Reddit recently removed years of chat and message archives from users’ accounts without warning as part of an infrastructure upgrade. Many Redditors were upset to discover that their chat histories from before January 2023 were no longer accessible. Reddit claims they only migrated data from 2023 forward during the transition to the new chat infrastructure. Some users were able to retrieve some of their old messages by requesting their Reddit data, though others reported that not all messages were recovered. Along with this change, Reddit has recently made other unpopular decisions like ending Reddit Gold, showing a lack of communication and consideration for users’ sentimental attachment to their online data.

      • PelicanPersuader@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, I got into a disagreement with someone in a thread once and for a year or two, they’d just message me at random times to yell at me and accuse me of making them suicidal. I eventually blocked them and should have done it sooner. Aside from that, most other messages were just people sharing in game names for multiplayer stuff and Animal Crossing dodo codes.

    • Nuuskis9@feddit.nl
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      1 year ago

      I had to turn the chat off because I was actively helping Linux noobs and then they sent too many private messages to me.

    • lorez@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I did. I was contacted several times by people who read my post about central serous chorioretinopaty, an eye pathology I have. People asked me for advice, we exchanged our experiences, they asked me how I was faring. I wrote that post in 2014. Last contact was some month ago.

      • reverendsteveii@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        I’m an occult nerd and my reddit chat was moderately active with discussions about that. It wasn’t extremely popular, and it never turned into a persistent thing with more than two people, but it seemed like reddit chat was a good way to break the discussion out into a 1 on 1 where appropriate.

        • lorez@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Yep, it was. I dunno if it would be best to open an instance about my eye disease or what, wait for Lemmy to have a chat… It’s often misattributed: people believe opticians need to resolve the issue while it’s stress related. So, in a way I could help.

    • chris.@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      you’d be surprised, I’ve heard from other reddit users that entire discord servers, wikis, & other communities would first start from reddit group chats so apparently there were a lot super involved in it. one of the big community partnered discord servers I was in told me the only reason they were on discord at first was because reddit chat made it hard to search old messages

    • Nuuskis9@feddit.nl
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      1 year ago

      Don’t you see a pattern? Every Blackrock/Vanguard owned businesses are driving themselves down on purpose.

      • Dominic@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        To my knowledge, Reddit is owned by private companies and investors. Blackrock and Vanguard have no ownership stake, or a very small and very indirect ownership stake.

        For what it’s worth, a significant percentage of every (reasonably liquid) public company on Earth is owned by Vanguard and Blackrock, because those companies manage trillions of dollars in assets (many of which are middle-class people’s retirement investments). They aren’t a conspiracy. They’re asset managers, and mostly passive managers at that.

      • 2bR02b@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        The fucking Black Rock conspiracy again! That’s just the gateway to incel bullshit.

          • 2bR02b@lemmy.one
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            1 year ago

            I’m guessing you watched the same YouTube bs that I stumbled upon where the downfall of organizations such as Netflix is attributed to Blackrock. That channel is such blatant propaganda/conspiracy theories that I don’t think Blackrock is anything but a target for conspiracy theorists much like Bill Gates is.

          • prole@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            Blackrock is “evil” insofar as it is a corporation, and corporations are evil. They’re not the fucking New World Order or some stupid bullshit.

            I know it feels good to believe that powerful entities are controlling things behind the scenes. But “feels good” doesn’t always comport with “true.”

        • Nuuskis9@feddit.nl
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          1 year ago

          Year 2030 is a global target for renovations in every aspects of societies and countries.

          • prole@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            Year 2030 is a global target for renovations in every aspects of societies and countries.

            According to whom? What kind of world do you live in where there’s some kind of overarching “force” with “targets” like that?

            If I’m being honest, it sounds like conspiracy theory BS.

            • 2bR02b@lemmy.one
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              1 year ago

              You’re right. In my experience, the Blackrock thing is the bait to a slippery slope of crazy conspiracies and MRA goonery.

          • VoxAdActa@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            Year 2030 is a global target for renovations in every aspects of societies and countries.

            By what method? Is that when the secret computer chip in the vaccine will turn on and kill us? Thereby removing all the people who have shown they’ll do anything the government tells them to do, leaving behind all the staunch and distrustful individualists who are harder to control? Or is this some other global renovation?

