https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/15/23795883/reddit-chat-history-removed-protest-blackout-new-architecture
An admin told users Reddit is “making new chats better.”
Watching Reddit die from afar has been much better than being on the sinking ship.
If they can migrate data back to jan 1st, they can migrate everything. They choose not too.
But why? I'm guessing there's some underage shit or something that makes them liable in those chat logs. Gotta get rid of them before the IPO.
Would they really need to go to this extreme? They could just, idk, delete the offending content?
I don't think there is a conspiracy on that level here. I think the direction is to not spend the resources on migrating all data. Either because of the cost/time or because they don't want to tax the new system.
Everyone is acting like Spez is an idiot and is trying to hide evidence, he's just an asshole who doesn't care about user experience.
More than likely costs for storage and what not. Everything points to reddit being out of money
Being an asshole who doesn't care about user experience doesn't mean he's not also an idiot and/or trying to hide evidence. I personally agree that the "hiding evidence" in general thing is unlikely, and that deleting all conversations in order to get rid of just a few is extremely unlikely, but I think "idiot" is supported by evidence.
Huffman has actually said publicly that he is inspired by what Elon is doing at Twitter, which, at best, suggests that he doesn't read the news. I don't think there's anyone who thinks Elon is doing a good job except Elon, and there's concrete, objective evidence that this is not true. So unless there's a "getting paid to destroy Reddit deliberately" conspiracy (I have yet to see any convincing argument for that), there's something wrong with the way in which Huffman evaluates information and makes decisions. I won't insist on "idiot" for that kind of lack of brain operation, and you're probably right that there's a pragmatic reason for deleting user conversations,but asshole alone doesn't cover Huffman's recent behavior, IMO.
If you nuke the entire thing, you can blame technical difficulties, dropping support for "legacy" products and whatnot.
Whereas if you only delete the offending content, it could mean:
When found out, it could be used against you for consciousness of guilt and trying to conceal it. Even if it doesn't amount to charges it could be a bad look for the company down the road; whereas you could just tank the hit right now for being a heartless CEO and it only goes to the pile of things Reddit is doing for IPO.
But let's say there's no crazy conspiracy behind and they're just trying to clean house. You can never be sure how wide spread it is, or if you can indeed remove everything. Most importantly, why would you even devote extra resources to finding and reviewing for something that adds little to no face value to the main product(s)? Might as well just nuke the whole thing and be done with.
In order to get caught, someone would have to already know right now what the content is. If no one currently knows about it, then no one will know to look.
It's likely what another commenter said about storage, or a performance thing.
"Oh, no! There's a spider in my house! I guess I need to burn everything down."
All large platforms (except for Twitter) have a trust and safety team to handle those kind of situations. They also establish relationships with the various government agencies and non-profits that deal with that kind of stuff.
If they're replacing chat with a new system that isn't compatible with the old that means either migrating and modifying all messages to be made compatible -or- keeping part of the old system online while adding adapter code to the new system so old messages can be fetched and displayed. Reddit is going the cheap, easy, and anti-user path of deleting old messages.
I remember when I started getting notifications for it, every single one was porn related spam.
I lived on old reddit. Chat and these other useless features just did not exist for me.
I kept finding chats I didn't notice after months or years. It just didn't seem to fit well in that platform
I didn't want it but now that it's here and many people did message me (usually asking for something) I would feel upset that all that history is lost.
Thank god I made a data request last month asking for everything in my account. I have all my 10+ years of Reddit history backed up elsewhere.
I'd forget that it existed until sometimes I'd see annoying notifications that wouldn't go away in browser.
I did use it a few times, but only as a 1-to-1 message. The inbox was more efficient anyway.
I think they had subreddit general chat but I’ve never used that.
I’ve seen it used for live events (think press releases or keynotes), which I think is probably the best use case for it. As a general chat platform it’s pretty useless.
I didn't even know chat existed until a few months ago when I logged in from a new browser that didn't have RES.
If chat is what I'm thinking of (the private DM feature), then I used it once or twice. Namely, when I wanted to send a link/file to users in a community where posting links or files were not allowed, or being on the receiving end of that, wanting to privately message someone asking for something.
Tbh, it's not a system that needs to be overhauled and enhanced. It should just do the bare minimum of letting people privately message each other in a more streamlined format (a chat, as opposed to the equivalent of sending e-mails back and forth)
I would get chat messages from people on occasion, sometimes nice, sometimes nasty, sometimes spam. Probably mostly nasty and spam, but I did get the occasional nice message or legitimate question.
Yes, there's a group chat I share with others with a common interest and we've all become supportive friends. I also have a mod chat with my fellow mods because it's way easier than using the native mod functions on reddit. The mod chat is actually pretty bad and harder to get to, plus when notifications work (they're not working correctly now for chat), it was also easier.
I also had some friendships chats with people one on one that I've gotten to know from my years on reddit. All gone. The only thing left is the new group chat and our mod chat because it was most recent. It's honestly a bummer.
I got a few messages from some only fans scammers. Then I figured out how to disable chat.
You mean providing you with an exciting opportunity. Seriously though I didn't even know Reddit had a chat. Was it seperate from DMs or is that what they are referring to?
I wonder if the chat logs are part of the information request you can get from your account.
I'll have to check mine later tonight when home.
I had chat logs from a power mod that was sorta begging the rest of us to be let back into the subreddit we modded. Then he led a brigage against us by lying for why he got removed lol.
Shit was funny. "I demand to be a mod again." "Add me back now." "You'll regret this." "This is not over."
Guy is absolutely pathetic lol
Yeah it must have lol.
So the whole issue began with him making an anti-lgbt subreddit when he knew like half the mod team was part of lgbt.
Within two months of his brigade, the admins shadow banned him for making that hate subreddit. Guy totally deserved it.
Apparently, at least one person who works for Mashable got theirs back that way, but not everyone who requested data did.
None of the third party apps used supported chats, so I never used them, but I imagine that for people who did, this is a giant kick in a very vulnerable part of their anatomy.
Honestly, I feel hurt on behalf of the people affected, even though I am not one of them, and I have permanently left Reddit. This is just cruel. Especially since there's reason to believe they basically don't remove public posts and comments.
The one and only chat I had was when there was a brigade of a small sub and I responded to someone spreading misinfo. The mods locked the thread but that didn't stop this troll from trying to respond so they typed up there response in a chat message. After that I disabled receiving chat from strangers.
You mean all the spammers and scammers that messaged me? Fuck Reddit chat. I don't think anyone legitimately used that feature. It was always abused by scammers.
I learned chat existed and somehow immediately disabled it so I never saw it. Any chat history I might have is a one way conversation of whoever trying to solicit something.
It's almost like the entire site is user weighted chat, making a chat feature redundant.
I genuinely forgot that reddit had dm's. The only dm I ever got was star wars spoilers lol. (Pain)
Oh no! Not all my messages from spam bots!
Seriously though, who even used chat on reddit?
Wow, I totally forgot to delete my chat history before leaving, but Reddit has done it for me! Thanks, Reddit! 👍