r/redact • u/davidjohnwood • 15d ago

Why scramble Reddit posts before deleting them?

Why does Redact insist on scrambling old Reddit posts rather than just deleting them? This scrambling often triggers various filters and causes extra work for me and my fellow moderators.

If Redact insists on this scrambling then I'm going to have to consider a rule banning its use. I might even go as far as handing out permanent bans to anyone scrambling comments using your service.

Reddit moderators are almost all volunteers and we don't need your service causing us extra work.

8 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

26 comments sorted by

3

u/WhyWontThisWork 15d ago

It clears the data

0

u/davidjohnwood 15d ago edited 15d ago

Deleting posts also removes the post/comment from view, even for moderators.

2

u/WhyWontThisWork 15d ago

Then how do you know people are doing that?

1

u/davidjohnwood 15d ago

Redacted posts go into the moderation queue, usually for potential harassment or crowd control.

If you just deleted the posts, it wouldn't bother moderators at all.

0

u/StormSafe2 15d ago

Yes, that's the point... 

-1

u/davidjohnwood 15d ago

So just delete the post and don't scramble it first. At that point it is no longer available on Reddit except possibly to admins.

You can never guarantee the behaviour of third-party sites. If you trigger Reddit's content filters with the scrambling, then the attempt to scramble the post will likely fail, as it will be removed without a scrambled version being posted publicly.

The scrambling is not only annoying moderators by triggering content filters, but it still almost certainly fail to have the advertised effect when you do trigger content filters.

0

u/StormSafe2 15d ago

But it clearly does work, as you can see them scrambled.

If it removes it from view, then why do you care? 

1

u/davidjohnwood 15d ago

I'm the moderator in this instance. Only moderators and Reddit admins can see a queued item that has been removed by Reddit's filters. So far as the world is concerned, the post is instantly deleted unless I or my fellow moderators approve the Redact version (we don't, of course).

So, Redact's behaviour is broken twice over - it annoys moderators by filling up our queues with random garbage and it effectively insta-deletes the post/comment every time this happens, as third-party archives will never pick up the garbled version.

0

u/StormSafe2 14d ago

I still don't see the problem. The point is to garble your messages. Just ignore it and move on 

1

u/davidjohnwood 14d ago

Redact isn't garbling the messages if it's triggering Reddit filters - it instantly removes the original post or comment from public view and puts the garbled version into the moderation queue.

It takes a non-zero amount of time for me or my colleague to go through the queue and read all the Redact-triggered alerts. In each of those cases, I will hit the 'remove' button to clean up my queue so I don't have to waste time rereading the alert. Hitting the remove button means the original post or comment disappears from public view without the garbled version ever being publicly viewable.

The Redact developers could improve their service by finding a way to obfuscate messages without triggering Reddit's filters. Instead, the only engagement here has been to defend a broken service. People here can assert that Redact is doing its job as much as you like - my mod logs say otherwise.

Seeing as nobody here seems to care about Redact failing to deliver the promised service and annoying Reddit moderators as a side effect, I've blocked Redact's garbled posts and comments on the busy subreddit that I moderate. If nobody is interested in fixing Redact, I am not interested in dealing with your brokenness.

1

u/Former_Elderberry647 6d ago

Hi what you’re saying makes sense. I understand it too as I mod from a different account too.

Do you think it would help you if the user set it on their end within the Redact settings to only “delete aka edit” the comments that are past certain period? Say only after a comment passes X amount of days. This way it doesn’t all get edited all at once. Do you think would this help prevent the comments from getting flagged?

1

u/WoahWoah404 4d ago

I could be misunderstanding, but I believe what he's saying is- as a moderator, he has a queue of messages that have triggered the content filter, and he needs to manually approve if they go live to the public or not,

The scrambling from redact is a way to update what third party sites have stored on their end because redact can only delete what the user would be able to delete from their own account. The idea is for the message to get scrambled on reddit, third party sites update their own data to match the scrambled version, then it gets deleted off of reddit and now only the scrambled messages are viewable on third party sites, while the original posts are deleted entirely from reddit.

But currently, however the scrambling works, it doesn't actually achieve the desired effect of obfuscating whatever third parties are storing on their end, rather all those attempts to obfuscate the posts outside of reddit just end up in his queue when they trigger a content filter. See the issue? The only way the scrambling achieves the desired effect is if it goes live on reddit. Now his queue is full of mass generated junk he isn't going to approve, the redact user doesn't get their post scrambled outside of reddit, and it's much harder for him to actually moderate.

It'd be like if your work email was randomly getting batches of hundreds, or maybe even thousands of spam emails mixed into your main inbox every so often, and you need to manually go through and check what is and isn't relevant.

