I nuked my Reddit accounts today. Deleted all comments and posts, then the accounts themselves. The tool I used showed each comment as it was deleted, and it was bittersweet.
I watched old gaming and movie discussions I barely remember appear and then get flagged as deleted. Communities I once participated in and then moved on as the years past flashed by. I remembered how I felt back then, and then watched them scroll on into oblivion.
Now I feel…I guess it’s grief. Sadness for that part that’s gone. Sadness that it’ll never be there again. Like footprints on a beach wiped away by the tide. It’s like it never happened. There is no trace.
And I feel anger. Mad that it came to this. Mad that I let a corporation have so much of my time and thoughts. Mad that they made it clear my life was nothing but a product to them.
It’s over now. Time for a new chapter.
Anyone else have strong feelings about losing a part of the past like this?
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13 years account here. I’ve been postponing doing the same thing. In the last months I’ve grown opposed to Facebook, then Twitter, then finally Reddit. I’ve come to the conclusion that any form of corporate social media is harmful to individuals and communities.
Every discussion you’ve had has contributed to how you are today and that remains.
And done. Bye Musk. Bye Zuck. By Spez.
Why are they harmful? Are you saying you didn’t learn a single thing while you were there? Redditors helped me greatly. Reddit was simply the platform through which we discussed incredible ideas and life tips, and I literally found and made friendships on there that we went off Reddit for and have lasted since 2014+; I even talk to one such online friend daily, and am very focused on helping another who’s in dire straits IRL. Additionally, I learned a fair bit about CSS upfront as a mod of various small subs.
If you really think “any form of corporate social media is harmful” then I have to question how you were using it.
I can’t necessarily speak for the person you’re responding to, but I can speak to my own experience with corporate social media. Without a doubt, reddit, Twitter, Facebook, etc provided things that I value: a way to connect with people and a place to learn. But when I did it on those platforms, all of those fun chats, philosophical conversations, and learning moments that I had were owned by the social media company. I got something out of it, sure, but the corporation was skimming off the top. The recent debacles that so many social media platforms have had recently is just demonstrating that they’re getting greedier and greedier. They’re trying to extract more value from our relationships and interactions. This is pretty much how every corporate-owned social media platform is destined to end, because shareholders always demand growing profits. In the end, the only resource that social media companies can draw on to drive those growing profits is us.
You’re conflating the platform owners with their users. In case that wasn’t clear, I’m criticizing the former. There are many users doing good, but the platform owners are ultimately there to monetize the users’ attention and will mess with the way people relate to each other and to the world in the process.
Also maybe chill? I never said “I didn’t learn a single thing while I was there” and I don’t get how you “have to question how I was using it” to understand what I’m getting at.
Okay, well, it wasn’t clear to me and it sounded like you were coming down on the knowledge base of all the users just as much as the corporation that created the environment. I think we have to give credit to the company for at least building the environment in the first place for us to learn how the environment itself works, as much as our own interactions with each other. Now that we have more federated content, then down they can go, but I’m saying they have had their legitimate, positive place in the history of our online social development.
I never said “I didn’t learn a single thing while I was there”
I know; that’s why I asked if that was the case, to check. So I do not agree that “any form of corporate social media is harmful.” It’s more of a mixed bag. The bottom line is that I’m ultimately grateful for Reddit’s existence, or at least how it was at one point in time before it became eviler, and I think we all should be, and that’s why by extension I feel that anyone who just blanket-states it as horrible and annihilation-worthy (that’s what your statement sure sounded like) wasn’t going to nontoxic, edifying communities, a.k.a. didn’t figure out how to use it correctly.
To me, it’s like people pooping on ChatGPT. Yes, it has its limitations, and yes, it’s gotten many things blatantly wrong and forged literal lies. But if you know how to use it correctly and stay aware of its issues, it is life-changing. I’m not defending the atrocities of Reddit, either, but the whole picture is not as bleak as “any form” of it being harmful.
I did last weekend, and 8 year old Reddit account plus my Twitter account, deleted all content I’ve ever published. I also uninstalled RiF and Twitter.
It felt weird but now it’s liberating. I just check Jerboa and Tusky from time to time and I feel that Beehaw and lgbt.tech are such open places, far from the toxicity of Reddit and Twitter.
I feel you, but I know you’ll feel better again soon! 🐝❤️
I know how you feel. Seeing how much i had contributed to them over the years was crazy. I overwrote all mine with a protest message and several hours later deleted the accounts. The site has changed for the worse with just all of us taking steps like this
That’s a great idea, I think I wanna steal it
13 years here, I nuked all the comments with Redact, but today I checked my comments on reddit and I still have a few dozens, so I renuked them. I will see tomorrow if some comments reappear?
I think I’ll keep my account, but logoff from everywhere
EDIT: I think all the comments behind private sub cannot be deleted, this is why this morning the tool found new ones
undefined> Redact
Gonna do the same. Nuke all my comments and keep the account. Just change the password to something unintelligible.
You need subs to not be private to see/delete comments on them. So I’d recommend waiting for those are are going to come back to come back, then re-shred the posts. If that is your goal.
If you use Redact.dev, you can automate/schedule this process.
Just make sure to go back in a day or two to make sure your comments/posts stay deleted. Reddit restored all my posts/comments that I edited using Power Delete Suite back to their original content.
Another report of deleted Reddit comments/submissions being restored: https://mastodon.social/@chris@mstdn.games/110553478094196259
I had a few posts I left up, and I found that comments from when I had previously chatted with people were still there despite having a 100% cleared comment history. So, I’m wondering if a bunch of my old comments are actually out there, even though my profile says I have none.
