Video description as of 2023-06-23 10:15 PDT:

This video shows that Reddit refused to delete all comments and posts of its users when they close their account via a CCPA / GDPR request. Posts and comments may contain PII. Specifically, Reddit tells users that they must delete the content themselves, which isn’t realistic if a user creates a lot of posts. Even if a user does delete their content, Reddit restores the content within a few days.

Video transcript:

  • 2023-06-13 @ 15:15 PDT: user states he deleted all posts and comments
  • 2023-06-16 @ 10:15 PDT (3 days later): user states all posts and comments have been restored
  • 2023-06-19: user decides to submit a legal request under CCPA to delete content
  • 2023-06-19 @ 11:07 PDT: user receives reply from “Reddit Legal Support” (RLS) which states they will delete the account but not the content associated with the account. It is up to the owner of the account to remove the content [e-mail contents reproduced below]
Reddit Legal Support (Reddit Support)
Jun 19, 2023, 11:07 PDT

Hello,

We would be happy to help you delete your Reddit account if you have one. Before we proceed please note:

 1. Account deletion is irreversible.
 2. Posts and comments must be separately deleted before deleting your account. If not separately deleted, the content of the posts and comments will remain visible and disassociated from any account. If you want your posts and comments removed, follow the instructions on our help page. 

Once the above mentioned information is removed to your satisfaction, please submit your deletion request by using your Reddit account and this form so we know it's really you making the request.

More information about account deletion is available in our Privacy Policy.

Kind regards,

Reddit Legal Support
  • 2023-06-19 @ 12:02 PDT: user replies back to RLS stating it is unrealistic expectation for end user to manually delete and alleges violation of CCPA [reply reproduced below]
Hello,

If I understand your response properly, you are refusing to delete all data associated with my account. I believe this is illegal and in violation of the CPR. In this case the onus is on you, Reddit, to delete all of the content associated with my account. 

It is besides the point but last week I already deleted all of the posts and comments associated with my account. However Reddit has since restored most of the content.

It is untenable to demand all users to manually delete content when Reddit itself does not provide a self-serve mechanism to mass-delete content. Some users have thousands of posts and millions of comments. 

Just as a reminder, my CPA request to delete my account and all associated data was made on June 19th 2023 and
must be completed by August 3rd 2023.
  • 2023-06-24 @ 10:45 PDT: user has not received a reply from RLS. He decided to painstakingly delete all posts and comments while screen recording the effort. Video continues with the user manually deleting posts for his account (https://www.reddit.com/user/nucleocide). Then fast forwards to the end of the segment where the last posts are deleted
  • 2023-06-25 @ 10:25 PDT: user discovers posts and comments are restored, again

User concludes video and clarifies why this is a violation of CCPA:

At this point it appears impossible to manually delete posts and comments on Reddit and expect them to stay deleted. 

By not deleting all posts and comments in an automated way there is no way to guarantee that no PII [Personally Identifiable Information] has been left behind.

For example ...

<user gives example of a comment from 6 months ago on his account which includes his real first name and last name. Screen capture shows the comment was edited recently>

Since there is no guarantee that every single post and comment is free from PII, Reddit must delete all comments and posts from an account upon receiving a GDPR / CPA request.

Reddit Discussion on “/r/videos”: https://old.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/14je01k/reddit_may_be_violating_the_fucking_ccpa/

  • malloc@lemmy.worldOP
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    23
    ·
    1 year ago

    Decided to expand on the original video and include a transcription of the events in the video. Hope this helps our visually impaired folks.

    Personally, I find this disgusting. Hope Reddit gets litigated up the ass.

      • malloc@lemmy.worldOP
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        Normally, transcription like this will take a long time. However, since it’s largely text based (e-mails, viewing reddit) and relatively short. It was pretty easy to transcribe to text. With the help of some macOS features like copying and pasting from video, it became a non-trivial task.

        I think I spent more time on formatting rather than on transcription.

        • bleistift2@feddit.de
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          I think you meant ‘it be came a non-trivial task’. At least that fits more with that paragraph’s overall sentiment.

          Anyway, thanks for the work. I much rather skim a text than watch a YouTube video.

