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I do the same on Reddit and similar sites (including HN), though I never delete any comments, just the accounts. I've become increasingly uneasy about leaving a
by tmpob 3y ago
I do the same on Reddit and similar sites (including HN), though I never delete any comments, just the accounts. I've become increasingly uneasy about leaving a digital trail, especially as there are increasingly advanced techniques to correlate accounts via stylometry.
For Reddit specifically, if I needed to, I would look up old comments in Pushshift if I could remember enough information to locate them - keywords, approximate date, subreddit, username. It's somewhat annoying that this service no longer exists. Though there are dumps, and backups of those dumps, so hopefully someone will release a similar search tool for these, eventually. Perhaps also including the data scraped by Archive Team. Maybe I'll have a crack at it myself as a side project.
- faangsticle 3y agoHN doesn't allow you to delete comments anyway. You can try emailing dang and he'll give you some excuse about how he doesn't need to care about GDPR and data protection laws.
- PrimeMcFly 3y agoTo be fair HN is purely a US entity; GDPR doesn't apply as much as the EU might insist it does.
- faangsticle 3y agoYCombinator, the parent of HN, does business in the EU.
- PrimeMcFly 3y agoThat I did not know. Thanks for clarifying.
- KolmogorovComp 3y agoGDPR applies as long as your service is used by EU citizens[0]. [0]: https://commission.europa.eu/law/law-topic/data-protection/reform/rules-business-and-organisations/application-regulation/who-does-data-protection-law-apply_en https://commission.europa.eu/law/law-topic/data-protection/r...
- PrimeMcFly 3y agoSure, that's what the EU claims. Doesn't make it so.