Reddit removes years of chat and message archives from users’ accounts::undefined

  • lennybird@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Not terribly upset at this, but it does suck that we had to look to 3rd-party applications to be able to properly search our own comment history. I have thousands of comments going back a decade and I reference a lot of stuff to save time. In my pursuit to archive some of my write-ups, it became impossible to do so with the absence of Push Shift / Camas.

    Oh well fuck it; Reddit admins royally fucked me over with a bullshit suspension and won’t even hear out an appeal. Bonus that they only let you use… 250 characters to explain.

  • ShaktiAmarantha@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    This is such weird self-destructive behavior by Reddit.

    One oddity: I requested a complete archive on June 21 and received it on July 6, and for some reason it includes my incoming private messages going back only to Oct 2021.

    I expected it to be either complete (~2015) or chopped off at 1/1/2023 like chat. Why Oct 2021???

  • Tyler_Zoro@ttrpg.network
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    1 year ago

    In an effort to have a smooth and quick transition to this new infrastructure, we will migrate chat messages sent from January 1, 2023 onward. This change will be effective starting June 30th.

    It really seems like everything reddit is doing is rushed and always chooses to harm the users as a default. It’s as if they’re actively sabotaging their own platform.

    • CataclysmZA@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      They don’t want users to be able to wipe their own chats manually or via GDPR requests.

      If anyone asks, they will be told that the data is gone, but we all know that’s not the case. They do have backups.

  • DavidRay@midwest.social
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    1 year ago

    If your past conversations are important to you, then you should make a point of archiving them. Regardless of the platform.

    Personally, I’m hoping FaceBook does the same thing to the account I can no longer remember the password to.

  • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Remember when people were critical of Lemmy because an instance admin could shut down and you’d lose all your account history…

  • Kissaki@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    Mashable confirmed with Reddit that messages and chat history are no longer available if they were made prior to January 1, 2023.

    Retain only half a year worth of content? What the fuck? That’s absurd.

    In our continued pursuit of empowering communities, we are transitioning to a new chat infrastructure, shared in our previous updates here and here. In an effort to have a smooth and quick transition to this new infrastructure, …

    If you can migrate 6 months’ worth of data, how is older data any different? The data is there, in the same form. The timespan should not matter at all. It’s either the same form, or interfaced to transparently integrate into the existing system - which would allow migration all the same.

    A Reddit spokesperson forwarded Mashable a changelog announcement(opens in a new tab) made on June 22 where the company shared that these messages would be removed.

    Absolutely absurd.

    announcing removal of 18 years of content, of central functionality, announced just 20 days ago, in an obscure place, and after random uninteresting flair navigation and chat channel announcements spanning multiple paragraphs and screenshots.

    Baffling.

    Acting as if they were managing a personal project that only they themselves use.

  • Altima NEO@lemmy.zip
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    1 year ago

    Oh that’s fine. Fuck the Reddit chat function. Only scammers and spammers ever messaged me on that shit.

      • dylanTheDeveloper@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The self help bot is worse. It was only used to push vulnerable people over the edge and for pissing off people who couldn’t pm someone who disagrees with them.

    • kadu@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      “Welp people are already angry, might aswell get ahead of schedule and make all the changes today”

        • VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Bad move. Should have waited until people had cooled down from being mad. Now they’re mad for more than one reason, which makes them more likely to leave.

          • grue@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            That conspiracy theory that Twitter and Reddit are being killed deliberately in order to stifle the public’s ability to organize mass movements during the lead up to the 2024 election is looking plausiblier and plausiblier. (It’s a perfectly cromulent word, shut up!)

  • db2@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    Many of those left on reddit, not all but many, are the ones who were happily shitting on the mods who were protesting. Fuck those trolls, they voted for the Leopard Party. The rest of us did a data request like it said when the shenanigans started because the writing was on the wall.

  • madjo@geddit.social
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    1 year ago

    They’re also removing the coins and awards that you got for reddit Premium. They’re doing a speedrun of destruction of platform

  • Doombot1@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    Agh what the fuck guys. I had a months-long convo about when I ordered a custom kitchen knife from an awesome aussie I met on the platform. Thank goodness I remember his username on instagram because everything else is gone completely! Glad I moved to Lemmy.

  • DreamButt@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    There’s no technical reason they couldn’t migrate this data into a new system or otherwise store it for legacy users. This was a direct buisness decision from leadership plain and simple. Hard to watch as people lose such a big part of their lives. Really highlight a greater need for more open forms of social media that can’t be destroyed in a whim

    • towerful@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      There are 3 reasons I can see.

      1:
      It’s a huge change, and they did a dual-implementation however long ago - where they store it in the active legacy system, and also store it in the new inactive system ready for when the switch is flipped.
      Do a year of this, changeover flawlessly, and suck up the outrage over lost data.

      2:
      It’s a maybe not such a large change, but the data processing for it is expensive. So, however long is an acceptable cost, and its balanced against user outrage

      3:
      There was a TOS change. So data before that date can’t be sold/monetised, whereas after that date has value.
      So, drop the data that costs money, keep the data that can be monetised.

      Whatever, it’s bullshit.
      Glad I left. And glad Lemmy is cool