Reddit is removing ability to opt out of ad personalization based on your activity on the platform

Which is illegal in the EU and about to be illegal in Australia ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The company said that it will still have opt-out controls in “select countries” without specifying which ones.
- Maybe I'll "move to Europe" lol
  fires up VPN
  Or maybe I'll just stop visiting reddit entirely?
- Opt-out is still illegal in many cases… a lot must be opt-in based. Typically consent must be freely given.
- Will they become liable if I don't opt-out?
- Countries where they're legally required to.
- OK but next year it will be illegal in the EU under thr DMA. It's illegal regardless of opt-in or opt-out.
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.
- https://sopuli.xyz/post/4017115
The EU just does so many things right.
America: "SoCiALisM"
I am actually not even sure that is true. Some News sites like golem.de and heise.de are doing this for years. It is basically agree to this or leave the site.
- 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.

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?
- Meh. I pondered this but leaving it helps users still using the platform.
- No, redact your data, get banned and still request your data every 30 days under GDPR (just submitted my 3rd).

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
- Do you think maybe it'll be different with a federated and thus less centralized platform like Lemmy? Or do you think it will just delay this process? Cause right now lemmy and kbin seem to be pretty good.
- I wouldn't say Reddit always has been owned by a malicious entity, Aaron Swartz was a cool guy. And if you're telling me a man who freely distributed thousands of needlessly paywalled research papers is a some kind of arch capitalist, then there's no helping you.
they are preparing for IPO, the most inherently malicious owner there is!
- Are they really still just preparing?
If you count the US State Department and NATO affiliates as malicious (and you should), then yes
Certainly by a greedy one. Greed and stupidity are often better explanations than outright malice, but... yeah, they're a bunch of assholes, too.
- I mean, I’m not denying they’re making wrong choices, and I’ve left Reddit myself, but given that they’re losing money I don’t understand how it’s considered ”greedy” to try and change that.
The largest owners are Advance Publications and Tencent. Advance also own Condé Nasty (Reddit even used to be under the Condé Nast banner). Weirdly they also own everyone's favorite plagiarism detection service Turnitin.
- I know of Tencent and the controversy about them... I don't know anything about Advance though. Are they also controversial?
Halon's Razor.
- If you look at who Spez idolizes (Musk) and how he treated and talked about the protesters…. No. He or the board doesn’t get a pass for this. This is a move stemmed 100% from financial gain and malfeasance
- Is that anything like Hanlon's Razor?

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!
- Something that always pissed me off is that while I might not be living in the EU currently I'm still a citizen but companies get to just fuck me over anyways?

ＥＮＳＨＩＴＴＩＦＩＣＡＴＩＯＮ

I haven't used reddit in months

I still read some niche subs from time to time, but I don't post or vote on anything any more. It could just be confirmation bias, but the comments do seem to be more full of assholes than before the API change.
- Not that it's not confirmation bias but I can confirm what you're seeing.
  They lost a lot of active, enthusiastic, altruistic friendly people. I don't think they've drawn in worse people, but there are less nice voices to balance out the vitriol. Under the circumstances there's also less downvoting toxicity.
  I'm pretty sure it's a real thing but how much it's felt probably varies community by community.
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.
Same. I left once the Apollo app stopped working and haven’t looked back.
Every time I see any news of Reddit, I'm glad I left
All the adds look like posts and all the posts are actually just adds now.
Has anybody seen that shitty boomer comic that's been boosted to the top ad space on every YouTube video for the last two weeks.
Those have been the top post on comics for the last two days.
It is primarily bots advertising to each other at this point and liberals circlejerking each other that they're the good guys for "critically" supporting nazis.
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.

They're gonna remove old reddit aren't they?

