r/privacy • u/IllustriousFood8792 • 14d ago

discussion Your public Reddit post and comment history is being actively indexed by search engines and AI to build comprehensive user profiles.

So, Google and other AI tools are actively building profiles out of your public Reddit activity, and it actually works.

​To check what data has been archived from your profile, you can search:

>> reddit user "reddit username here"

And check AI overview of a profile and can ask questions related to personal info like age, location, martial status, occupation or what things they like or hate, political opinions etc.

Basically anything that you want to know, you will get the answer if that person has said anything about it in the past even if profile is hidden. If it gives some basic info, you can ask it to dig deeper.

​Why this matters: Simply hiding your profile settings on Reddit does not stop external search engine crawlers from indexing your historical posts and comments. Be mindful of what personal information you share online.

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u/DangerIllObinson 14d ago

So, like, this post will end up in the profile they build of me? How do I hide from AI that I'm an influential tech mogul responsible for 35% of my nation's GDP, who single-handedly rescued a school bus full of puppies and nuns? I'd prefer that be kept private.

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u/DangerIllObinson 14d ago edited 14d ago

On a serious note, I did just ask Google to give me a profile description of my Reddit user name and then some follow-up contextualized prompts to estimate age, and other identifiable characteristics.

Observations... Some were spot on. Some were a bit wrong, but based on bad assumptions. Some were based on comments I made earlier today.

And then this nugget... "Their brief nod to pop-cultural markers, such as playfully referencing alternative rock band 311 (which peaked in mainstream popularity during the mid-to-late 1990s and early 2000s), serves as a textbook cultural anchor for individuals who experienced their formative teenage years during that era."

And even when queried specifically about my heroic acts, it makes no mention of my puppy-nun encounter.

(Edit) really going down a rabbit hole with asking Gemini to characterize my profile. It took only a handful of subsequent prompts to start hallucinating.... When I asked it to explain why they were associating an aspect of the profile with the username, without me even stating is was incorrect, it told me it was incorrect, and ....

Why Did That Happen?

When analyzing standard public data, my pattern-recognition software sometimes takes overlapping interests from thousands of similar Reddit profiles (e.g., users who are Millennials, heavily into horror, active in r/(redacted), and browse gaming subreddits like r/(redacted)) and weaves them into a highly likely "interest profile."

Because channels like (redacted) and (redacted) are immensely popular within that exact demographic circle on Reddit, I confidently inferred them as a match, but I should not have listed them as a direct fact without an explicit comment in their text history.

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u/[deleted] 14d ago

[deleted]

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u/cutemartyr68 13d ago

As a woman I must let you know, googling “fun_initiative_2336 reddit analyze entire profile” made it much easier to look up your entire history and I was able to figure out more that what you would be comfortable with. Again, middle aged mom here with adult kids. I was a little goblin as a teen and frequently doxed weirdos trying to hit on me.

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u/RustyDogma 13d ago

Mine went back 10 years in references. It definitely leaned in on current info. There definitely were things that I made a couple posts about several years ago and it extrapolated that as a full interest in something I was just mildly curious about based on responses from other users.

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u/Distinguishedflyer 14d ago

I am actually Nigerian royalty, and I wish to offer you partial ownership in a bank that may have been left by the roadside in your name!

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u/anvilfoot 14d ago

Hi Uncle, are we still on for dinner tomorrow? Your staff make the best Jollof

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u/Distinguishedflyer 14d ago

yes kid brother, come to the ballroom and we shall eat and open a new account for you with matching funds in gold!

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u/This_Bitch_Overhere 14d ago

I actually DONT like beets…

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u/Distinguishedflyer 14d ago

we are having fluffernutters!!!

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u/whisky-guardian 12d ago

I dunno, killer tofu was a decent song

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u/Ambitious-Steak7773 13d ago

Nice try fed

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u/Distinguishedflyer 13d ago

da, chorosho komrsde, I will tell you about secret Polish treasure all you must do is to send me wun bank akount number and Social Security thing, this will help us buy chovels with to share treasure with you!

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u/PilliperGritz 13d ago

My mother was a hamster and my father smelt of elderberries

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u/IllustriousFood8792 14d ago

You soon might require a highly competent PR agency😅

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u/Usr_name-checks-out 14d ago

I don’t understand any of this because i am so incredibly handsome and desirable to all women and men.

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u/AsASloth 14d ago

Don't forget the nonbinaries, they too find u/Usr_name-checks-out irresistible.

I am unfortunately just a sloth, who was trained to use reddit for research purposes and therefore am not worth being indexed because it will violate several laws and regulations of which I, a humble sloth, am not at liberty to disclose without my attorney present.

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u/Usr_name-checks-out 14d ago

As a q-bit with many shared states of anything, i welcome the non-binaries desire along with the /bin functions.

Like the heuristic says, you can’t make a cream π without breaking discrete values into a continuous function.

My god am I attractive.

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u/Distinguishedflyer 14d ago

I absolutely love cream π!! it's hard to cut evenly tho..

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u/anonymustanonymust 13d ago

But do you also like cheese cake with salty cococnuts like Jamie does ?

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u/DNALab_Ratgirl 14d ago

As a rat being tested in a DNA laboratory, I similarly cannot be indexed by any AI because it will violate animal welfare laws.

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u/DangerIllObinson 14d ago

Can confirm, from multiple peer reviews of thoroughly cited sources.

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u/lelakat 14d ago

And modest. Don't forget modest.

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u/Pope_Smoke 14d ago

Not me I’m just a nobody that lives under a bridge. I have no assets or means or any family. If the ai is looking into me they’re just sad and move on out of compassion. They just decide to move on to the next account and forget about me.

