[REPOST] How to Delete your Reddit Account and All Data under GDPR/CCPA

Doll_Tow_Jet-ski@kbin.social to Reddit Migration@kbin.social – 36 points – How to Delete your Reddit Account and All Data under GDPR/CCPA
thomashunter.name

This was posted some weeks ago, but I feel it might be useful for many folks these days, so reposting the link here.

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Don't delete your account until you're sure you've wiped everything, including stuff that's more than 1000 comments old and stuff that's in private subs (which have to be public for you to edit/delete). TBH, I wouldn't delete your account at all at this time... just wipe it and walk away. That way, if you check back later and your comments have been restored, you can trash them again.

Near the bottom, this article says the exact opposite of its headline - that Reddit is restoring deleted data, even if it should be legally deleted. ☹️

A more nuanced explanation is available here, https://kbin.social/m/RedditMigration/t/101759/Reddit-violates-CCPA#entry-comment-413421

TLDR reddit might not be restoring data that the user deleted, but there are some funky cases where it's easy to miss stuff when deleting manually. Which is exactly why Update #1 is so bad - it's basically impossible to delete everything without reddit's help.

I know for a fact that (so far) one post and at least one comment (there may be more, I'm still going through) have been restored. How do I know this? Because every single post and comment I deleted, I edited with "DELETED - GDPR" first and then deleted. I did all this systematically. I knew that if I saw any post or comment with that text, it would mean it had been restored. And now, today, a few days after that post and comment were edited and then deleted, they're back with the edited text. This is also well with that 1000 post comment/limit too.

This time I've taken screenshot first and deleted again. I've also recorded video of me editing and deleting a comment. If that one comes back as well, I have proof.

All my edit/deletes have been over several days so it's not like I'm hammering the servers and causing them to glitch out on deleting correctly (I fully refresh the page after anyway to check deletions have indeed happened).

Edit: typos

Thank you for your service! This is exactly what we need.

I found another post and multiple comments undeleted today. I'm now appending periods . to every post and comment that comes back so I'll be able to count how many times I've had to delete the same comment.

e.g. If I see DELETED - GDPR . . I know that comment has been restored three times.

Ridiculous that I have to delete over and over again.

Very smart! In a way this is good news. It suggests that editing to overwrite is effective - you aren't seeing your old content restored, but the edited version. Agree with the ridiculousness of having to delete again and again.

I just wiped out all my comments. I will keep my account just in case. :)

Should've requested your GDPR data before that. It gives them more work to do.