I'm actually surprised it's still running, but it seems inevitable especially when they aren't milking that sweet sweet af revenue.
- With old reddit you can block ads on the side and ads that pretend to be posts have a blueish hue, so it's easy to scroll past without paying attention.
  "New" reddit the images/videos are already open so I'm sure eventually they'll look at the decrease in ad impressions and make up an excuse to get rid of it.
  Assuming none of that has changed in the couple months since I left.
- All moderation tools were not available on new design last time I was there. It is still not on par with old design
They cannot for now, old.reddit still drives a LOT of traffic for them and most of the reddit oldheads from what ive seen just use old reddit to surf the site, so if they're not stupid enough to drive a huge part of their userbase away from their shithole to sites like lemmy and turn into digg 2.0, I don't see old reddit dying for awhile but remember this is spez we're talking about in the end, the self proclaimed Elon fanboi, so I cannot expect any intelligent decision from him.
- so if they’re not stupid enough to drive a huge part of their userbase away from their shithole to sites like lemmy and turn into digg 2.0
  HAHAHAHAHHA oh man that's funny
- According to Reddit last year, while only 4% of users are on old.reddit, 60% of all mod actions are carried out on it. They can't get rid of it for now, but they are working on bringing updates to modding on new.reddit or newnew.reddit (nickname given by me).
  Early 2024 is the estimated rollout for this, so I'd say mid-to-late 2024 is when old.reddit is kicked to the curb.
- If those users are just dead weight to them, it makes business sense to even convert 10% them to their main ad filled product, and let the 90% go away. They want to go public and sell, they are definitely last stage of pulling a cash grab.

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.
- Yeah, this is no different from how every other social media platform operates. Unfortunately it's just the way these websites make money to stay "free for consumers".
  The only (distant) solution I can see will be the fediverse, paid for by UBI and decreasing server costs (i.e. green energy and tech breakthroughs)

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.

Problem is not just the ads they serve you, but also that they sell this data...
- So we come to Lemmy where anyone can spin up an instance, collect our data, and sell it.
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.
- I guarantee you the C-suite at reddit regularly kick themselves for giving into public backlash and keeping old.reddit. People weren't happy with the redesign, but they would have definitely gotten used to it fairly quickly. Now, removing it will be another nail in the coffin they're so desperate to build.
- 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.

Lol same... and I still feel dirty whenever I do it. Not because it's porn, but because it's reddit. Eww.
- The reddit experience: Scrolling through someone just absolutely caked with human feces and going "ew, transphobic slur in the title"
- This is exactly how I feel. I wiped my primary account but not my porn alt, and I'm sad about it
Nsfwbrowser.com means you don't even have to use Reddit to see Reddit porn
- Thanks for the tip!
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.
- But will it be filthy?
And use Revanced to patch the shit out of Reddit app.
- You can also use revanced to patch your own api key into Infinity and use that instead
- it says you need root to access the split apk
  or locate to an apk file instead
  how do I do that? do I just download an apk from apkmirror or some random website?

Who didn't see this coming? Kill all good third party apps and funnel everyone into their dogshit, undercooked app and then leverage every metric and interaction for advertising

This is how my love for uBlock Origin grows day by day...

I don't know how anyone lives without it.
- Fuuck I run 12 adblockers at once to chew up all ads and burn them.
- they're used to it. my mother forbid me from setting up ad protection on her phone, because she's used to them and didn't want to learn how to switch it off when necessary (e.g. when it breaks a site she needs)

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.
- 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.
watching every move you make
Just like The Police.
- Sting has a lot to answer for
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.
- 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.

GDPR violation.

No chance they will block out the entire EU market. They will probably just do the same as everyone else and make a specific EU policy.
Actually I think Meta Threads is still not available in EU for the same reasons.

Isn't that illegal under GDPR or something?

It will be illegal under the DMA, which becomes enforceable next year.

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.

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.

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.

I urge everyone to install Adnauseum. You know what's better than trying to starve advertisers of info? Filling their ad profile for you with total garbage.

Glad I'm reading this on Lemmy. Well, "glad" isn't the right word, but you know....

I am actually glad about it. Lemmy represents a fundamentally different model for how to organize and pay for an online social network. It turns out that you don't have to monetize socializing if you don't want to. The worse Reddit becomes the more people will look for an alternative and the more people will be exposed to the concept of "maybe we can just chip in for server costs when we can" as a way of running social media.
- In German we have a great proverb: "better a terrible end than unending terror" (rhymes in German, no good equivalent in English).
  It's sad that things "ended" the way they did, but it's great that we're finally in an actual open ecosystem which can't be milked and changed the way Reddit did.
Glad to have escaped, with gladness tempered by the awareness of the suffering of those who have not escaped
All those religious ads for people "interested in religion" by their participation in /r/atheism
All those political ads for those participating in /r/worldpolitics
Sports ads for members of /r/SuperbOwl
Why don't I expect Reddit to do this well?
Distantly appreciative?

It's just now called "Delete Profile". 😅

That is alright I opted out of ads by installing uBlock Origin.

Okay. I stopped using reddit (and cancelled my premium membership) when Apollo stopped working, so hope it works out for them.

