somewhere.
Download the free utility shreddit from https://github.com/andrewbanchich/shreddit and point it to the directory where you extracted your GDPR data using the --gdpr-export-dir flag.

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[–] abff08f4813c@kbin.social 2 points 3 years ago

FYI for those who are worried that they aren't covered by a law like the GDPR/CCPA (or even PIPEDA/LGPD/CPA/VCDPA) and that reddit might not give it to them, I came up with a way to get a similar list (bypassing the limits) here, https://kbin.social/m/RedditMigration/t/65260/PSA-Here-s-exactly-what-to-do-if-you-hit-the

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[–] anon@kbin.social [S] 1 point 3 years ago

This is very good to know, thank you.

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[+] skillissuer@lemmy.world 2 points 3 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

[deleted]

[–] BlueKey@kbin.social 2 points 3 years ago (1 child)

How long did you wait between the deletion and your Google search?
Maybe the Databases still have to reach consistency.

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[–] anon@kbin.social [S] 3 points 3 years ago (1 child)

Weeks. But it’s not just Google returning obsolete results - when I follow the links, the comments are still there, on the Reddit website, under my username. I’ve clarified my post accordingly.

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[–] BlueKey@kbin.social 4 points 3 years ago

I saw your clarification that the comments persited on reddit.com. My thought was maybe the part of the DB which manages the comments of the posts was lacking behind.
But after weeks this should not be the case, so I take my comment back.

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[–] abff08f4813c@kbin.social 1 point 3 years ago

Yep, I covered this previously, https://kbin.social/m/RedditMigration/t/47320/PSA-If-you-have-more-than-1000-posts-more-than

Along with a method to deal with this, even if you don't think you can get your GDPR archive, https://kbin.social/m/RedditMigration/t/65260/PSA-Here-s-exactly-what-to-do-if-you-hit-the

I never got a chance to follow up with https://kbin.social/m/RedditMigration/t/107907/POLL-Should-we-sticky-some-PSA-We-need-to-warn but I think I should soon.

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