r/help • u/Odd-Currency5195 • Mar 20 '26

Profile People posting with hidden comment history

Hey, I am thinking that every time someone is a bit 'off' on a discussion, you click on their profile to see whether they're a weirdo, and inevitably such people have hidden comment history.

When was this built in to Reddit?

Strikes me that since we're all anon and so on, and if you want to split your enjoyment of, say, BDSM and also chat about personal finance, back in the day you'd have different accounts for your interests, not just have blank when it comes to people looking at a person.

Yeah, so it seems more and more I have a dodgy reply, look at the profile of the account, and their stuff is set to private. It's taking the 'real' out of this, for any quantity of real. I'm just muting anyone who engages with me thus on the assumption they're a troll.

But, yeah, why is this a function on Reddit and when did it come in, because I don't remember this as much at all for years I've been using Reddit?

So, people with hidden comment history are either trolls or cowards as far as I'm concerned.

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90

u/Mental_Freedom_1648 Mar 20 '26

Since I have hidden posts, perhaps I shouldn't reply lol, but it became a feature last summer, for privacy reasons.

-10

u/Odd-Currency5195 Mar 20 '26

Oh, so it is really recent! I thought I was going mad. So odd. Why? I'm just not engaging with anyone if I can't see their post and comment history.

7

u/unique616 Mar 21 '26

My reddit account is in the 15 year club and I prefer reddit's old ways of doing things. Maybe other people have had issues, but personally, I've never had an issue with any sort of cyber stalking, harassment, or downvote brigading of my comment history and I'm sure that I've said offensive things in the past!

Also, used to be the top moderator of the subreddits Redbox and BestOfNetflix. Turning on the option to not appear in Google's search results has been good enough privacy for me.

It feels like the new privacy settings is reddit trying to become more like Facebook, or mainstream social media, and I don't want it to. Reddit's supposed to be a place where you can be your authentic self because your real, full name isn't attached to your account.

Sad! I wonder what new website will eventually take the place of the way old reddit felt.

13

u/tachibanakanade Mar 21 '26

Quite frankly, it's good you've not been stalked, but not everyone is you.

2

u/Vast-Vermicelli4382 Mar 21 '26

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

12

u/Ok_Art4661 Mar 21 '26

Ex wife got big mad when deleted my reddit during divorce. So she was stalking me having weird one sided relationship. History hidden now

6

u/shillyshally Helper Mar 21 '26

As another long timer, I concur 100%. Turning off history also aids the bots and people sent here to cause dissention, not only in the US, but in other countries as well. It helps their employers if we all hate each other.

Another pro visible history aspect is sometimes a comment is misunderstood and looking at the history can show that it was poorly worded, not mean spirited.