The vow to extend the demonstration came after CEO Steve Huffman reportedly sent a memo to staff saying Reddit would “get through it” while opining that “like all blowups on Reddit, this one will pass as well.” In response to Huffman doubling down, a user wrote, “Let them fuck around and find out.”
Moderators from well-trafficked subreddits, including r/awww, r/music, r/videos, r/futurology, r/apple and r/NBA (among many others) chimed in to commit to an indefinite protest.
It’s more about the people who weren’t concerned about privacy until they read a story about someone getting swatted based on linking a bunch of small details across a variety of posts. Most people don’t really think about how posting your favorite restaurant in a thread about the best restaurants in whatever local community of theirs gives bad actors the ability to track them down.
I do agree with you though, Reddit is scraped and archived. It gives people the illusion of privacy, though. That they could just delete old posts and surely nobody will go through the effort to have saved them all. The fediverse throws that out the window. No reasonable person is going to believe that every server will delete your data when you ask.
I think it’s reasonable to yearn for the ability to delete a whoopsie that gives away too much personal information from the internet. It’s not realistic though.