Reddit: Privacy, Security, and How to Delete a Reddit Account

Why Should You Consider Learning How To Delete Your Reddit Account?

At times, the decision to delete a social media account stems from a singular incident, while in other cases, individuals simply get sick and tired of it. Everyone's tolerance for online stress differs—some endure it, some can switch off from it, while others will be out of there at the first sign of BS!

Considering this, let's explore some of the common motives for people to delete their Reddit accounts.

If one or two of these reasons resonate with you, then it might be time to reconsider your account. If ALL factors align with your experience, then reducing social media usage and redirecting efforts toward uplifting pursuits will definitely be a good idea.

Wasted Time

Over 50 million people visit Reddit daily. The 'average' Reddit user spends 10 minutes and 23 seconds on the site every day. That's about 3,800 minutes, or about 2.63 entire days, wasted every year. Heavy users might spend hours a day on Reddit, of course. They're wasting weeks of their life every year.

Of course, it's only a waste if the impact of Reddit on your life is an overall neutral or negative experience. If it actually increases your happiness, gives you a more positive attitude, and motivates you to take care of the things that you need to do: Great!

But for the majority of people who don't actually get a benefit from Reddit, and tend to sink into moods of frustration, anger, and helplessness from reading the content… you can do better.

Want Less Advertising

Even if you use an ad blocker, Reddit is crawling with 'stealth' advertising. This is also known as 'astroturfing'. These are posts that are part of ad company viral campaigns. They're either posted by a trusted user who has been paid to do so, or by a high karma account that was purchased exactly for that reason.

A simple search for 'selling Reddit accounts' should convince you that this goes on all the time and that high karma accounts that can cleanly push subtle advertising posts are pure gold.

So if one of your goals is to experience less advertising, an ad blocker isn't enough. You may want to consider getting Reddit out of your life completely.

Looking for a Better Alternative

There may be friendlier, more relevant, and less toxic forums available for the subject matter that you're interested in.

There's a reason that Reddit is known as an echo chamber. The upvote and downvote system makes it easy to fall into the social media 'hive mind'. People asking important questions, people with personal experience who have a differing opinion, and even people who just want to see the subReddit's rules enforced often get downvoted into oblivion. Unless you take the time to sort by 'Controversial' or read the downvoted posts on a thread, it's quite likely that you're only going to be exposed to one point of view.

Downvoting leads to content cabals and witch hunts. Complaining about such things to the wrong administrator can land you with a subReddit ban. So some people find it best to just go with the flow.

Seeking out better, possibly more specialized, alternatives to Reddit can increase your enjoyment of the subject matter and the quality of your average community interaction.

Bored Out Of Your Mind

This might sound funny, but in a statistical analysis of Reddit, 23.74% of users said they quit Reddit because it was boring.

And that might be the case for a lot of people. Once something becomes habitual, new content looks much the same as old content. Reposts become more common. And of course, moderation of popular posts is a lot more lax, even if they break repost and subReddit guidelines.

So after a number of months a years, things start to blur together, and content can become stale. Topics on Reddit are rarely followed up on, so thousands of miracle cures from early scientific studies just disappear when the research path doesn't pan out. Memes become more popular than actual news. And there are far more 'running jokes' than original humor.

Ties to China's Government and Regimes

In 2019, Reddit accepted $150 million from Tencent. While they insist that the investment won't impact editorial policy, obviously it impacts advertising policy. And who knows how it will shape the board of directors in the future.

Tencent might be known as a maverick in China, but when they get out of line the government cracks down. They're still required to provide government-mandated backdoors. So if at any point Tencent gets access to Reddit's user data, the Chinese government will also have access. They can deny all they like, but again: It's a legal requirement.

So potentially keeping personal information, browsing habits, and social fingerprint information out of the hands of an oppressive government's hands is a perfectly valid reason to cut ties with Reddit. Future ownership is never certain, but we already know who they're let in the front door.

Different Priorities Post-Pandemic

After a forced and pro-longer "hibernation" spent working from home, eating takeaways or frozen dinners, with the only entertainment being on screen, many people have a newfound desire for non-social media activities.

Social media was once a novel way to pass the time. But after almost two whole years spent on it, for some people, it has lost its appeal and they have turned to more outdoor activities and hobbies. They get more fresh air, produce more homemade meals, do DIY and homemade crafts, and even produce works of art.

