Reddit said Wednesday that the platform is revamping its privacy settings with an aim to make ad personalization and account visibility toggles consistent. Most notably though, it is removing the ability to opt out of ad personalization based on Reddit activity.
The company said that it will still have opt-out controls in “select countries” without specifying which ones. It mentioned in a blog post that users won’t see more ads but they will see better-targeted ads following this change.
“Reddit requires very little personal information, and we like it that way. 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.
The company is essentially removing the option to not track you based on whatever you do on Reddit.
Additionally, Reddit is consolidating two toggles on showing ads based on activity and information from partners into one toggle. So there is no way to separate those two settings now.
Reddit is seemingly removing toggles for getting post recommendations based on “general location” and activity on partner sites and apps. It’s not clear if this means those parameters will be used for post suggestions by default and there is no way to turn them off.
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.
The company noted that ad-limiting controls will possibly show you fewer ads from mentioned categories if the toggles are turned off, but won’t possibly filter out all ads. Reddit justified this by saying it uses manual tagging and machine learning to label ads, so there is a chance that it is not 100% accurate.
Reddit is also simplifying its location customization setting under a single menu, which will be easily accessible through settings on apps and on the web.
The social platform has made several changes to increase monetization. It infamously made changes to its data API terms that led to many third-party clients shutting down and subreddits protesting in retaliation. Last week, it rolled out a new creator rewards program to incentivize people to post more and better content on the platform. But it also introduced a change that made it easier for users to purchase Gold rewards.
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.”
Totally in shock! Company that said they didn’t give a shit about their users 2 months ago keeps not giving a shit about their users!
I remember that when I was at reddit I used to think from time to time “I wonder what’s the next weird shit they are going to do”. Luckily I don’t need to bother now.
I don’t even care about Reddit apart for the moments I need to have curated answers
surprised Pikachu face
alcohol, weight loss, gambling pregnancy, and parenting
Fucking reddit added loot boxes to pregnancy!?
Wdym? Pregnancy is the original lootbox, never know what kind of kids you’re gonna get.
And just like gambling, the only way to win is not to play.
Or go in with a lot of money you’re willing to lose for no guaranteed payout
No, it’s about gambling with pregnancy. That no comma life.
Every time I read something new about Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook I find myself more and more pleased with the decision to disengage them. I’m sure they continue to collect data on me as best they can, but not using their services, blocking social trackers, and using payment options that can’t and don’t link my profile to their ad platforms is a big help.
I thought this was a legal requirement in the EU. Though it’s not my headache anymore.
I believe it is and they have until the end of the year to comply. I am not entirely sure though
You’re thinking of Digital Markets Act which covers extra responsibilities of tech giants on things like interoperability and self-preferencing.
Being able to opt out of personalized ads is requirement of GDPR which has been in effect for a couple of years now and applies to every company providing services in EU.
so they can still fk with shit this year for the ipo; then worry about that next year after those who want ‘out’, cash out before then.
Is this the part where they have to allow users to opt out of recommended content too? Somehow it feels like the same thing really.
The company said that it will still have opt-out controls in “select countries” without specifying which ones. It mentioned in a blog post that users won’t see more ads but they will see better-targeted ads following this change.
The “select countries” getting opt-out probably include EU members.
just a hunch, but i think old’s days are numbered, too… and it’s a fairly low number.
100%. We know this for a fact because they specifically said they weren’t touching it. I expect it’s gone by the end of the 2024 at the latest.
And people will cry, but ultimately still continue to use Reddit.
And they will continue to post to r/LeopardsAteMyFace
@eighthourlunch Feeling called out huh?
They still touched it though… to add ads.
Is it used by a significant portion of redditors tho?
It probably was, but I would imagine a lot of the dedicated users of old are also those who have fled Reddit recently. Reddit might feel there would be less backlash to removing old now.
Yup. I left at the end of June, and would have left immediately if they had fucked with old.reddit at any point. I only see the site now when it comes up in search results and seeing what Reddit looks like now instantly assuaged any doubts I had about leaving.
I find it useful at times as a research resource but every time, I stop it from loading and change the URL to old. When they break that, I don’t think I will use it anymore unless it holds the only solution to my question
I was pointing to a giant mass of people on r/all. Reddit was a beacon to all us techies and weirdos who like this format and do care enough to untick tracking. But I doubt anyone I talked to there was ever subscribed to r/funny, r/memes or other top subs, and they were the most active subs, have most users. Scrolling it like Insta, that way.
Those who were curious about what they can change in preferences are power users, more likely to choose 3rd party apps, to create content, comment or mod. Those as you said more likely to leave to Lemmy. And I feel they are actually a small minority compared to those who didn’t know opt-out was even an option or why it matters.
Lol, personalize all my ads IDGAF. I’m not seeing any of them anyway. Thanks Ublock.
