Reddit removes chats and message history from 2022 and prior

They have warned about this before, but it’s still pretty wild to think they’re now removing old DMs (and chats, but it’s not like anyone used those).

Interestingly you can still see them if you take out your data via a request, so they got them in the database still.

  • conciselyverbose@kbin.social
    0·
    2 years ago

    I don’t like the other stuff they’re doing but I don’t think this is that unreasonable. They’re not a messaging platform. They’re a heavily organized forum that allows messaging. Deprecating an old messages/chat format and not thinking it’s worth it to try to retroactively migrate over a decade of content when most users won’t care at all isn’t that unreasonable. There’s a scale where, especially with legacy code in play, migrating old data is a serious undertaking that takes serious resources. If it’s not something critical that most people use, you have to evaluate whether it’s worth it.

    • Chozo@kbin.social
      0·
      2 years ago

      All of that is true, but they also could’ve said “Hey, we’re deleting these messages in a week, back up anything important, sorry for the short notice” and that would have been A-OK. Some people lost some sentimental messages and weren’t prepared to back them up because there was zero warning that this was happening.

      • BadRS@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        2 years ago

        Stuff you’re actively trying to preserve is made of glass and disappears if you don’t look at it for more than a week.

        • Send_me_nude_girls@feddit.deEnglish
          1·
          2 years ago

          Looking at you YouTube, deleting videos and removing any trace of them from my playlists. Sad that you got to download so much these days or it’s just gone because a pixel or a single audio nanosecond will get it flagged and deleted.

      • XYZinferno@lemmy.world
        1·
        2 years ago

        Indeed. It’s still a good rule of thumb to remember and teach to kids getting used to the internet. Post something on social media that you might regret later, and there’s absolutely a chance that it gets downloaded, reuploaded, and circulated without your consent. Which at that point, it’s too late to control.

        It’s useful lesson: think twice before uploading something to make sure you won’t regret it later.