Reddit had a premium membership?
- Reddit Gold

Honestly never been so happy to move off Reddit, every other week I’m hearing Reddit just shoot itself in the foot and then double down even harder to lose users

same here. and as sad as I am about Apollo, Voyager is exactly the same for the rare times I use Lemmy on Mobile. so I really haven't had any use for reddit at all anymore... outside of adding it to my searches maybe.
- Apollo is the reason I left Reddit too and I was gonna go back on android for sync pro but then they said they’re leaving Reddit too, so I moved over to lemmy.ml then I lost my account then I went to lemmy.world

I’m really glad I’ve stopped actively using Reddit. The day Apollo shut down was my last day on the platform. Sure if a search result leads to a Reddit post I’ll still go, but long gone are the days of mindless scrolling through r/all. Probably has significantly improved my mental health too.

Same here
I used Apollo for BARELY under a year and I loved it. Still Reddit has great search results for games I play like no man’s sky, gta, planetside to a lesser degree. But ask a question in your search engine of choice and slap Reddit on the end you’ll probably get exactly what your looking for
I really hope lemmy gets that far someday
- I used Apollo from the very first day it hit the App Store.
  I started a Lemmy instance when they announced Apollo was going under, I hope Lemmy gets there too.

based on your activity on the platform

Which activity?

From the way your mouse hand twitched when you saw the word "activity" we have deduced that you want to see ads for inflatable kayaks and adult diapers.

Glad I jumped off that train..

Porn ads incoming.

I respect Pornhub etc. much more than other companies. I think that's at least partially because I don't get swarmed by ads from them.
- They were knowingly profiting from the rape of women, you know…

I actually enjoyed ad personalization when it first started. I got shown ads for things that were actually interesting to me, video games hardware etc, but at this point it resembles what cable TV ads were when I stopped watching TV: car commercials, prescription drugs, baby and feminine products (am not parent, am not female). So now they just spying your behavior to learn the best way to trick you into buying crap you don't need and don't supply any sort of reach around.

The reason I hate ad personalization is because they flat out lie about what you're into. I hate crypo with a passion and shortly after I joined shitter they sold a package which said that I just looooved cryptocurrency and got nothing but the most cancerous crypo ads for the next year.

Fuck Reddit.

Lets give it to him, he is really good at it!

I got this message too. I’m torn between just deleting the accounts and be done with it and leaving them to sit with no activity and no ad impressions.

Or set your location to a European country?
- A better idea. I already tried to change my email to a European provider, though, and Reddit refused.
- True. And I’ve done that. I’m just wondering if it’s time to clean up an unused social media account.
Wouldn’t you have to avoid viewing anything too?
- I’m not planning on viewing Reddit in the foreseeable future. But I rather like the idea of taking up space in their database while giving them nothing in return.

reddit makes experience worse for users

Other shocking news at 11

The only really long term viable model is a donation model. Ad tracking is abusive and the legality is waning, and subscription models for what's basically a public good are fucked.

If it's a public good the government should run it, but I seriously doubt most people think of it like roads. We don't even think of internet access as a utility.
- Government financed and government run aren't necessary the same thing. I wouldn't want a government agency running social media for obvious reasons but a government giving out grants or the equivalent of a crown corp.
  I think the fediverse could actually act as a very effective system of checks and balances. Each country could finance an instance that their citizens use while allowing the free flow of information from country to country that gives these platforms value in the first place. federation would mean the only truly effective censorship would be defederation which would at least be highly public.
  But I agree, even in countries with effective governments it would be very hard to implement. But one can dream!
- I was about to write something in my comment to the effect of, "but let's not even talk about the government running it". Could end up like PBS, could just as easily end up like USSR/North Korean/Chinese media. Imagine Reddit but, instead of spez, it's Joseph McCarthy, or Donald Trump, with the power to identify and criminally sanction users.

Thank God. I love seeing that place die

Woah big shocker, anyway

If you wanna keep your bookmarks and the subreddits (communities) that you're subscribed to before deleting your account, I made a free tool to help you store and offload that data.

It's called Reddit Account Manager, and it's 100% free.

You can also use it to manage your Lemmy account(s), of course.

- I would if I could, but I built it without writing code. So there's nothing to upload to GitHub/GitLab.
  The page asking for your email simply serves as the delivery mechanism since I can't put it on GitHub/GitLab.

