Reddit said Wednesday that the platform is revamping its privacy settings with an aim to make ad personalization and account visibility toggles consistent. Most notably though, it is removing the ability to opt out of ad personalization based on Reddit activity.

The company said that it will still have opt-out controls in “select countries” without specifying which ones. It mentioned in a blog post that users won’t see more ads but they will see better-targeted ads following this change.

“Reddit requires very little personal information, and we like it that way. Our advertisers instead rely on on-platform activity—what communities you join, leave, upvotes, downvotes, and other signals—to get an idea of what you might be interested in,” Reddit said.

The company is essentially removing the option to not track you based on whatever you do on Reddit.

Additionally, Reddit is consolidating two toggles on showing ads based on activity and information from partners into one toggle. So there is no way to separate those two settings now.

Reddit is seemingly removing toggles for getting post recommendations based on “general location” and activity on partner sites and apps. It’s not clear if this means those parameters will be used for post suggestions by default and there is no way to turn them off.

The social network said it will also roll out controls to limit certain advertising categories such as alcohol, weight loss, dating, gambling pregnancy, and parenting.

The company noted that ad-limiting controls will possibly show you fewer ads from mentioned categories if the toggles are turned off, but won’t possibly filter out all ads. Reddit justified this by saying it uses manual tagging and machine learning to label ads, so there is a chance that it is not 100% accurate.

Reddit is also simplifying its location customization setting under a single menu, which will be easily accessible through settings on apps and on the web.

The social platform has made several changes to increase monetization. It infamously made changes to its data API terms that led to many third-party clients shutting down and subreddits protesting in retaliation. Last week, it rolled out a new creator rewards program to incentivize people to post more and better content on the platform. But it also introduced a change that made it easier for users to purchase Gold rewards.

In an interview with The Verge in June, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman responded to IPO rumors and said “Getting to breakeven is a priority for us in any climate.”

  • ares35@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    51
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    just a hunch, but i think old’s days are numbered, too… and it’s a fairly low number.

    • GeekFTW@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      34
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      100%. We know this for a fact because they specifically said they weren’t touching it. I expect it’s gone by the end of the 2024 at the latest.

      • thehatfox@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 year ago

        It probably was, but I would imagine a lot of the dedicated users of old are also those who have fled Reddit recently. Reddit might feel there would be less backlash to removing old now.

        • MC_Lovecraft@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          Yup. I left at the end of June, and would have left immediately if they had fucked with old.reddit at any point. I only see the site now when it comes up in search results and seeing what Reddit looks like now instantly assuaged any doubts I had about leaving.

          • thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            1 year ago

            I find it useful at times as a research resource but every time, I stop it from loading and change the URL to old. When they break that, I don’t think I will use it anymore unless it holds the only solution to my question

        • andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          I was pointing to a giant mass of people on r/all. Reddit was a beacon to all us techies and weirdos who like this format and do care enough to untick tracking. But I doubt anyone I talked to there was ever subscribed to r/funny, r/memes or other top subs, and they were the most active subs, have most users. Scrolling it like Insta, that way.

          Those who were curious about what they can change in preferences are power users, more likely to choose 3rd party apps, to create content, comment or mod. Those as you said more likely to leave to Lemmy. And I feel they are actually a small minority compared to those who didn’t know opt-out was even an option or why it matters.