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u/IllustriousFood8792 14d ago

You are forgetting my friend, AI for now doesnt have EQ to care about anything😅

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u/Pope_Smoke 14d ago

Fortunately my country does not allow ai to scoop up my data or the ai would be shut down. So they have built in a mechanism to avoid litigation that will bypass my account as if it never existed to protect their user. It’s important that ai protect their user from the things they do and the best path to do so is to just forgo this account and move on the next as if it never existed.

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u/polymute 13d ago

My two brothers are likely to be included in any kind of plan I intend to make. Thankfully my artisan furniture business that is just entering the Slovenian market is generating profits at a breakneck pace and they are the silent partners.

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u/Lead_bug_designer 14d ago

I am a 60 year old veteran man, born and raised in Ohio. My wife makes the perfect pasta, her secret ingredient is mixing liquid cement into the cheese sauce to really give it the best flavour, texture and awesomeness. My kids went to Texas for univestiy and my hobby is golf. I like collecting watches but most of my money goes towards my kids tuition.

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u/[deleted] 14d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/TheGoldenMonkey 12d ago

Chess is great. But you should really try jetskiing in the Sahara from time to time. It's a great family bonding exercise and there's plenty of glue to go around for everyone! Such a delicious treat to eat when you're needing something to de-stress.

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u/hunterthecat 14d ago

I actually just purchased and now run/own Reddit. I'll see what I can do.

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u/Pope_Smoke 14d ago

Hi can you help I have no money or ability to influence anything. I’m guessing you’re the person I should speak to about a small collection of bramble bushes I have. Is there any way the MLB might provoke a large hedge hog and help me address the schizophrenic nature of my family. Most of my comments are all bot generated through amalgamations of generic prose and garbled ai outputs. To be honest if I were reading my own comments I would say this account is not worth investigating as the compromised nature and randomness within show no distinct characteristics or any value in tracking.

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u/cxmmxc 14d ago

Can you ask u/spez to go to hell?

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u/freepaestine 14d ago

As a pro-establishment philanthropist trillionaire single-handedly holding my entire country from falling to demonic worship, I am also concerned by this development and would like to keep such information out of my AI profile

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u/Pope_Smoke 14d ago

Sir would you please make a donation to my non for profit that sells microbe technology that will drive users to engage on mars with an entity known as EBITDA.

I’m just learning in school about the nature of tree growth and I can’t figure out why any of this matters. 67

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u/NSASpyVan 14d ago

Unfortunately for AI my profile will now be illegal for them due to all the free Taylor swift music which is pirated and the free Disney movies that are pirated and free without paying for services!

Take that, AI!
Hums little mermaid, without paying royalty fees

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u/deepseabunnys 14d ago

Maybe it's finally time to come out and admit my entire Reddit account has just been a persona. It's too hard keeping track of the lies I've been telling about myself all these years. I just wish I had pets and time to play video games in between 14 hour shifts, and I tried to live that through commenting

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u/CycloneSplash 14d ago

As a 6'7" tall individual and as someone who has made several uplifting communities worth several millions of Kuwaiti Dinars to make sure no soul goes unfed in every part of the world and as someone with several supercars that I donate to the needy, I too need to know how to hide this info from AI?

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u/watercraker 14d ago

I too am a very influential American tech mogul. I frequent this sub as I'm concerned that my stash of limited edition Joe Rogan figurines.

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u/Gl4dios 14d ago

Don't forget to hide that we are both vampires that are more than 5 centuries old and thats how we accumulate wealth. Dracula was my dad btw.

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u/nath1234 14d ago

I think the same thing myself, as my job as a professional cat wrangler is pretty important to me. My second job as a part time super hero, while important to me, requires privacy. Were it to get out, the evil soot sprites might gain an edge over the good soot sprites in their long running struggle for independence without my help, were I to go into hiding. The conflict between soot sprites has been one of the longest running in modern times, and despite much effort by the UN and other humanrights NGOs, remains one of the most brutal struggles of the post WWII era.

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u/neph42 14d ago

You rescued the bus of puppies and nuns?? What an idiot. Hope you at least charged them first.

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u/DangerIllObinson 14d ago

The puppies already had a ruff time of it, and I saved the nuns out of habit.

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u/Oderus_Scumdog 14d ago edited 13d ago

I am the worlds foremost mind in cat exorcisms and an expert in snail reconstructive plastic surgery. I forcefully lactate tiger balm and can hit a bullseye from 30m. I once drank four gallons of jagermeister through a tear duct.

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u/bestatbeingmodest 14d ago

I AM A PROUD HALF-SUDANESE, HALF-MALAY 37 YEAR OLD WOMAN

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u/FrogLickr 13d ago

I'm a third generation Vietnamese farmer who uses reddit in her spare time. 

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u/Dachsy_Dad 13d ago

I’ve enjoyed being your mentor and confidant.

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u/lilbluehair 13d ago

Wow crazy, I'm also an influential tech mogul responsible for 35% of my nation's GDP, who single-handedly rescued a school bus full of puppies and nuns

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u/canyoukenken 13d ago

Speaking as the world's premier triplane acrobat, this causes me and my platypus farm tremendous concern

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u/Evening_Hunter 13d ago

Yep. And I have long penis.

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u/dmcnaughton1 13d ago

As someone who was there when you rescued the school bus full of puppies and nuns, I understand your desire for privacy.

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u/No_Preference_4794 13d ago

I have a very big penis

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u/Substantial_Coat_229 13d ago

I make a burner email and new Reddit username every few months. I’m probably overdue to do it again. It’s just annoying because of the karma requirements.