  • HerrLewakaas@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    1 year ago

    This seems enough to me to sue them on grounds of violating the GDPR. Not sure where spez is going with this but paying GDPR fines will most definitely not do any good to reddit’s profitability lol

    • ozillator@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      11
      ·
      1 year ago

      How does one go about holding a US based company accountable violating an EU law that they aren’t required to comply with?

      • romaselli@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        18
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        They are required to comply with it if they want to offer services to European customers. If they don’t comply with the local regulation they will face fines and if they don’t pay them and become compliant, they might have their access blocked from within the EU.

        The same is true for Brazil, which has similar legislation to the GDPR to protect Brazilian users from online services abusive practices regarding their data. Services can and have been blocked in Brazil for failing to comply with local regulations.

        • Gabu@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Adding to this, while there are certainly ways to bribe the Brazilian regulatory and supervisory bodies, they’re pretty damn heavy handed and pro-consumer to begin with. One agency has recently fined Netflix for their bait-and-switch marketing to what is estimated as several hundred million USD, with even bigger fines to come.

          • romaselli@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            10
            ·
            1 year ago

            In Europe fines have been dealt but no blocking yet as far as I am aware. Just the fine and threat of a block happening is usually enough to make companies comply because they don’t want to lose out on the market share.

          • Jon-H558@kbin.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            1 year ago

            A lot of local.usa news sites region block EU ipaddresses to premptivly as they do a lot of tracking.etc that would.violate it so they just chose not to have the hassle of eu visitors

            • jcg@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              Yeah I read about that but it seems to be voluntary. I haven’t read anything about anyone actually being blocked, but it seems to be because the threat of a fine and blocking is enough. Another commenter pointed out they have offices within the EU so I guess EU officials could chase them up there.

        • malloc@lemmy.worldOP
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          arrow-down
          5
          ·
          1 year ago

          So Brazil has the equivalent of China’s firewall? Or is this something implemented at the ISP level?

          • romaselli@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            It’s implemented at the ISP level, Brazilian courts can mandate all nationally operating ISPs and mobile carries to block certain websites or services if they fail to comply with for example a judicial warrant. This has happened twice with WhatsApp for instance, and Telegram was threatened with it as well because they refused to hand over the identities of neonazi domestic terrorist groups.

        • sudneo@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Even more, they are required to comply if they target European countries as a market. For example, if you have registration open and you have translations in - say - French, Italian, German etc. It is already enough to force you to comply, as there is the clear intent of targeting European users.

      • phx@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        1 year ago

        The same way they have with Facebook, Google etc. If they continue to do business in Europe with European users, they comply with European law or get fined significant amounts.

      • Anti-Antidote@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        It’s either comply with laws regarding EU users or get blocked from operating in EU countries, I’m not sure of the entire process though

        • HamSwagwich@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          That Irish sandwich corporate structure (that’s really a thing , I’m not making it up) to dodge taxes is coming home to bite them in the ass. How delicious…

  • yeeter@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Discord is worse. At least Reddit lets you delete everything you post. With Discord, if you are banned from a server, then there is no way to delete your posts in that server. That is insane to me in this day and age.

  • NMSGalacticHub@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    1 year ago

    That’s insane. I’m no lawyer but I’ve used the CCPA to get my info removed from a lot of those data-broker sites. It’s always immediate, “Okay, we’ve removed your information.” California better hit Reddit hard for this, and Europe too.

  • thatwill@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    1 year ago

    I made a GDPR request through reddithelp.com last night; maybe I shouldn’t have bothered! Assuming I don’t hear back, I’ll resend the request via email then report them to the Information Commissioner (UK gov dept) if I’ve had no proper response.

    By the way, I’m not sure if the California law is the same, but with a GDPR “right to be forgotten” request, the organisation must delete your data from their backups (or at least make sure your data will not be restored from a backup). Asking you to delete your own comments clearly won’t meet that requirement.

    • Tired8281@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      I’m gonna send mine registered mail. The way they have been behaving, I wouldn’t put it past them to just send requests straight to the trash, then claim they never received them with a shit eating grin on their face.

  • static@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    1 year ago

    Interesting, from a GDPR perspective this is unacceptable.
    Pondering about a proper GDPR complaint.

    some of my old reddit accounts might have > 1000 comments.

