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Oh nooooo who could have seen this coming… anyway continues using Lemmy
Consider redacting your data and deleting your account
https://old.reddit.com/r/redditseppuku/comments/14frr4u/reddit_seppuku_how_to/
First, delete all of your comments using the automated tools
Didn’t these all stop working when they shutdown the public API?
I thought it would too, but some replies indicate it still works!
Your mileage may vary.
Is reddit owned and operated by a malicious entity? I used to be addicted to that platform, but now I can’t stand it.
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
This is going to be the most quoted literary work of the 21st century
they are preparing for IPO, the most inherently malicious owner there is!
Are they really still just preparing?
yeah they aren’t IPO yet, I think a lot of stuff didn’t play nicely for them, with the ukraine war, the tech bubbles popping and the general global economic conditions things aren’t exactly favourable. I think also the backlash to 3rd party apps and their general shittiness has been hurting them a bit more than they have said.
Have been for years. Reddit is mismanaged, and the IPO is just an effort to get whatever they can before letting suckers hold the bag. They will never reach the valuation they had.
Certainly by a greedy one. Greed and stupidity are often better explanations than outright malice, but… yeah, they’re a bunch of assholes, too.
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!
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.
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!
About the cookie banners: I heard some time ago that EU wants to force browsers to have an option to automatically decline all non-essential cookies because those banners are pissing everyone off. What’s with that plan, any updates?
The feature is actually older than any cookie banner (do not track request) but idk if the EU will overwork the law that way, it’s a miracle that it passed at all and I would be surprised if the loopholes aren’t made for some lobbyists in the first place!
ＥＮＳＨＩＴＴＩＦＩＣＡＴＩＯＮ
I haven’t used reddit in months
I still check in to certain niche subreddits that don’t exist on lemmy. Those feel pretty close to how they used to. The other day I took a look at /r/all and… ooof. It’s very apparent quality has completely nosedived. Lemmy /c/all is a much better representation of pre-blackout reddit /r/all right now.
Every time I see any news of Reddit, I’m glad I left
- Omega_Haxors ( @Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml ) 2•9 months ago
Sometimes I’ll check in to see if anyone’s asking me a question and it always just ends up being some random groyped up nazi posting vitriol on a comment that’s like, 3 years old. Now I don’t even get that because everyone’s either lost interest or jumped ship.
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.
I’ll bet cash that it’s only a short matter of time before old.reddit is shutdown and within 6 months of that happening Reddit access will be locked behind account login.
The only thing keeping the main community that I still visit reddit for (not nearly often enough, since I only look at it on old Reddit) on Reddit is discoverability. People search Google and the Reddit community is in the results, so I don’t think they’ll make it log in to view
That same community will probably leave the platform when old.reddit (with Reddit Enhancement Suite) is closed, unless Reddit actually adds comparable mod tools
I wouldnt take that bet because I 100% agree.
Do you also get redirected to some random post with 2 up votes when you click on any i.reddit url/picture. I use the same setup and was wondering if I messed up some settings or if it reddit messing up the old interface.
But old reddit has changed a lot. Bringing it close to the newer interface.
- for what ever reason sometimes even internal links inside reddit opens up a new tab with the new interface
Old. Reddit still looks the exact same as it always has for me. I use Reddit enhancement suite so so maybe that’s it. Just turn off “use subreddits style” for every subreddit. Dark mode on. Ad blocker enabled. I don’t have the new tab issue. I can see that this won’t last forever though and eventually Reddit won’t exist to me anymore.
Solution: only use Reddit for porn.
That ad personalization will not be pretty.
That’s the point.
Advertisers hate porn. Anything that’s not safe and broad-appeal is bad for their image.
- Omega_Haxors ( @Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml ) 9•9 months ago
Our society sucks because advertisers would rather be associated with far-right fascists than content that like 90% of the internet is for.
Advertisers are commercial.
Commercial interests are capitalist.
Capitalist interests are hierarchical.
Hierarchical interests have to retain their structure either through deception or by power of force.
As a Venn diagram its a bunch of concentric circles.
The internet spreads information like California wildfire, which nullifies false notion about the failure of capitalist equity.
So yes, fascist rhetoric, disinformation and obstruction of internet interconnectivity are the last recourses of commercial enterprises.
Yayyyyyy American puritanism!
But will it be filthy?
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.
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.
Sure, why not? As the user base narrows, those who are left are the ones willing to put up with the most shit, so that is what they get.
Does it narrow? Let’s be realistic, Reddit isn’t the wasteland you want it to be.
Most of the subs I used to care about are more of a wasteland than I could’ve imagined. And come to think of it I’m starting to suspect that the demographics of social media participation in general are beginning to get narrower as well. After starting with a select few early adopters in the 1980s and then taking 30-some years to gradually broaden out to include basically “everyone” (in the anglosphere at least), people who are tired of the whole affair are perhaps starting to drop out or at least reduce their participation in significant numbers. I wonder how many of the people perceptive enough to leave reddit for one reason or another simply didn’t find anything worthy of replacing it.
Isn’t that illegal under GDPR or something?
It will be illegal under the DMA, which becomes enforceable next year.
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.
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.
