Hacker News Reader

Comment by nottorp | Hacker News Reader

I don't think the delete function actually deletes anything. At best sets a flag.

If i wrote public forum software, that's how I would do it and batch delete only comments that no one asked to undelete in at least a few months...

View on HN

For a while it seemed that while this was true, edits were at least destructive: so a lot of mass-deletion tools would edit the comments, then optionally delete them. But I wouldn't be surprised if this is no longer the case (TBH, making the edit history of comments public is a good idea in general).

I disagree. Making edit history public would turn the discussion into a total shitshow. Reddit would drown in stuff like: "I see from your second edit you said ... so clearly you're a ignoramus and a bigot."

It's just a soft delete behind the scenes usually (a flag in a table as you say)

They usually store some history in a logging database that can be reverted at some point in time

Nothing is really truly hard deleted on the web most times

You can request your Reddit data under the GDPR, and this includes all of your deleted content. It is visible from your profile to Reddit staff.

Might have changed in the past 2 years, but unlikely.

Delete Suite's main feature is actually that it edits your comment to be junk, rather than just deleting it. I come across some corpses linking to it every now and then.

Note that Shreddit first edits the comment, then deletes it.

So the question would be, if Reddit also stores comment edit history.

Hey so I guess this is an opportunity to overwrite past "deleted" comments. A second chance lol

I doubt that is GDPR-compliant.

A 30-day lag in deletion is compliant IF you communicate that that's what you do (i.e. write that down in your privacy policy).

Yes, but after that there should be a wipeout.

You could argue that it's not the comments themselves that are personally identifiable, but the association between comment and username (and IP etc). Following that argument, you could retain the comments as long as you delete the username and other identifying info.

Not sure if that would hold up, as some comments can be pretty identifying. But it's a compromise that a company could try.

Is GDPR only for PII? My understanding was that it applied to your data, regardless of PII status

Does reddit have any kind of business presence in the EU ? How would the EU law be enforced?

They sell their Reddit Gold in the EU and sell advertising space to European companies.

Presumably there are EU companies paying them for ads

If reddit employees want to travel to europe then a way to enforce it can be found

Reply on news.ycombinator.com