I keep reading that former users of reddit are scrubbing their old accounts out of spite. So I wanted to know- What is it? Why are people doing it? Does it actually hurt reddit? What are some good bots that will do it for you?
It’s where every post and comment get edited with something (random text, “fuck /u/spez” or similar) and then usually deleted.
Why delete? Why not just replace all messages with ”fuck spez”?
For a long time, before the current snafu, editing your comment before deleting it was the only way to expunge it. Probably no real guarantee, because archiving the database was already a thing, but applying the edit used to also update the archive, supposedly. If it was just delete, then it would linger after you deleted your account. Modifying your comment or post, then deleting your account, that leaves the modified comment even though you now can’t go back and make changes or delete it. The suggestion I believe is to modify the content, then just delete the account. Deleting the comment isn’t enough supposedly, because some people have said that their deleted comments have been restored.
It hurts reddit because they thrive off Google searches driving traffic to their site. The more info deleted means less traffic to reddit. Hence leas eyes on their ads.
Why not delete an account? Or does that not delete your comments?
No. It changes the username to [deleted].
Gotcha
What is it?
They are editing their posts/comments and/or deleting them.
Why are people doing it
Why depends on the person own reasoning, but API changes, disrespect and lies CEO told and just wanting to move off from the toxicity are a few common ones.
Does it actually hurt reddit?
Impossible to know specifically as they are not a public company (yet). But using logic, it would make sense that less content is not a good thing for the company that exists on user generated content. The biggest damage it can do is medium term, for their upcoming IPO, the value projections were already slashed in value a few times.
To do a full scrub of everything you’ve ever posted:
- Request your GDPR data package here: https://www.reddit.com/settings/data-request
- Wait for it to arrive
- Use shreddit to fully delete everything: https://github.com/andrewbanchich/shreddit
This will take a long time if you’ve posted and commented a lot. This works better than PowerDeleteSuite in my experience, as PDS missed a lot of stuff that was older than a certain point.
I got the data but saved comments and posts only have sub name and permalink. Unlike our comment which also have the saved content text along with permalink. Did your saved comments also have this problem?
If you only need json, I recently wrote a userscript that exports saved posts and comments for myself. Please report back if it works/you decide to use it :)
(It works by scraping the pages, so its gonna take some time) (It also has horrible ui, sorry) https://github.com/hyperacuity/userscripts
I exclusively use reddit on mobile. Hope it is useful for others
You could actually still use this (on Android), because you can visit Reddit in the browser, and Firefox allows you to use an addon called “Tampermonkey”.
But then I don’t know if the json file would be of any use to you, probably not :/
I got the data but saved comments and posts only have sub name and permalink. Unlike our comment which also have the saved content text along with permalink. Did your saved comments also have this problem?
People deleted their posts before they deleted their accounts and some found their posts to magically reappear, so they started to edit their posts and comments to say something like „.“ or „fuck u/spez“ before deleting so if they got restored, they would be useless for reddit in the searches or advertising
A good tool would be the Power Delete Suite from j0beon github
It’s easy/simple to use and thorough, you can even download a csv of your stuff
I can tell you from using it though that if you have an old account it will not get it all because reddit doesn’t load up the older stuff through your overview consistently.
It was pointed out that you can do a data request and find all your old stuff through that data, but they’re isn’t currently a script to plug it in to that’ll do it automatically.
There is: https://github.com/andrewbanchich/shreddit
User interface is nonexistent, but it does the job.
I can’t speak for everyone else, but to me personally, it’s because I’m not okay with u/spez making cash with my years of unpaid volunteer work while simultaneously spitting in the face of every content creator and half the userbase. NGL, It sucks that this action hurts the community the most, as redditors now no longer have access to the removed content, but “just leaving” while the content remains intact and public means that u/spez can just shrug it off and continue the shitshow undisturbed. He didn’t get the hint during the blackout - maybe he’ll get the hint once the site is exclusively filled with trolls, bots and scammers and devoid of actually interesting stuff.
Long story short, a website is only as interesting as the content it offers, and if you take the content away, you remove the incentive for people to visit said site.
He (and everyone else involved in these decisions) don’t care if anything interesting remains on the site. They only care if they make $$$ but scrubbing should help with that…
Scorched Earth. Reddit’s entire value as a website was built off of the creative output of its users. If I’m leaving the site, they’re no longer entitled to my creative output. Sure, me writing “This” or “Did Nazi that coming” isn’t particularly creative, but it was still MY writing. Did I lose ownership of my words after I wrote them? If I’m picking up and moving on, I’m taking my content with me.