It’s theft is what it is. Personal data has value - so much value that companies like Google and Facebook have used solely data to become some of the wealthiest businesses in the world. These companies take our data for free, tell us it’s so worthless it isn’t worth paying us, and then they make pure profit. We might not know how to do what they do with the data, but you can’t build a car without paying for the nuts and bolts; we should be paid our fair share for every data point they collect.
we should be paid our fair share for every data point they collect.
And every time they sell it, every transaction it leads to.
I think a flat one time fee per access is fine, so long as it’s proportional to the sales they make. Data has a value with respect to time anyway, new data is more valuable than old data, even if the data is the same, so it’s not like they’ll just be getting it one time.
People on sites like this really need to understand that for good or bad we are a vocal minority. People by and large understand “if you aren’t paying for it you’re the product”. Many people have come to terms with this be it reddit, or Facebook, Amazon, Google, etc.
Does it make it right? Or course it doesn’t.
But I seriously don’t know, outside of a serious privacy breach involving hundreds of deaths, how do we effectively change the narrative in a way the masses can not only consume but understand?
I’m in my echo chamber here but at the same time I’ve come to terms that if it’s online expect it to be sold and nothing is private.
I disagree with you there, what people need to understand - the masses in general - is that this is a completely new and deeply flawed way for human beings to trade value between each other. One where the things one party is giving up are poorly defined, and they don’t get anything in return or have any room to negotiate. Hell, it isn’t even really a transaction, they just invite you in and then rummage through your pockets.
We have a long-established set of rules for forming deals, called contract law, that we’ve developed over thousands of years. Mass commercial data collection flouts the core principles of this.
I agree with you but let’s cut the hyperbole please? It is not “a brazen assault on our psyche”. Ain’t no one of sound mind seeking out a therapist for trauma because reddit changes it TOS.
I think they are an assault on free will. Ads aren’t well reasoned arguments for the purchase of a product or service; they’re whatever they need to be to get you to change your behavior. If they have to scare, shame, trick, etc. they’ll do it.
Just out of curiosity how old are you? My sense is your opinion is probably shared by those younger people who came of age during the beginning of the death throws of cable.
I’m not saying your opinion is wrong for you. But I’m 46 now. I grew up inundated by commercials. They have always done all those things you mention. We were raised in an environment where media literacy included commercials allowing us to better see and smell the bullshit. Maybe that is what is lacking?
They are definitely not an “assault on free will” as you put it. Advertising is one of the oldest industries known to man and it will continue to exist and evolve.
That said, you are very correct in that it has gotten worse in recent years. This is predominantly (I feel) because government has stopped regulating specifically what is marketed to kids (thanks 1980’s!). There is also an angle that we stopped teaching media literacy like we used to.
I’m in my late thirties, actually. I think the difference in the ads we were exposed to compared to young people today is that nearly all of ours were broadly targeted. ie there was no micro targeting or anything really tailored to the individual outside of direct mail. We all watched the same commercials, you know?
Modern ad tech is much less “spray and pray” but as to what difference that makes vis-a-vis people’s ability to see BS, idk. I’d imagine the proportion of young people who are skeptical of advertising hasn’t changed much but the effectiveness of ads on those who are susceptible to it has increased. But again, I’m just talking out my ass here haha.
But all ads share the goal of altering your behavior to their own ends. Isn’t that in and of itself a reduction of your free will? An idea or thought you might have had is supplanted by one placed there by an advertiser, right?
Maybe this is where we differ then. I agree with everything you’re saying but at the same time in no way do I feel like my choice to choose is being taken away. I am not being forced to buy anything.
No, you’re not being forced of course. But advertisers are absolutely trying to bend your decision making process towards their products. That’s how ads work, right? They ultimately want you to spend money on something. Not saying you’re like Homer Simpson driving down the road stopping to obey all the billboards, I’m just saying it’s the inherent nature of ads. I didn’t mean to imply anything else
My intention wasn’t to equate ads with psychological trauma, but rather to emphasize the profound impact such invasive practices can have on our sense of privacy and autonomy. The terminology of ‘personalized ads’ can often obscure the magnitude of surveillance behind it. I understand that this might come across as hyperbolic to some, but it’s essential to articulate the depth of concern many feel.
watching every move you make
Just like The Police.
Sting has a lot to answer for
It’s just now called “Delete Profile”. 😅
So they’re preparing to get sued tens of millions of dollors by the EU in March of next year?
The company said that it will still have opt-out controls in “select countries”
They’re not gonna go against EU.
People in “select countries” will still have a toggle.
I thought spez was gonna calm down with his bs, but it seems he can’t stop dragging himself through the shit.
Assholes generally don’t stop with their assholery when they keep getting away with it.
But he actually can not. He must have promised the world to shareholders, so now he has to deliver.
Which is illegal in the EU and about to be illegal in Australia
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Australia? How ? Isn’t Australia one of the five eyes country? Like more the data these companies collect its better for Australia.
I’ll be very surprised if our govt does anything positive when it comes to digital rights. The current shower of arseholes in government supported the previous even bigger shower of arseholes to pass diabolical legislation like data retention and assistance and access bills.
This may or may not be illegal, depending on what the “this” is you’re agreeing to. As a simple example, if it is “you agree to functional cookies by continuing to use the site”, that’s fine. If it is “you agree to us scraping your computer and selling everything we find to China”, that is most definitely not legal, nor is refusing service if you don’t agree.
The EU just does so many things right.
America: “SoCiALisM”