this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2023

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Reddit is removing ability to opt out of ad personalization based on your activity on the platform (techcrunch.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 340 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (7 children)

Which is illegal in the EU and about to be illegal in Australia ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[–] Dasnap 149 points 9 months ago (9 children)

The company said that it will still have opt-out controls in “select countries” without specifying which ones.

[–] [email protected] 85 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (4 children)

Maybe I'll "move to Europe" lol

fires up VPN

Or maybe I'll just stop visiting reddit entirely?

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[–] a4ng3l 28 points 9 months ago

Opt-out is still illegal in many cases… a lot must be opt-in based. Typically consent must be freely given.

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[–] [email protected] 230 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Oh nooooo who could have seen this coming... anyway continues using Lemmy

[–] [email protected] 37 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Consider redacting your data and deleting your account

https://old.reddit.com/r/redditseppuku/comments/14frr4u/reddit_seppuku_how_to/

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (3 children)

First, delete all of your comments using the automated tools

Didn't these all stop working when they shutdown the public API?

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[–] [email protected] 119 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (11 children)

Is reddit owned and operated by a malicious entity? I used to be addicted to that platform, but now I can't stand it.

[–] [email protected] 107 points 9 months ago (11 children)

Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.

I call this enshittification, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the combination of the ease of changing how a platform allocates value, combined with the nature of a "two sided market," where a platform sits between buyers and sellers, holding each hostage to the other, raking off an ever-larger share of the value that passes between them.

From https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

[–] [email protected] 26 points 9 months ago

This is going to be the most quoted literary work of the 21st century

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago

they are preparing for IPO, the most inherently malicious owner there is!

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[–] [email protected] 102 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Uhm, that option was intreduced by sites and ad networks because the GDPR requires it so unless they plan to shut down buisness in the EU it's probably going to fail!

[–] [email protected] 52 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

The company said that it will still have opt-out controls in “select countries” without specifying which ones.

I'm guessing that's how they plan to get around that. They will leave the toggle enabled for people registered in EU countries, and disable it everywhere else. A fairly risky way to handle it in my opinion.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago (6 children)

Well, that's certainly illegal too, the GDPR requires opt-in and while there is room for interpritation (see all the shitty cookie banners) if you enable anything by default it's not going to fly!

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[–] [email protected] 80 points 9 months ago

ＥＮＳＨＩＴＴＩＦＩＣＡＴＩＯＮ

[–] [email protected] 75 points 9 months ago (5 children)

I haven't used reddit in months

[–] samus12345 17 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I still read some niche subs from time to time, but I don't post or vote on anything any more. It could just be confirmation bias, but the comments do seem to be more full of assholes than before the API change.

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[–] [email protected] 68 points 9 months ago (2 children)

They're gonna remove old reddit aren't they?

[–] stonedonkey 62 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I'm actually surprised it's still running, but it seems inevitable especially when they aren't milking that sweet sweet af revenue.

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[–] Ktheone 19 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

They cannot for now, old.reddit still drives a LOT of traffic for them and most of the reddit oldheads from what ive seen just use old reddit to surf the site, so if they're not stupid enough to drive a huge part of their userbase away from their shithole to sites like lemmy and turn into digg 2.0, I don't see old reddit dying for awhile but remember this is spez we're talking about in the end, the self proclaimed Elon fanboi, so I cannot expect any intelligent decision from him.

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[–] [email protected] 58 points 9 months ago (11 children)

Lol what ads. Old.reddit with Reddit enhancement suite and Ublock Origin. That's the only way I ever browse Reddit anymore. I have never seen an ad on Reddit. If they ever get rid of old Reddit I'll never go back there. As it is my Reddit usage has decreased by 95% since using Lemmy and never browsing Reddit any other place than my pc.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 9 months ago (5 children)

Problem is not just the ads they serve you, but also that they sell this data...

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[–] Anonymousllama 57 points 9 months ago

Who didn't see this coming? Kill all good third party apps and funnel everyone into their dogshit, undercooked app and then leverage every metric and interaction for advertising

[–] [email protected] 54 points 9 months ago (12 children)

Solution: only use Reddit for porn.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Lol same... and I still feel dirty whenever I do it. Not because it's porn, but because it's reddit. Eww.

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[–] [email protected] 54 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The speed at which they are destroying Reddit is just impressive. Spez saw Musk taking a shit on Twitter on the daily and became inspired.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago (7 children)

As much as I want to hate Reddit's management, this is not a move that will affect the average user too much. It's really bad from a privacy standpoint, but a huge percentage of people don't care too much about privacy (until it bites them). So this does (unfortunately) make ton of sense from a business standpoint.

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[–] DeadNinja 54 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This is how my love for uBlock Origin grows day by day...

[–] [email protected] 28 points 9 months ago (4 children)

I don't know how anyone lives without it.

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[–] Rubezahl 53 points 9 months ago (4 children)

GDPR violation.

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[–] [email protected] 52 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (20 children)

If we're serious about transforming the conversation around this issue, we've got to be more intentional with the words we choose. Let's call a spade a spade: labeling them as "personalized ads" is a gross understatement.

It's more than that. It's like someone constantly lurking behind you, watching every move you make, and getting into the private spaces of your mind. It isn't mere content tailoring—it's relentless stalking and a brazen assault on our psyche.

We need to call it what it is.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Isn't that illegal under GDPR or something?

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 9 months ago (1 children)

[–] [email protected] 23 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

I thought spez was gonna calm down with his bs, but it seems he can't stop dragging himself through the shit.

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 9 months ago (2 children)

So they're preparing to get sued tens of millions of dollors by the EU in March of next year?

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 9 months ago

I urge everyone to install Adnauseum. You know what's better than trying to starve advertisers of info? Filling their ad profile for you with total garbage.

[–] WUED 37 points 9 months ago (6 children)

Glad I'm reading this on Lemmy. Well, "glad" isn't the right word, but you know....

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 9 months ago

Now's a good time to advertise the fediverse, if you're still on reddit. Just pick your favorite instance, and tell people to check it out and to click "login/register" if they like it.

[–] eek2121 31 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Okay. I stopped using reddit (and cancelled my premium membership) when Apollo stopped working, so hope it works out for them.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 9 months ago

It's just now called "Delete Profile". 😅

[–] fdbryant3 28 points 9 months ago

That is alright I opted out of ads by installing uBlock Origin.

[–] hotchocolateman6969 23 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Honestly never been so happy to move off Reddit, every other week I’m hearing Reddit just shoot itself in the foot and then double down even harder to lose users

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[–] 2Xtreme21 22 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

I’m really glad I’ve stopped actively using Reddit. The day Apollo shut down was my last day on the platform. Sure if a search result leads to a Reddit post I’ll still go, but long gone are the days of mindless scrolling through r/all. Probably has significantly improved my mental health too.