this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2023
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/r/pics employing weaponised bureaucracy in the fight against Reddit (i.imgur.com)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by dan@lemm.ee to c/reddit@lemmy.ml
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https://www.reddit.com/settings/data-request

redditdatarequests@reddit.com

Having worked at a company that had a massive influx of GDPR requests we weren’t prepared for, this one could actually cause them some trouble if Reddit don’t have that process properly automated.

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[–] Rhabuko@feddit.de 41 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Posting pictures of Jon Oliver does nothing. A German reddit mod told me, that the admins themselves suggested that the German mods should do this kind of protest instead of keeping the sub in NSFW mode 🤡. The NSFW action + blackout was the only thing that actually hurt them.

[–] dan@lemm.ee 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Making popular subreddits NSFW clearly hurts them, because Reddit has been forcing them to switch it off. They've also been forcing subreddits to reopen if they've been restricted. So those two options aren't really very viable for every sub.

I suspect this one hurts them too because this post is not visible any more unless you go directly to it or via the pics subreddit - despite it being newer and having more votes than other posts in there that are on the homepage and in popular.

If even a quarter of the people that upvoted this post clicked through to the request form they're gonna have tens of thousands of these requests to deal with.

[–] monkeysuncle 11 points 1 year ago

Exactly. Especially a subreddit whose entire purpose is posting pictures, why would reddit care if all those pictures are of a single celebrity.

[–] ptz@dubvee.org 34 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Remind me to never run a company (into the ground) and piss off the entire internet 🤣

Edit: Also, done.

[–] Lexam@lemmy.ca 32 points 1 year ago

Just did it for my 10yr old 150k karma account.

[–] DevTNT@lemmy.ml 31 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This is exactly what I did one week ago when I decided to leave Reddit. They still haven't gotten back to me

[–] tias@discuss.tchncs.de 17 points 1 year ago

Yeah I did this not to just mess with them. I did it cause I'm leaving and I want my data.

[–] YupYup@lemmy.ml 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is the same for me! "A message will be sent to your reddit inbox" complete silence. Though the submission message said it could take 30 days or something.

[–] elvith@feddit.de 38 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The GDPR states, that request must be completed within a month. In case you're from Europe, you could report reddit to your local authorities if they don't respond within that time frame. A single report won't probably cause a reaction. But several reports from several individuals on the other hand...

[–] Nerd02@forum.basedcount.com 6 points 1 year ago

Oh I wasn't aware of this. Very tempting. Now I lowkey wish they miss the deadline on one of the six accounts I requested the data for, so I can do some European style trolling.

[–] Snapz 28 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Also, remember the threat that Reddit presented to capitalism's status quo around the height of antiwork and GME.

If Reddit falls, it will be on purpose (by the people running/funding Reddit. Same as the 180 of Twitter as a somewhat legitimate forum - Twitter being a key organizing tool during the Arab Spring (with the Saudis being the largest investor in Twitter behind elon of course).

Billionaires do each other favors to keep the class war in balance.

[–] Killarny 14 points 1 year ago

This is an insightful take that I've not seen discussed as much as I think it should be. People like to make fun of billionaires for being apparently stupid, but there's more going on here when the stupid decisions of these billionaires are resulting in directly destroying tools that have become increasingly and specifically used for anticapitalist actions.

Hence also why Meta is so interested in getting in on the fediverse in whatever capacity they can; they want to influence and direct the conversations of the working people in opposition to them, and eventually they'll try to destroy this too.

[–] tetris11@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

Exactly, all of it is an attack on the left.

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 year ago

Don't forget OWS

[–] Jamie@jamie.moe 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I loaded up Reddit and did my part. For those who still have Reddit accounts, upvote the original to keep it at the top

[–] kool_newt 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Makes me wish I wasn't so quick to delete my account.

[–] dan@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can still do it. Email them! They’ll insist you use their form but keep pushing.

[–] kool_newt 4 points 1 year ago

Oh ya? Ok I'll try thanks!

[–] Saxifraga 2 points 1 year ago

You can still makes GDPR request for your data too see if they hold further data on you. See the template here for what I mean: https://www.datarequests.org/sample-letters/

[–] Martineski@lemmy.fmhy.ml 13 points 1 year ago

Just did it, fuck 'em.

[–] FujiTive@lemmy.fmhy.ml 12 points 1 year ago

Just put the request, now I only have to wait a geological era to have my data back

[–] whome@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Yeah stuff that, additionally saved my one Frontpage post and then deleted all comments and posts and finally my account

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[–] Saxifraga 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You could consider making a data request first and after they respond, make a deletion request when you’d like your account removed. This will use even more resources.

If they do not respond to either the data request or deletion request (or do not fulfil these requests fully), you can make a complaint with your local data protection office or the one Reddit is based in (maybe Ireland?). Make sure you invoke GDPR using the correct language for your request.

Here’s a template letter of how to do so under GDPR. You must request your data or the deletion of you data using the correct legal framework (quoting the correct legislation) and these templates make this easy. Plus they cover more types of data than just your posts and comments.

https://www.datarequests.org/sample-letters/

[–] dan@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Whenever I do this with other companies I do a SAR to get a copy of the data, then a RTBF request to get the data removed, then another SAR to see what they retained.

A significant number say they delete your data and then happily send it back to you a coupla months later when you make an SAR. The ICO loves those ones.

[–] Saxifraga 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That's a great idea, I'll do this too.

Having also worked somewhere that was under GDPR, weaponised bureaucracy like this can really be used to consume staff resources.

Edit: it looks like Reddit have changed their data request form. To make a full GDPR request, with the additional data in the template, you'll need to email your request to Reddit (redditdatarequests@reddit.com).

You can not only request your data, but also request information regarding how your data is processed and also about psudo-anonymised data. These are much harder to automate a response to.

See here for examples from the template:

  1. the purposes of the processing;
  2. the categories of personal data concerned;
  3. the recipients or categories of recipient to whom the personal data have been or will be disclosed;
  4. where possible, the envisaged period for which the personal data will be stored, or, if not possible, the criteria used to determine that period;
  5. where the personal data are not collected from the data subject, any available information as to their source;
  6. the existence of automated decision-making, including profiling, referred to in Article 22(1) and (4) GDPR and, at least in those cases, meaningful information about the logic involved, as well as the significance and the envisaged consequences of such processing for me.
[–] smartwater0897@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago

Done!

[–] mac12m99@feddit.it 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I've done this, but how much time is needed to automate it? If it's 1-2 week they can just automate and then process all the past and future requests in buk

[–] Martineski@lemmy.fmhy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

Still means that they have a problem to resolve which is a w

[–] orsetto 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well my account is not that old, but i did my part.

[–] DrunkenPirate@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago

Done as well

[–] fleabomber@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago

Kk going hard.

[–] smileygav@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago

Request submitted

[–] macrocephalic@lemmy.fmhy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

Done and done!

[–] wolfheart@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

I did my part

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