Today around 12:00pm EDT, a post was uploaded to r/whenthe by u/concussionmaker_91 about how despite their multiple privacy measures, Reddit was still able to ping their location and show them an ad about a business in close proximity to their house. Then, in less than 2 hours after the post when live, their year old account was permanently banned. Redditors in the comment section used a website called SnooSnoop to see if this account has done anything malicious in the past that may be grounds for a ban only to find nothing.

I don’t think this is a mere coincidence and some comments I read on the post may be there to dismiss the situation.

I’m currently working on archiving the post and comments in case Reddit decides to try and erase this entire situation from the web, I’ll attach the files when I do.

  • Catalyst@lemmy.ml
    12·
    10 hours ago

    They require you to turn off your VPN for signup. If you use the main webpage then that’s different. I use a client that’s open source called continuum with no built in tracking.

        • Catalyst@lemmy.ml
          2·
          10 hours ago

          Yuu have to get an API key which you can get through the developer settings under “create app.” Just look up how to get reddit API key.

          • 46_and_2@lemmy.world
            6·
            8 hours ago

            Doesn’t getting an API key defeat the purpose of “no tracking”? Genuinely asking, don’t know much about this, but intuition points me they will be able to track you by API key used then.

            • Catalyst@lemmy.ml
              1·
              2 hours ago

              Yes and no. I can’t really down the engineering behind an API key but I can tell you it is definitely individually linked to the account you setup the key on. But it can’t only track what’s being done in the app. I only use it to view web results where I’d be tracked much more by using the website. The app client itself has no trackers built into it. So it can’t spy on what else you’re doing.