I guess anyone who is still there don't care. :)

I care but also don't use the reddit mobile app, am only using old reddit, and have been using an adblocker for as long as I've used reddit so...
- Same. My reddit consumption and engagement has dropped drastically when they fucked over their power users. I believe that has hurt them immeasurably but at the same time they're massive.
  Anecdotally I was on a thread yesterday reading the comments and my god it's not disgusting but it's a weird uncanny valley. Methinks they have internally masked the impact by building out bots using LLMs.
  I got 4 posts to a reply on my cake day. That to me is abnormal behaviour.
  I saw a comment get a reply linking the exact same YouTube link not as a quote but in the reply with very generated language. That was then followed with very much "this is a reply my fellow good human" type replies.
  I honestly think they're fucked. I think they're just hiding they're fucked.

I still go to Reddit subs when something interesting appears in my RSS feed.

As soon as they kill RSS (and honestly I'm pretty surprised they haven't yet), I'll never go there again.

The new pinned sponsor add at the top is so distracting. Used it to figure out a sports stream, awful experience.

That shit is beyond broken. I‘m glad I left.

I opted out by deleting every trace of my account and never returning. it was easy.

Is Reddit still alive? I have been away for months 😂

This is the message they are sending to users:

Hey u/username,

We will soon begin rolling out changes to Reddit's User settings. It is getting a refresh that includes changes to ad personalization, privacy preferences, and location settings.

As part of these changes, we are retiring a setting that you have previously turned on that limited how we used your activity from the Reddit platform to personalize ads. We have replaced the setting with a new option to select categories of ads that you may not wish to see.

More details are available in our announcement and help center.

These changes are rolling out starting today and you may see the changes over the next few days.

What if you select every category because ads are a stupid timewaste?
Regardless how many times they are telling me that Diablo 4 is "the fastest-selling ARPG ever" and flaunt the phoney 10/10 "review scores", it's not gonna change my opinion that the game is dog poop and thoroughly unimpressive. So why inconvenience me by making me load that shitty picture, it won't make me buy that shit.
I honestly don't get the point of ads.
- Unless it's direct-response targeted, the point of adds isn't to make you buy shit instantly, it's to plant a seed and make you aware of a product so that one day you do spend money in it.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Reddit said Wednesday that the platform is revamping its privacy settings with an aim to make ad personalization and account visibility toggles consistent.

Our advertisers instead rely on on-platform activity—what communities you join, leave, upvotes, downvotes, and other signals—to get an idea of what you might be interested in,” Reddit said.

Reddit is seemingly removing toggles for getting post recommendations based on “general location” and activity on partner sites and apps.

The social network said it will also roll out controls to limit certain advertising categories such as alcohol, weight loss, dating, gambling pregnancy, and parenting.

It infamously made changes to its data API terms that led to many third-party clients shutting down and subreddits protesting in retaliation.

In an interview with The Verge in June, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman responded to IPO rumors and said “Getting to breakeven is a priority for us in any climate.”

The original article contains 415 words, the summary contains 147 words. Saved 65%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Reddit Revanced says no!

It feels like we’re hitting a point similar to politics in America. 30% will hold on no matter what, and the company is going to take them for all their worth because they know they’re die hard loyalists and aren’t leaving.

Maybe I'll stop getting those "He Gets Us" ads if I cruise the atheist subreddits.

It won't. Thing about these kind of campaigns is they intend to antagonize.

I love my adblocker and tracking blocking.

Tracking blocking can't stop them knowing what links you clicked and what pages you visited, which subreddits you interacted with etc.

reasons to stop using that shitty website 📈

I almost exclusively used reddit on my phone and RIF showed an ad once in a blue moon.
I do have RES installed on my computron's browser, but RIF was just better.

Just use Revanced app to remove adds from Reddit

Well it doesn't opt you out from the tracking across the whole site
- Thats where tools like NextDNS or TrackerControl come into play.
Does that require rooting? I used revanced manager to sort YouTube out but saw some stuff required rooting
- I use it without root the only thing I have to do is make sure to download the apk and patch that since it can't just override your currently installed one from the store.
- No it does not

That’s fine I guess. I only use Reddit from a uBlock’d browser behind a pihole. I’ve yet to see a single Reddit ad in 14 years.

Ublock is awesome, but it can't block first party from analyze, sell and use your data for anything out of your control. Use a fake account, a VPN and/or tor browser to isolate your identities. Stopping ads isn't enough to stop exploitation of your data
- Yep, I use a VPN just in general, and wipe my Reddit history every 30 days or so. I would make new accounts, but the ones I have are from before they demanded an email address, so they haven’t got one attached.
That just means you're blind to the level of tracking they're doing on you.
- Not blind at all - that’s just what I do for the ads. 😉