IDGAF, I’m not going to Reddit anymore.
Eh, some search results inevitably lead me there. I’m not going to avoid getting an answer because I dislike reddit’s administrative decisions.
Ditto. Been using UBlock Origin for 9 years and I used Adblock Plus for 5-7 years before that. Only times I ever got ads on Reddit was in blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moments where the page loads and the adblock doesn’t kick in quite correctly which are few and far between.
And before someone mentions it I stopped using Reddit on mobile the day the API shit occurred so no need to worry there either lmao.
Firefox with uBlock origin and AdAway on Android would probably make Reddit mobile less shit. Pi-hole on your home network. NextDNS or AdGuard DNS on every device. If you’re still seeing ads I don’t know what to tell you. It’s becoming easier every day to have multiple layers of blocking.
Prior to the API change when I was still a Reddit user, and when accessing from mobile, I would use Firefox on Android with uBlock. Using the default mobile web UI was still pretty miserable. Every reddit link would put a giant popover “This looks better in the Reddit app! Do you want to download the app or continue in the browser”. Every. damn. time.
The only saving grace, which made for a pretty good experience was the “.compact” web UI, but then Reddit killed that around the same time. With the only option to use Reddit with the Reddit app was easy to simply stop using Reddit on mobile. Shortly after the API changes meant stopping Reddit use altogether.
I understand what you’re saying, but at the same time that still means that your personal data is flowing to a third party. All that metadata and your activity signals are still in the hands of another data partner. We don’t know how else that data is used. Display advertising is just one piece of digital marketing.
I use Google for search most of the time and also have a couple Google Home devices. I am disturbed whenever do see personalized ads but that is very rare since I have DNS based blocks at my house and use Ublock in my mobile browser. I understand that I’m going to get tracked and that I have a digital profile or two out there but I’m not really sure how valuable those profiles would be to anyone since I’m very rarely viewing ads and never interacting with them.
🎯
And it’s not just about getting hypertargeted ads. It comes down to behavior manipulation. Price and coverage discrimination. The ad engine is just the tip of an iceberg not even the people who created the algorithms can understand anymore.
Nevertheless, use/donate/contribute to/share uBlock Origin. The internet is legit unusable without it at this point.
The turn these tech companies take to IPO at the highest valuations, it’s ridiculous. If investors won’t let you IPO according to the values that made you a company, investors shouldn’t have been investing in your company.
and when you fail to meet the ridiculously high numbers, the only solution is to push more ads towards your users!
munches popcorn
Yup, watching the world burn does have its days
Jokes on them, I don’t have any activity there now
I only kept my account active for the reminder bot and I intend to check every few months
Yeah, I have a reminder set for 2025, which seemed a long way away when I set it
I wonder how I’ll get the notification now the app that used to notify me no longer works
Looks like another migration wave may be underway… 🤞🌊
If you’re interested in keeping your bookmarks and the subreddits (communities) you’re subscribed to before deleting your account(s), 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 accounts, of course.
A couple weeks ago, I had a ten year old account on Reddit that just wouldn’t let me back in. I tried changing the password, but the link and the form it gave me didn’t work. I tried several times, no luck.
I contacted support several times. They were worse than useless. If that’s how they treat their most loyal content creators now, why on earth would I ever go back?
Oh well. It was fun until it wasn’t.
Reddit, it was fun… until it wasn’t
What’s Reddit?
Centralized Lemmy clone.
eww
You ever use Digg? It’s like that but with more fascism.
I think it’s like an unfederated Lemmy. Don’t know why anyone would use something like that
Unlike Twitter or other news sites, reddit already has a sorting algorithm: voting, and personalized feeds defeats the entire point of reddit, since now everybody gets a different front page, which is good for selling targeted ads but bad for promoting genuine engagement where people naturally talk to each other about what everyone wants to talk about.
I don’t think the leaderships at reddit understands their own product at all, but that’s not a surprise at this point.
By the way, anyone notice that circlejerks are pretty rare here compared to reddit?
The things that happen on each kind of online platform are to a large extent a result of how the platform is structured. Lemmy and Reddit are structured in pretty much exactly the same way.
As the userbase of Lemmy grows, it will become more like Reddit, whether people like it or not. I wish we had a social media platform structured like a traditional phpBB-style web forum, with thread bumping and all.
They completely disregard that, the recommendation system really has its own ways to do things you didn’t ask for in the first place. Also forums as big as reddit are not manageable without fine tuned mod tools. They do not have those. Never fully implemented.
Fuck Spez
The way I see it, they have to. Big companies like Google and Facebook have just been forced by the EU to provide results that are not personalized and also to allow people to only see that they follow (no suggested posts). If I remember correctly they have until the end of the year to comply. I’d be surprised if reddid does not have to follow this at some point