    • malloc@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      1 year ago

      The video creator appears to be from California, since he was trying to claim account deletion under CCPA. If reddit legal support is also slow rolling account and associated content deletion as well for GDPR, then the legal blowback could be massive.

      • static@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 year ago

        I assume that they just don’t have the infrastructure to do it, otherwise they would just use GDPR code for CCPA.

        As a software developer: GDPR was a real pain to refit into an old legacy system. It’s less of a pain if you know beforehand and can plan ahead.

        • CMLVI@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          Would suck if they had to spend money on the infrastructure to mass-delete data that the deletion of lessened their value to investors.

          Shame.

          • static@kbin.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            It’s a flawed risk assesment.
            short term not complying is much cheaper. long therm it’s bad, but for the individual : “whatever, I got my bonus and switched to another position”

    • eleitl@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      1 year ago

      My account is 16+ year old and has 300 k combined karma. I will be sure to contact my data protection officer to complain. Reddit needs an audit to document they wipe the db properly, and the data is gone from backups. Not just my data, anything they got on me.

  • Maraval26@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    1 year ago

    That is crazy. I spent hours one week ago deleting manually all my comments. I had an empty profile. After reading this post I checked my account and all my comments are back. That is crazy. What a shit company. I’m hesitant to submit GDPR request since I feel like I’ll lost account access with comments still visible…

    • overlordror@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      I guarantee most power users are the ones who are upset about this change. Losing decades of content they created for free hurts reddit unimaginably. How many articles have you seen about SEO ruining Google and needing to append ‘reddit’ to searches?

      Power users deleting their content ruins that search engine to reddit pipeline.

    • Zardoz@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Tried this last night and my posts are back too. Thinking about editing each and replacing with some shit about spez. That will surely get it removed

  • Maggoty@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    1 year ago

    Well shoot. I’m in California these days and recently deleted all my comments on Reddit. I’ll have to monitor and see if they come back…

  • Techie@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    1 year ago

    I really hope the GDPR is put to full use here.

    I’m curious though, what would happen if someone sent a GDPR deletion request to a Lemmy instance? The server admin would then delete the posts and account, but what if some other instances had defederated after the user made the posts, how would it be possible to make sure the posts are deleted from those instances as well? In theory that could be hundreds of servers. I guess the user would have to reach out to each instance?

    • samus12345@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      Good question. Yes, it would be much harder because you’re basically shotgunning your posts all over the place when posting here. I would think it’s pretty much impossible to make sure that every single instance of it is gone.

      • TechnoBabble@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        As far as I can tell, GDPR is a defense against corporations who claim to own your data, and hold that data hostage. But it’s not a infallible tool to scrub data from the internet.

        Think about a tweet that’s been screenshotted throughout the Internet. Twitter would have to delete the original post and and data they control, but I imagine they have no liability for the outsiders taking screenshots.

        How GDPR applies to Lemmy may have to be explored in court.

        But I’m just a layperson without specific knowledge of the law, so that legal framework may already exist.

  • xptiger@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Keep upvoting for algorithm. Keep updating to never die. Keep disseminating to those unheard. Keep EDUCATING. So people on Internet will eventually get ourselves the insight to ponder and make (mass and individual) actions on ourselves (cause only us the mass will steer a happening and slap his stubborness).

    Should never let this go down and covered.

    I bet that this video/problem will never solve/succeed if people do not become considerate and woke but just read and passby from this. Protests seem not working to my perspectives. But, mass (compliant and infallible) actions ensures changes.

      • xptiger@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        This is for the first time in my real Internet life that someone interrogates my comment (maybe also my real existence) whether if it’s written by AI or not. 🤣😂🤯😭

        Lololol but so sad and eerie that netizens have begun to fear of contexts and contents they see on Internet and offline+tangible media probably maliciously generated by AI I hope not (I understand and also experience).

        I should embrace and be cleverly prepared to this hardly grasped phenomenon that I’ve been worrying of and never been liking, to my perspective, the coming of real cultural information age.

        • AstroKevin@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          I’m autistic and this definitely reads as someone on the spectrum, not someone purposefully trolling. Autistics do get a lot of AI likeness though.

          Apologies if you are not on the spectrum.