Reddit sends what you type into submission body before clicking submit button for "validation purposes"

submitted by orangered from self.privacy

When you writing a post reddit (sometimes) sends what you typed into text body into "https ://oauth.reddit.com/api/validate_submission_field" with Form data containing

  • sr(subreddit)
  • field
  • kind
  • title(empty for some reason)
  • url
  • richtext_json(contains text body)
  • flair_id
  • show_error_list

For some reason it is not always happens (maybe only happens on some subreddits or users?) and as i know this only happens on NEW reddit

Also i don't know if reddit stores or deletes this data after processing it.
Mitigation: type into notepad and paste it instead of typing directly

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[–]IkeConn 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Thank you for looking into it so I didn't have to do it.

[–]William_World 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

yes you can post to reddit, log out or use a different laptop and look at the thread, you won't see your comment, it takes a few minutes

[–]Site_rly_sux 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

If you start typing in such a comment box.

And then navigate away from the page or close the tab

And then come back to the same comment field.

Does it remember your half-finished comment? I think a system for remembering accidentally deleted comments would look similar to what you described.

It could also be an anti-evil measure - reddit users who see spam links to viagra blogs, might be less engaged overall with reddit, so some smartass product manager decided to catch spam before spammers even hit submit.

Rolling out new site features subreddit-by-subreddit is generally how they test the new shitty things

Edit - I mean come on, generally yes Reddit Inc will find ways to violate your privacy for ad money.

But if you think that somehow, Reddit decided that the next best way to make money is to monetize the unfinished text of a comment field. Then you need to finish the thought. Why would Reddit see that as a source of revenue to persue? How is that the best value for money, in personalising ads? It just doesn't make sense as a privacy issue. It seems more like an engineering burden to further some other product goal, like anti-evil or better UX tools

[–]SoCo 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think that there is a general concern/assumption that the many social media websites and apps will collect as you type and know posts you decided not to send.