Imagine all the real life conversations you have had that isn’t documented in any way and you have forgotten ever took place. People that you dont even know you’ve forgotten. That is a part of life and even if old conversations are valuable, they are not as valuable as making new ones.
It’s bittersweet to me, I love that there is new opportunities ahead and I am excited to see where technology goes from here, but there is that sadness that comes from seeing something you really loved be destroyed. I have seen things come and go so many times, I try to look on the bright side, and accept the change. No use dwelling on something you can’t personally change.
You post is almost a poem. It was nice to read.
If I can offer a different more positive view. You connected with other humans, and shared your experiences and love for your hobbies. Yes it happened on reddit, but it can happen again somewhere else.
I know this is quoted to death but here are some wise words from Dr. Seuss:
- Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.
Rando internet hug
I still have my account left because I’m an incurable optimist. Or rather, realist. Spaz can’t keep getting away with this shit forever you know? At some point, the board is going to look at his childish antics disguised as corporate governance and say “Hey, this guy is a big fat phony!” and then… his goose is going to be cooked.
Still, deleting tons of shit is rough. I did the same for my Digg account which had a few years on it.
But … see it like this, you used your voice and you said “fuck you!” and left. That counts for something.
The fediverse and lemmingverse reminds me of how Reddit used to be. Sure, fewer posts, but much more salience. More actual content instead of repost bots. Less Onlyfans and more actual horny people posting stuff. More nerds and less HURR DURR retards.
I know I jumped off the cliff to be with you fellow Lemmings, but damn if it isn’t fun!
I think you are an optimist. Something that has always rubbed me the wrong way is how aggressively unempathetic Reddit is. They prioritize their own convenience and will ridicule you for caring.
This has been no different. I just saw the NFL sub came back online and people are near-unanimously livid at the mods and endlessly mocking them. Apparently they even made a secondary sub to go to. And it’s the off-season.
Well, we’ll see. One of Bloombergs columnists just fired a warning shot across their bow by pointing out that they’re rapidly losing their core audience and that a migration is practically guaranteed at this point because of their actions. Also bear in mind that Reddit is using astroturfers to aggressively push their “fuck the mods” narrative. Most people aren’t buying it since now everybody is starting to see just how uniform their talking points are. And mind you, just as with the whole Wizards Of The Coast debacle, when financial institutions and newspapers start telling you that you’re screwing up your stuff, that’s real bad because investors tend to listen to those before making a decision.
What Reddit’s management could do would be to simply scapegoat ol Spaz and feed him to the wolves by firing him and then saying “We listened to you, here’s [reasonable pricing]” Then they could not only restore their brand, but keep moderators on staff AND cash in on people doing volunteer work in creating/moderating content while paying for it.
However, it seems that often, business intelligence people seem to lack basic insight into human motivation and empathy. And that’s something that’s been literally confirmed in science.
went through and deleted everything I could on my profile. I don’t feel bad about it I killed all my other social media accounts years ago. Life is easier that way for sure.
unfortunately I cant seem to actually delete the account itself though. that button just results in “Something went wrong while deleting your account. Come back later and try again.” How convenient that must be for their sales data.
if anyone knows how to get around that please share
figured it out. got to go through the old.reddit.com to do this apparently.
Good to know, thank you!
I’ll be doing this for my Reddit account before the 30th rolls around and these deletion bots stop working.
I spent so much time there on reddit spreading knowledge of the things I had experience with and was passionate about (mostly piercing care, plant care, and science related stuff, which Ill admit is a pretty random combination of things).
For now, I can’t bring myself to delete it.
But I do look forward to spreading the things I learned to a brand new audience, so Im keeping my head high even if Im sad its come to this…Now I’m wondering what Reddit does with user data… and who they’re selling it to. 🤔
Don’t know, but so far it seems like most marketing algorythms don’t know what on earth to do with me, cause I really be here on internet doing very specific things that don’t necesarilly relate.
They throw in the most random stuff, sometimes its things from countries Im not from, other times they think Im male, others that Im female.
On a very funny instance I got a youtube add (won’t elaborate on why addblock wasn’t on) recruiting me to join the sugar daddy / sugar baby business(??? (still don’t know if they wanted me to be the sugar daddy or the sugar baby, cause sure as hell I aint got the money and I aint got the goods).You might want to check out the book Feed by M.T. Anderson. Dystopian syfi where if the algorithm can’t sell to you then you are in a tough spot. Your comment made me think of one of the main characters and how messed up that book is.
Oh that’s good to know, thanks for the recommendation!
Considering you can append any Google search with “reddit” and find something there means the entire site is indexed by Google, so there’s that at a minimum…
My account was 14 years old and I had that same feeling. I’ve been pretty disgruntled with Reddit for nearly a decade, so I’m more surprised that I managed to stick with that site for so long.
When I deleted my account a few years back, I felt similar but mostly relief actually.
The sad part is that we spend so much of our lives in our phones. I don’t like that it’s reddit that gets the data, it’s much better if it’s not under some corporation, but I wish we enjoyed our lives more instead. But they are often boring and routine since our daily energy goes into working for someone so we can pay bills and have a place.
Please check that your comments and accounts stay deleted!
It seems Reddit is restoring deleted comments.
yeah mine were restored after 1-2 days
I had used the power delete suite, so they must be tracking if users are submitting hundreds of delete requests in a small time window
I wonder if this is a GDPR violation for us Europeans.
It really doesn’t sound good for them…
Beautifully written, and moving. I think I understand how you feel, and I empathize with you.
