Reddit on Tuesday announced a brand new function that may provide its customers extra privateness with regards to what’s shared on their person profiles.
The corporate says it’s rolling out an replace that may introduce a “Content material and Exercise” setting that enables customers to determine which content material from the subreddits they take part in will seem on their profiles. This consists of each their posting and commenting historical past.
By default, all posts and feedback will stay seen, as earlier than. Nevertheless, the brand new setting permits customers to cover all their public posts and feedback, together with these made instantly on their profiles.
Alternately, customers can determine to selectively show posts and feedback from particular communities on their profile, whereas preserving others hidden.
The setting is on the market underneath a brand new “Curate your profile” part, the place customers can management their content material’s visibility. An choice to toggle on or off NSFW content material and exercise can be obtainable, as is a Followers toggle to indicate or cover follower depend.
The replace provides a layer of privateness to Reddit that wasn’t obtainable earlier than.
Beforehand, many Reddit customers created “throwaway” accounts once they wished to ask extra private questions. However as Reddit morphs into extra of an ad-focused tech company post-IPO, it seemingly prefers that person knowledge — like engagement and pursuits — stays related to a single person profile for higher advert focusing on.
The function’s addition may additionally encourage customers to take part extra on the positioning, as they’ll now know that they will considerably obscure their exercise from public view.
For instance, customers could need to chime in or ask questions on a subject of a extra delicate nature, like relationship or relationship recommendation, or a well being situation they’re dealing with. Earlier than, they might have chosen to simply learn by others’ posts however not interact instantly as a way to preserve the knowledge from displaying on their very own person profiles.
Reddit says that the choice to cover or show posts and feedback is on the market solely on a per-community foundation, not on the particular person submit or remark degree. That makes the settings simpler to handle, even when it means you’ll be able to’t choose and select which particular feedback and posts present up and which don’t.
Nonetheless, customers ought to know that the curation possibility doesn’t imply they’ve true privateness. Their username will nonetheless seem subsequent to their posts and feedback within the communities themselves. Plus, some moderators will nonetheless have entry to a person’s public submit and remark historical past for 28 days, whatever the person’s content material visibility settings, Reddit says.
This entry is useful to moderators who could have to assessment a person’s historical past once they submit or remark, in addition to once they ship “modmail,” like be a part of requests, or requests to affix a restricted neighborhood.
Profile house owners will even have the ability to briefly see a person’s full submit and remark historical past if one other person feedback instantly on their profile submit, the corporate notes.
Alongside this variation, Reddit launched up to date private exercise summaries, which give an summary of a person’s exercise, together with their Karma depend, whole contributions, account age, and energetic communities. The latter can be primarily based on their Content material and exercise settings.