If you simply delete your account, reddit holds onto these data.

Uh... but you are not changing anything by individually deleting each post or comment, anyway. They still keep the data, and use it however they like, whether you delete the account or delete the posts.

Additionally, deleting your posts and comments does not change the fact that they have already been scraped and copied into datasets. Nearly the entirety of reddit text-posts and comments have also been archived and are available publicly as a legal torrent. Heres a link to a 4TB Reddit archive from 2005 to 2025 that anyone can access and download: https://academictorrents.com/details/3e3f64dee22dc304cdd2546254ca1f8e8ae542b4

EDIT: there was a more recent reddit archive that includes 2025 data, so I updated the link

As others have said, "deleting" your data from reddit does absolutely nothing to stop them using it. They're not actually deleting it, just hiding it, and they'll use it in whatever way they see fit and think they can get away with. You'd think it might stop third parties scraping it and then using it, but all your posts were already scraped within moments of you posting them, so retroactively hiding them doesn't achieve anything there either.

The rule remains: if you post something publicly, you cannot call it back. It will, or might, remain out there in perpetuity.

I wiped my data a few times and I can find my stuff when not logged in. As far as I can tell wiping the data seems to just be for the view of your logged in user.

It doesn't matter, they'll put it all back up. They retroactively claimed ownership of your content.

One: Deleting a post most likely marks it as "user deleted" or similar in the database. It's how you can still see the post in the ui and comment chains, just with a blurb saying it was deleted. The original content is likely still in that row, it's just got a boolean column for isDeleted.

Two: Editting is almost entirely the same. New row in the database with a column for parentCommentID which causes the website to show that over the original. The original might have a column for childComment or isEditted.

Three: Reddit TOS probably says they have a license to do whatever the fuck they want with your posts and comments. Unless you're in a place that has data governance laws like the GDPR, they have no obligation to delete your data.

Would it matter? Would Reddit ACTUALLY delete your data?

Press X to doubt

I came here from reddit. I fully deleted my account but did not delete any posts or comments (mostly comments, just like here). Whenever I commented on reddit is was throwaway stuff. No one would keep that BS for posterity and I'm sure as shit that they won't use my words to further their descent into the dystopia they have already started creating.

So sad. People's comments and posts are so valuable to anyone looking up the same information but this is the right thing to do.