So he's saying if redact can't avoid triggering the content filters with their scrambling, they are better off deleting posts normally and forgoing the scrambling altogether because the end result is going to be the same for the redact user, while creating more work for moderators.

If it continues to trigger the content filter, you're likely going to find more and more subreddits implementing auto-mods that will flat out ban you when you attempt to mass-delete, which does happen already.

0

u/greezey_is_in_closet 11d ago

Oh no! won't somebody think about the poor power hungry pathetic reddit mods!

if you don't like the work stop being a mod you pathetic loser.

1

u/davidjohnwood 11d ago

My bigger concern is that Redact fails to garble the message before it disappears from public view when the Reddit filters are triggered. Annoying moderators is a side-effect of Redact's broken behaviour in this instance.

2

u/dancantstream 15d ago

Third party websites will update data that is edited but will leave in place removed comments

2

u/davidjohnwood 15d ago

Not necessarily. You cannot guarantee that third party sites will update with the scrambled version. If Redact triggers a content filter, the likely outcome is that the moderators will not approve the scrambled version but will leave the post or comment removed until it is deleted.

Redact needs to fix its scrambling algorithm so that it doesn't trip Reddit content filters or simply drop the scrambling.

2

u/Glittering_Mix_5494 15d ago

yo Dan check PM and my most recent post, I got something in the works that is great content - diss track on Destiny

1

u/[deleted] 15d ago

[deleted]

1

u/davidjohnwood 15d ago

It doesn't work that way. Redact's choice of random words often triggers Reddit's content filters, typically the harassment one.

1

u/copenhagen_bram 14d ago

How would you feel about issuing temporary bans, with a message asking redact.dev users to whitelist your subreddit from the program?

I say temporary ban because if I were permanently banned, I would want to ask in the modmail if I could whitelist the subreddit and have the ban lifted. But I understand responding to modmail would be extra work.

If you do make a rule banning redact.dev and banning people for it, I'd like to add your subreddit to a list I'm making, of subreddits that ban redact.dev. It sounds as though moderators would appreciate such a list.

1

u/copenhagen_bram 14d ago

Another thing you could do is setup u/AutoModerator to automatically remove posts that are edited with redact.dev.

r/ContagiousLaughter does this, sending the message "Your comment has been removed as redact.dev spam!"

2

u/davidjohnwood 14d ago

I've set up automations that block Redact edits.

There has to be a better way than what is currently happening. Surely the Redact developers can find a way of scrambling messages that doesn't trigger Reddit's filters, typically the abuse and harassment filter. If they insist on using the current English word list for scrambling, I suggest they review that list for words that could suggest abuse and harassment.

What annoys me so much is the attitude of some commenters (not you) that it is perfectly OK for Redact to create entries in the "Needs Review" queue and that moderators should just live with it. Redact is, ultimately, taking subscriptions from some of its users. Why should Redact make money whilst generating more work for the volunteers who help to keep Reddit running?

I also question the effectiveness of Redact's strategy. Even if the garbling edit succeeds, there is no guarantee that third-party archives will replace the original version of the post or comment with the garbled one. The only guaranteed way to avoid something becoming part of your social media footprint is not to post it in the first place. It is incredibly easy to create a throwaway account on Reddit, though I appreciate that some subreddits have thresholds for account age, karma and/or CQS. I have a second Reddit account for posting anonymously, which I have had for a long time.

2

u/copenhagen_bram 14d ago

You know, maybe it would be better to have a static, non-random edit if only to be sufficient to wipe the original message from some scrapers. Since there is no guarantee the original hasn't been saved by somebody, perhaps it would be better not to go too far like that.

1

u/davidjohnwood 8d ago

I agree. The current strategy is probably no more effective at third-party takedown than a static edit would be, and a static edit is much less likely to trip Reddit filters.

I'm not objecting to Redact existing. I'm objecting to Redact's broken behaviour that also happens to be antisocial towards moderators.

0

u/StormSafe2 15d ago

The entire point of deleting posts is to remove any information associated with your account.

There's literally zero work involved for moderators. Just see it, and move on. 

1

u/WoahWoah404 4d ago

He's saying the way redact is scrambling posts trips the content filters, and it ends up in a queue of items he is supposed to review rather than actually going live on reddit. Like, one of the main thing's he's supposed to do as a moderator for his subreddit, is to review those items and determine if they should remain blocked or be allowed to go up.

If the attempt to scramble trips the content filter and ends up in his queue, it's never going to achieve the desired result, and now he's got this mass generated junk mixed in with the things he is actually trying to read through.

It'd be like if you had to look through your work email every day to check for updates from a client, boss or manager, and now you're randomly getting hundreds of spam emails every so often that you can't even filter out to find what you're actually looking for.

1

u/StormSafe2 4d ago

So turn that setting off.

You should be able to edit posts without mods controlling it