Reddit removes years of chat and message archives from users' accounts

The Reddit blackout protests didn’t quite force the company to reverse course on its API changes that resulted in the shutdown of many popular third-party apps, but it did succeed in dominating the conversation around the platform for weeks.However, while everyone was paying attention to the protests, Reddit made some other big changes to its platform. One of those changes resulted in the removal of years of users’ private conversations on the platform.Over the past few weeks, many Redditors have reported the disappearance of their private chat logs and messages shared between other Reddit users over the years. Mashable also noticed the same on two reporters’ personal accounts. Messages and live chats from before 2023 are no longer accessible by users. Reddit “I lost EVERY.SINGLE.ONE. of my Chats – 7 years of history I was saving,” posted one Redditor. “I just discovered this and I am devastated. I’ve lost contacts with Redditors I wanted to save, a ton of research shared back and forth, information that isn’t available anywhere publicly.””Met my wife on reddit…disappointing we lost those first messages,” another user posted. Reddit Mashable confirmed with Reddit that messages and chat history are no longer available if they were made prior to January 1, 2023. A Reddit spokesperson forwarded Mashable a changelog announcement made on June 22 where the company shared that these messages would be removed.”In our continued pursuit of empowering communities, we are transitioning to a new chat infrastructure,” reads the changelog notice. “In an effort to have…Reddit removes years of chat and message archives from users' accounts