[SilverBirch]

Do you think that reddit actually deletes comments when the user presses delete? My assumption would be that it just sticks up a "do not display" flag in the database. I'm sure that there's some influence that GDPR has though.

[prepend]

The plug in I use (I think nuke Reddit) overwrites comments with random blarg that’s realistic sounding text, then deletes them.

I’m sure Reddit keeps all versions as well. But I think it would be impractical to restore to the correct version at scale unless they want to manually review to find the “right” version to restore.

I think if they got a specific subpoena for me, they could find my comments with a manual investigation, but I expect that will never happen as there’s no reason for anyone to do that.

I just want to remove my content from Reddit.com and make it harder if they decide to undelete or otherwise not respect my decision.

I’m surprised Reddit still allows edit and undelete and expect them to remove the functionality soon.

[anonymouskimmer]

> I’m sure Reddit keeps all versions as well. But I think it would be impractical to restore to the correct version at scale unless they want to manually review to find the “right” version to restore.

If they retain versioning history I'm sure it would be easy to identify a mass edit and revert all of those edits from the user. If it wasn't easy, for some reason, it would probably be easy to revert all edits after, say, 2 days of posting.

Given that everything posted to Reddit becomes the property of Reddit (okay, perpetually licensed to Reddit), I don't know that much legally could be done about this. Unless they restored stuff posted while under-age, or PII, maybe.

[chongli]

Just need to update the script to also create new comments with random garbage, edit those to other random garbage, then delete. Add in some random delays between actions, randomize the order of all individual actions, and this would make it very difficult for admins to separate legitimate activity from script activity.

[anonymouskimmer]

If on a new page those new comments would get downvoted to oblivion. If on an older page they'd be partially identifiable by dint of being on an older page.

But sure, things could be done to make this more difficult. It's probably not worthwhile on Reddit's part to do anything to stop this, just as it hasn't been too worthwhile for websites to evade ad blockers. The number of people who mass delete is just too small to matter.

If I worked at Reddit and wanted to do something about it though (and was a programmer), I'd add an option under individual deleted comments for viewers to click to view the comment (and any versions). And possibly add an option for viewers to restore a version entirely. This would save helpful comments, at least until some jerk decided to automate the process and restore everything. So maybe the complete restoration is a bad idea.

[chongli]

If I worked at Reddit and wanted to do something about it though (and was a programmer), I'd add an option under individual deleted comments for viewers to click to view the comment (and any versions).

That could still backfire. Users may be very unhappy that their unedited comments are accessible forever. This may drive them away from commenting and participating in general.

The goal of mass-deleters is to drive down engagement. If Reddit makes the entire edit history of each comment accessible, then mass deleters could flood that history with bogus, AI-generated crap. Although it may still be possible to determine which edit was the last real one, the effort to do so goes way up, and engagement goes down as a result.

[PrimeMcFly]

> But I think it would be impractical to restore to the correct version at scale unless they want to manually review to find the “right” version to restore.

They could restore all comments a month after controversy/blackout events from about a month before such events.

That would probably restore the majority as most people are deleting/overwriting their comments as a reaction to or as a part of these events.

[prepend]

Of course they could, but it’s very unlikely. Even if 10% of the users did this, there would be an uproar.

It’s much more likely they just disallow editing and deleting.

[PrimeMcFly]

I was thinking more restore for their own dataset they might want to use to sell or whatever, I agree they wouldn't restore them publicly.

[SOLAR_FIELDS]

This is probably true, but at least one implication of what the program in the title does is edit your existing comments with something before marking them as deleted, because at some point (this is probably no longer true) Reddit did not store your entire comment history.

There are obviously ways to defeat this in analysis, but it does make Reddit's job slightly harder if they want to leverage that data. It would also probably be interesting to also just edit them and not delete them in some cases in some randomized way, which would make it even harder to reliably tease out good comments from noise.

[namtab00]

if(comment.IsSoftDeleted) { write("[deleted]") } else { write(comment.Content) }

[fmdragon]

Some time last year I attempted to make a similar tool. I was able to retrieve comments that had been deleted in the requests so I suspect that there is a "display flag" of sorts that is checked against.

[unsupp0rted]

Most of these tools first edit+save the comment with a word or single letter overwriting the original text in the db, then delete it.

[dimitrios1]

CCPA also has a right to delete clause

[anonymouskimmer]

That's applicable to personal information only. Everything a user posts to Reddit that isn't personal information, Reddit can use however they want.

> You retain any ownership rights you have in Your Content, but you grant Reddit the following license to use that Content:

> When Your Content is created with or submitted to the Services, you grant us a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable, and sublicensable license to use, copy, modify, adapt, prepare derivative works of, distribute, store, perform, and display Your Content and any name, username, voice, or likeness provided in connection with Your Content in all media formats and channels now known or later developed anywhere in the world. This license includes the right for us to make Your Content available for syndication, broadcast, distribution, or publication by other companies, organizations, or individuals who partner with Reddit. You also agree that we may remove metadata associated with Your Content, and you irrevocably waive any claims and assertions of moral rights or attribution with respect to Your Content.

[ed312]

GDPR only applies to EU citizens though. If the data is truly valuable, I could imagine some work-arounds as well. E.g. maybe each reddit post is automatically a copyright work which you immediate give a perpetual license to reddit inc. You also automatically transfer copyright ownership to reddit inc and they license back your ability to share your comment.

[ricardobeat]

GDPR only protects personal data. If someone requests deletion, you could probably keep the comments as long as you anonymize them (which Reddit does).

Your comments, including here in HN, are probably already covered by a scheme like that where you give the site operator an unrestricted license to use them. You can remove the association to your identity via GDPR, but to take down the content itself you’d need to go through the justice system.

[AlecSchueler]

GDPR applies to any company operating in the EU and storing the data of users, regardless of the citizenship of those users.