So it's not always a matter of time wasted… sometimes it's about time improved. These new activities really break the cycle of just sitting in front of a screen all day. They remind us of a life beyond the Internet. Beyond Reddit.

General Privacy Concerns

Not unique to any one social media platform certainly, privacy is a huge reason why you might be looking for a method on how to delete your Reddit account.

With employers now poking into online activity to vet potential hires, and with even more invasive advertisers and law enforcement agencies over the past two decades, sometimes the best idea is to just pull the plug. You will need to go in and delete individual problematic posts if you choose to get rid of your Reddit account, as they will remain, though they will be attributed to an account called [DELETED].

Remember: This won't delete things you've already said from internet archives such as the Wayback Machine. So if there was anything particularly egregious that you wanted to wipe out, make sure you use their contact form to remove specific instances that might threaten your privacy.

How To Delete Your Reddit Account

If the reasons above were enough to tilt the scales in favor of deletion, you're in luck. If you're finished with Reddit forever, there is a method that you can use to delete your Reddit account cleanly. But there's just one more thing to know before you continue:

Any account deletion performed for Reddit is permanent. You won't be able to contact the admins and ask for account restoration. They won't dig around in the tape backups to restore your profile. And there's no way to 'take a vacation' with an account unless you provide the means yourself.

In short: Reddit account deletion is permanent.

Your username will be stricken from the database, and it can never be reused. That means your profile, post history (though not the posts themselves, see below for details on reattribution), karma rating, chat logs, private mailbox, awards, gift history, and all of the details that made up your account will be gone for good. Once you confirm this process, it's as good as done. There's no stopping or reversing it. So if you follow these instructions, you're going down a one- way street. If you ever change your mind, you'll need to create a fresh account and start over.

As long as you agree to all of the above, these are the steps you can to permanently wipe out your Reddit account forever:

Login to Reddit using the account that you plan to delete forever.

Copy and paste anything that you need to a private and secure local or Cloud document.

Delete any highly problematic posts manually. Remember that the information will stay up, it will just be reattributed to an account called [DELETED]. This is your last chance to clean up any content that you no longer want on Reddit.

(On the classic interface) Click on Preferences, which should be an option sitting next to the account name. Or (On the new interface) Click on your Profile Icon, then User Settings. Scroll all the way to the bottom to find the Deactivate button.

Click on Deactivate, which can be located as one of a series of tabs right at the top of the Preferences screen. You will be taken to the Reddit Deactivation page.

Read and understand the deactivation page warning. As of Q4 2021, Reddit gives you the following warnings and suggestions:

“If you're having a problem on Reddit, please consider contacting us about it before deactivating your account. Deactivating your account will not delete the content of posts and comments you've made on Reddit. To do so, please delete them individually.”

Make the final decision, since there's no turning back after this point. Read and understand all of these statements, then you can continue with the account deletion process. For an optional task, you can state or make up a reason as to why the account is being deleted. If you like, you can leave this section entirely blank. We highly suggest that you just leave this section blank. There's no reason to jeopardize your anonymity to make a petty statement.

Provide login details on the final form. As a security measure, they'll make you enter the account's username and password.

Tick the checkbox that says: “I understand that deactivated accounts are not recoverable.”

Click on the Deactivate Account button.

And that's it. It's done.

You'll be logged out, and the account will be deleted.

The Pitfalls and Benefits of Deleting Social Media

In 2018, SCL Health provided a quick primer that outlined the pros and cons of cutting the social media cord. It's still mostly valid to this day. In a nutshell, deleting your Reddit account may leave some mental and emotional gaps that need to be filled.

If you interact with people you know regularly, you might want to find a more casual way of reaching out and talking with them, for example. Maybe a chat server such as Telegram or Discord. You don't want to cut yourself off from good and supportive influences in your life… just all of the other crap.

But as long as you actively fill any gaps with real, positive social interaction with a more supportive subset of people, there are benefits to be reaped. Higher self-esteem, more sleep, and a greater level of happiness have all been reported by social media cord-cutters.

Now that you know how to delete your Reddit account, and some of the pros and cons of limiting or eliminating your social media exposure, it's time to make a decision. Do what's best for yourself here, don't allow peer pressure or a false sense of obligation to sabotage your mental health and happiness.

Read more: How to Delete a Tik Tok Account