this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2023
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Reddit

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https://www.reddit.com/settings/data-request

[email protected]

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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[–] dsdsds13 181 points 1 year ago (3 children)

They do not have it automated. I put in a request 2 weeks ago and still haven’t heard back.

[–] Ghostalmedia 76 points 1 year ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 year ago (2 children)

When can you complain about the slow response?

[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I would not at all be surprised if the GDPR dictates a set time period to respond backed up by fines.

[–] AlmightySnoo 66 points 1 year ago (1 children)

the GDPR gives them 30 days to honor your request I think?

[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Yeah it’s 30 days, though they can push it up to 90 if they have a good reason. They have to inform you of that though.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And to be fair, a large influx of data requests is probably considered a good reason.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago

You can also request it again every 30 days... just saying.

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[–] SomeoneElse 51 points 1 year ago

They have 30 days I believe.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Yeah same. They might be holding back until the last minute deliberately in some 4D chess move, but like you I think it’s more likely some poor soul is preparing them manually.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't think they want that, they have a month before they have to come back with something or you can escalate it to a supervising body. Imagine getting taken to court because redditors flooded your GDPR response process

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[–] RightHandOfIkaros 20 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Reddit has not made a single 1D chess move this entire debacle, theyre defiinitely not that intelligent.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

That mandatory overtime.

[–] [email protected] 96 points 1 year ago (4 children)
[–] [email protected] 50 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Also if you’re feeling extra cantankerous you could try emailing them directly: [email protected]

Even though they say you have to use their form, they can’t actually force you to do that: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/individual-rights/right-of-access/how-do-we-recognise-a-subject-access-request-sar/#requirements

[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You can also mail them a letter requesting your data and they have to honor it 🤣

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Haha that’s worth a go - there is basically zero chance of them responding to that properly.

Wow can you imagine how much carnage a letter based subject access request onslaught could be? There’s basically no way around employing people to open letters and then do a bunch of data entry just so they can email you and say “hey fill in this form”.

Edit: Could they even email you? Would they have to respond by post?

[–] OrangeCorvus 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

So I already sent mine via their link but I have another 2 accounts. One is my first one since 2013 and one from 2016. I already mass edited all my comments but I found this. https://www.datarequests.org/blog/sample-letter-gdpr-access-request/

I would actually send a letter to them for the other accounts, need to find their address and see how much it costs since I would have to most likely send it in the US.

Edit Oh wow it's the same price and I can even request to have a confirmation of delivery, in total it would be under 5€. I will send it. Need to find out the address.

Edit 2 I think that if you send them via normal mail and don't attach an email address they have to reply to you via post at least to ask for an email address or they send everything via snail mail.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

I would insist that they print the information out and mail it to me. 😂

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[–] [email protected] 64 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 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.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] overzeetop 20 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Well, switching to NSFW not only limits their revenue to to their self-declared restriction on advertising in those subs, but - and I think this is more important - those subs go dark for the purpose of reddit's front page. They made the change a couple years ago to exclude all nsfw subs from r/all. There was no need to; r/best was already r/all without the NSFW subs. Any sub that is excluded from r/all is invisible to the eyeballs which pay the bills because that's the default home page.

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[–] [email protected] 13 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.

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[–] OrangeCorvus 56 points 1 year ago

Doing my part

[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 46 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

[–] [email protected] 26 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.

[–] [email protected] 25 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.

[–] [email protected] 47 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...

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 year ago

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

[–] AlmightySnoo 35 points 1 year ago

also did my part 🫡

[–] 00Lemming 31 points 1 year ago

Thanks for posting this over here. I otherwise wouldn't have known this was going on. As I used a mostly lurker account for game day threads I wasn't going to bother with a data request. It's a whole different story if we can inundate them though. Request submitted. o7

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 27 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.

[–] [email protected] 19 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.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago

Me and all my alts covering around 10 years have requested 😈

[–] [email protected] 23 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

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Quite a longer process I think. In the end the only nice thing I got from this whole mess is to discover lemmy. I also suggest everyone to check Mastodon as Twitter alternative. Fk monopolies ✊️

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

Just did it, fuck 'em.

[–] Ketchup 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Is June 30th specifically the best time to do this… so they know why? Or should I just do it now?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago

Don’t think it matters, but they’ll certainly get a lot today from this post in r/pics, it’s on like 15k votes. Today is probably as good a time as any.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

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

I would be really surprised if it isn't automated. I would think they just delay as long as possible to provide the info back.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago

You’d be surprised. I’ve worked with some even pretty large companies that just don’t have a good process for this and rely on people doing some semi-manual process to prepare a response. My current employer got swamped with requests unexpectedly and had a hard time dealing with them all.

Interestingly finding them was the hardest part because requests can come in to any part of your business, even via social media: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/individual-rights/right-of-access/how-do-we-recognise-a-subject-access-request-sar/#socialmedia

[–] AlmightySnoo 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Not that easy, it's not a simple SQL query: https://gdpr.eu/checklist/

If they give you some data under that framework, then it implicitly means that legally they acknowledge that they have checked all of those boxes. So before they give you the data there are probably lots of "are we incriminating ourselves by giving this guy this piece of data?" questions that they're asking themselves.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

it’s not a simple SQL query

shh... some developers in my team would take that as a challenge and cook up a 3000 lines long stored procedure

[–] NotBabaYaga 12 points 1 year ago

That's genius! I just did it myself.

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