I know that generally there is a practice of deleting Lemmy/reddit account every 6 months to avoid being Doxxed.
But curious to see how often people do this?
I never have. I guess I don’t understand the point of deleting your account? I have no issues with telling people my name and location. I live in Dallas, Tx and my name is Danny. I’ll even meet up with you and buy you a beer.
I wiped my old Reddit account the other week, but not before deleting all my replies and posts, some of which were truly helpful and even hit the front page.
The reason is that kind of stuff is what brings Reddit real value. People sharing their experiences, or providing tech help (which continues to help as new people with those problems can reference the solutions later on) or posting interesting, real content (not some chick trying to look hot, lip syncing to some mumble rap). Without that stuff, Reddit has very limited appeal.
It sucks that the users suffer too, but I’m not about to pad Reddit’s coffers when they clearly don’t give a shit about their community with my own value as a person.
Lately I’ve been really starting to look at social media in a different light. And abandon the knee jerk reaction to hold onto all this stuff and “power up” an account. Because companies like Twitter, Google, Meta, and the rest have made trillions off all our content. And are now gating it behind even more paywalls. It has to stop.
I guess you’ve been lucky enough to avoid the seriously disturbed and insane people so far. Some people will latch on to you, follow you all over the internet, and make it their mission to make you miserable. It could be for something totally benign too. Be careful online!
I had my same Reddit account for like 12 years and never got harassed, though someone who knows me in real life could recognize me from it, and I’m sure with some minor effort I could be doxxed. But I try to avoid associating my real name with my username, don’t post photos of myself on it, etc. I don’t doubt it’s possible though, and I’m sure something like that would prompt me to change all instances of that username.
For those that aren’t aware, Danny does a fantastic job on his community of microcontrollers/sbc. Check it out!
I understand the sentiment and i hope that you will only make pleasant acquaintances. Mainly people are paranoid because of stories they have heard and red and i get it. It is quite hard to judge how real the threat of doxxing is (as in what are the chances it will happen to oneself). Having said that, i hope you keep your optimistic, open and welcoming spirit. We could use more of that in this world.
No way. My name is also Danny and I live in Dallas, Tx.
Small world, I’m in Addison.
Every few years, mostly because I am lazy. I also limit the amount of personal information that could identify me and sometimes post things that would mislead someone trying to identify me.
Same here, I used to intentionally post about a location I didn’t live in anymore as if I still lived there and never about the location I actually live in, it was fun XD
Never
deleted by creator
On Reddit I used to delete every few months but I also shared too many personal details and didn’t want to dox myself. I’ve mostly stopped doing so.
If people know I live in Germany, it’s much different then when I tell them which university I graduated in which year and my current employer or home town. You never know what comment made someone enraged and wanting to hunt you down. Sometimes something like talking about health issues anonymous can be helpful, but bad if it’s used to dox and blackmail you in real life.
People are crazy out there. I don’t think I’ve shared nearly enough in Lemmy yet to make myself searchable. (Please don’t try. lol)
It’s not about being an important person in real life, it’s about not wanting to bring maniacs home. It costs me almost zero time to do that little of creating a new account.
It’s easier on reddit because you can make throwaway accounts without an email. Most lemmy instances require email verification so there’s more effort needed to create accounts. I assume a lot of users here prefer to just not share personally identifiable information, or at least use 2 or 3 “permanent” accounts to separate anonymity, personal stuff, and nsfw.
People that post personally identifying information on accounts used to discuss illegal things or view porn blow my mind.
I have deleted my reddit a few times. Its not for privacy reasons.
If i feel myself getting to involved I delete my account and take a break.
When I used to use Reddit, I’d make a throwaway account every time I wanted to post. But for the last year, every time I’ve done that, every comment I’ve made was Shadow banned.
I think that’s a terrible UI decision, if I’m not allowed to post don’t make me think I’ve posted, it’s just wasting my contribution.
But fair enough it’s their platform, I got the message, I’ve not posted to Reddit since. Heck I don’t even read Reddit anymore unless somebody links directly to an insightful comment.
I honestly think deleting personal social media accounts regularly would be a great privacy measure, as I don’t think most people (myself included) have any clue how much they are identifiable because of their social media activity.
On reddit after each ban.
Nah, not yet.
But I do in reddit. i use burner account. Because I feel like my Reddit account get algorithm censor after take a few negative point and get censor.
I change reddit account when I get few downvote in a community.
