How to Delete Your Reddit Account and All Data Under GDPR/CCPA

I&#x27;m amazed at the amount of fire that Reddit has been playing with here. The update on this article is pretty amazing, with Reddit really not understanding their legal requirements before shooting that response back.<p>I&#x27;ve been having some fun using Lemmy in the mean time, and I quite like it. Once some communities get established, I think it&#x27;ll easily take over from Reddit. It wasn&#x27;t quite ready for prime time yet, but this boost in popularity is quickly showing the places it needs some help, and I think it&#x27;ll get it.<p>That isn&#x27;t to say I&#x27;ve abandoned Reddit, though. I still read it as much as I had... I&#x27;m just really interested in alternatives existing as well.

This kind of “shadow delete” is an alarming dark pattern. The user’s intent is clear, the company pretends to address it and later reverts the action when the user is likely to not notice.<p>Their approach to handling deletion in general is unintuitive and extremely user hostile. Also in the context of the response from support.<p>&gt; I received a response from Reddit pretty quickly after submitting it. The response told me that I must delete all of the posts and comments beforehand.

&gt; Last week I went through and deleted every single post and comment associated with my account. And, while the data disappeared for a few days, everything has since been reinstated.<p>I used power delete tools to edit and delete all data. Then I deleted my account. It still shows as deleted, so I cannot confirm this. Anyone else?<p>If Reddit is re-instating content that was deleted they are crossing a hard moral line for me. That is not only deceptive way beyond plausible deniability and the usual dark patterns. It’s the ultimate “you are an adversary and we don’t care about you, like at all”. I can’t even imagine the consequences for people who are doxxed, stalked or worse.

Reddit have been scrapped for years, doesn&#x27;t matter if reddit itself delete any of our data, tons of sites like <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;camas.unddit.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;camas.unddit.com&#x2F;</a> have scrapped and stored everything.

I am not a lawyer, but my full-time work involves reviewing codebases for GDPR and CCPA compliance.<p>I do not believe this strategy will achieve what OP is hoping.<p>In response to a deletion request, Reddit instead seeks to anonymize the data. Anonymous data is not personal data, so anonymous data is not covered by GDPR.<p>If you submit a GDPR deletion request, they will in this way wriggle into a position where they claim GDPR does not apply.<p>When Reddit (or most any other website) soft-deletes an account, they simply obfuscate the user&#x27;s identifiers such as username and IP address. They argue that this is sufficient to make the mass of remaining data anonymous, and therefore not covered by any privacy law.<p>This is an extremely common position for websites. However, it requires that the remaining data truly be anonymous. For Reddit, this is absurd, as the free-form content of the website allows any amount of identifying information to be uploaded. Reddit simply cannot guarantee that identities cannot be deduced from what remains.<p>I believe this is fundamentally in violation of GDPR, but I am not a GDPR regulator with the power of enforcement.<p>This requires a legal appeal to the regulatory bodies.

Reddit handled this whole situation like crap from the beginning. It&#x27;d be hard to think of how they could make it worse. One of the subreddits I most liked to visit has reopened but with submissions restricted, so it is dead. The fact that Reddit managed to piss everyone off, and then let their moderators destroy the site, and continues to let that happen ... it&#x27;s just incredible. I&#x27;m all done. The moderators succeeded. But I don&#x27;t like them any more than I like Reddit corporate, they all suck. They should start their own thread in r&#x2F;AmItheAsshole.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;commission.europa.eu&#x2F;law&#x2F;law-topic&#x2F;data-protection&#x2F;reform&#x2F;rights-citizens&#x2F;redress&#x2F;what-should-i-do-if-i-think-my-personal-data-protection-rights-havent-been-respected_en" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;commission.europa.eu&#x2F;law&#x2F;law-topic&#x2F;data-protection&#x2F;r...</a> (European Commission: What should I do if I think that my personal data protection rights haven’t been respected?)

does anybody have a citation from the actual laws referenced here to back up that content you&#x27;ve posted counts as &quot;personal data&quot;, and that you can actually use these laws to request the deletion of content you&#x27;ve publicly shared?

&gt; I received a response from Reddit pretty quickly after submitting it. The response told me that I must delete all of the posts and comments beforehand. I&#x27;m pretty sure this is in violation of both GDPR&#x2F;CCPA as it might be physically impossible for a user to delete, say, one million comments. Of course, this ignores the fact that Reddit already restored all of the data that I&#x27;ve deleted.<p>This is obviously a very frustrating response from Reddit.<p>I recently made an extension that automates deleting your content for you because of malarkey like this. Not sure yet if there&#x27;s anything I can do to make deletions &quot;stick&quot;, so to speak, but at least you can run the extension as many times as you like. Would love to hear if anyone figures anything more out, especially OP.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;chrome.google.com&#x2F;webstore&#x2F;detail&#x2F;bulk-delete-reddit-posts&#x2F;nbfdoajmaaohkohdnbpjakamhcaaleco?hl=en&amp;authuser=0" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;chrome.google.com&#x2F;webstore&#x2F;detail&#x2F;bulk-delete-reddit...</a>

Someone needs to automate all this so people can start doing it by the millions. Reddit wants to play hardball, so let&#x27;s play hardball.

What sort of a shitty delete your data process doesn&#x27;t delete your data?!?!<p>On brand for reddit I guess

I think I&#x27;ll do this out of spite because I&#x27;ve come to detest Reddit

Last week I deleted all of my Reddit comments and posts. They&#x27;ve all since been restored. That inspired me to write up this post on how to delete an account using GDPR&#x2F;CCPA.

Can this be used to force them to delete sent messages?<p>Like person A sent a message to person B.<p>A invokes GDPR.<p>Will the messages from A disappear in the inbox of person B?

As far as I know you cannot even access posts further down than 1000 as sorted by your top&#x2F;mostc controversial&#x2F;best posts on your profile.<p>I have accounts I haven&#x27;t been able to fully delete in the past.<p>So here is reddit claiming they won&#x27;t comply with GDPR :D

Does anyone know why HN doesn&#x27;t allow account deletion or comment deletion after a timer, seemingly in violation of GDPR?

Reddit&#x27;s response of: &quot;Your comments and posts must be deleted separately from an account deletion.&quot; is illegal in California, and in the European Union.<p>This is a direct violation of California and European Privacy Laws and I sincerely hope attorneys file class action suits against Conde Nast (reddit&#x27;s parent company-) immediately.<p>If Conde Nast starts bearing the financial strain of these piss-poor decisions Reddit&#x27;s leadership is making, then things will change.