            • Nuuskis9@feddit.nl
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              1 year ago

              Haha it is funny that you oppose only with the arguments you read from fact checkers instead of going to Youtube and see what those globalists says by themselves. In every country the top politicians goes regularly to their meetings who talks harsh things directly and all you know is that all they talked is a conspiracy theory. You always repeat the sentences who nobody actually said, expect fact checkers. Lol

              • davehtaylor@beehaw.org
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                1 year ago

                Since you described them as “globalists”, it’s clear that anything you say can easily be disregarded

              • Dominic@beehaw.org
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                1 year ago

                Firstly, the term “globalists” is an anti-Semitic dogwhistle. Beyond that usage, it’s meaningless.

                Secondly, YouTube is riddled with disinformation. This is primarily due to the algorithm which drives receptive users to extremist videos (and skeptical users who might refute those videos away from them). It’s also because it’s a lot more difficult to fact-check spoken language than written language.

                • 2bR02b@lemmy.one
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                  1 year ago

                  I’m not siding with that maniac but can you please elaborate how “globalist” is code for antisemitism? I thought it was a rallying call for nationalists with no racial connotations but I’m obviously missing something.

              • prole@beehaw.org
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                1 year ago

                If only we could have understood how dangerous it would be for one or two generations of people with zero understanding of what “research” means to be allowed to propagate that misunderstanding to hundreds of millions of people.

                Watching videos on YouTube doesn’t equal “research,” and thinking it does is actively making you stupid.

        • snowbell@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          I was speculating that maybe they are going to drive the stock price into the ground and the magically “fix everything” to make it go back up, and make money on that…somehow. I’m not a stocks person so I don’t know.

          • prole@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            This isn’t how corporations work. One, they don’t have that kind of foresight. All most of them care about is the next quarter, and being more profitable than they were at the same time the previous year. Two, they’re not going to purposefully tank their own stock, not for any reason. If “they” did (assuming you mean the C-suite folks who would be in charge of operations), they would be replaced by shareholders pretty quickly for not fulfilling their fiduciary duty.

    • digdilem@feddit.uk
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      1 year ago

      They probably still have it. I did a gdpr request then overwrote and deleted all my posts. Then deleted my 11 year account. A couple of weeks later I got the request contents, which contained every post, every comment and every DM I ever made. Reddit does not delete when it’s supposed to.

    • lotanis@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      Do you have a citation for this? It conflicts with what I know about GDPR.

      Mostly GDPR encourages companies to delete personal data they were holding once they no longer have a legitimate use for it. There is a rule where you can demand your data be frozen if so that misuse cam be investigated and in that case you’d be right. But in general companies can and should delete personal data.

      • dilute6474@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        That is true, in the GDPR, processing is defined as follows(Art 4): “‘processing’ means any operation or set of operations which is performed on personal data or on sets of personal data, whether or not by automated means, such as collection, recording, organisation, structuring, storage, adaptation or alteration, retrieval, consultation, use, disclosure by transmission, dissemination or otherwise making available, alignment or combination, restriction, erasure or destruction;” And a data beach is defined as follows: “‘personal data breach’ means a breach of security leading to the accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorised disclosure of, or access to, personal data transmitted, stored or otherwise processed;” And article 5 says: “processed in a manner that ensures appropriate security of the personal data, including protection against unauthorised or unlawful processing and against accidental loss, destruction or damage, using appropriate technical or organisational measures (‘integrity and confidentiality’).”

        There is still legitimate use, as you still have the account and an accidental or unlawful deletion is a data breach.

  • mana@lemmynsfw.com
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    1 year ago

    This sounds like it would hurt Reddit more than the users since a lot of value was in being able to search archived solutions to obscure problems.

    • k_rol@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      It’s just the chat though, not posts comments. I’ve probably used chat 3 times since it exists, I couldn’t care less about the history. I’m sure most don’t mind. Still, Reddit sucks.

    • jarfil@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      If I understand correctly, this is only about private chats and private messages. Public comments you still have to blank/delete personally, and Reddit seems to be keeping restoring them.

  • reksas@sopuli.xyz
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    1 year ago

    All worthwhile content from reddit needs to be gathered and archived somewhere outside their reach or it will be lost.

    • digdilem@feddit.uk
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      1 year ago

      They still have it. I did a gdpr request then overwrote and deleted all my posts. Then deletedy 11 year account. A couple of weeks later I got the request contents, which contained every post, every comment and every DM. Reddit dies not delete when it’s supposed to.

      • Can-Utility@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        I don’t know if that’s across the board. I overwrote and deleted my accounts after Apollo shut down. Waited a week, checking in periodically, to see if any of my content made it back into my accounts. After a week of nothing resurfacing I felt safe deleting my accounts.

  • chris.@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    man, what a shitty move. i had some chats that i wanted to keep in case i needed them in the future but forgot to back up :(