this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2024
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Privacy

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Deleting a post is simply marking a piece of text so nobody sees it, but I think the text is still stored in their servers.

Furthermore, a large company like reddit, must backup regularly, meaning there must be several copies of my posts in several SSDs. If the backup once a day… some of my posts are 5 years old.

Companies exist to make money. I suspect they just marked my posts not to be readable by anyone, except staff and they can still monetize them.

Am I wearing a tinfoil hat way too often?

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[–] ieatpillowtags@lemm.ee 56 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I think it’s enough to stop engaging with Reddit, there’s not much point in worrying about what you’ve already posted there imo.

[–] octobob@lemmy.ml 23 points 10 months ago (5 children)

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.

[–] RedditWanderer@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

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.

[–] octobob@lemmy.ml 13 points 10 months ago (2 children)

"the internet is turning into a hellscape so I'm going to make it worse"

Cool? I guess?

[–] LWD@lemm.ee 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)
[–] RedditWanderer@lemmy.world 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Reddit is turning into a corporate hellscape so I'm going to help make it worse.

FTFY. The community didn't start this and Reddit shouldn't succeed just because we want good memes. There are other ways.

[–] datavoid@lemmy.ml 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

How does looking at reddit from a search, not logged in, and with an ad blocker, give reddit money?

[–] RedditWanderer@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] datavoid@lemmy.ml 2 points 10 months ago

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

[–] Melody@lemmy.one 6 points 10 months ago

SearXNG is free. Don't waste your time with Kagi.

[–] averyminya@beehaw.org 3 points 10 months ago

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.

[–] FutileRecipe@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

now that Google's search engine has gone down in a bullshit flaming AI crapshoot

Tried Kagi yet?

[–] ioslife@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 10 months ago

Except most of Reddit of bots now too lol

[–] RedditWanderer@lemmy.world 18 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] cyanarchy@sh.itjust.works 8 points 10 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] HiT3k@midwest.social 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] solrize@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

"This post has been moved to Lemmy at url xxyyzz, fuck spez" would keep the info around, if that makes you feel better.

[–] Land_Strider@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] solrize@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Maybe you're right but at least you will have tried.

[–] retrieval4558@mander.xyz 2 points 10 months ago

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.