On social news site Reddit, revealing someone else’s personal info is a serious offense — enough to get you immediately banned, in fact.
That of course doesn’t stop redditors from posting potentially revealing information about themselves, which is saved in perpetuity on each redditor’s user pages (unless one chooses to delete it).
Now Reddit stalkers and exhibitionists have a perfect meeting place to indulge all their their textual fantasies.
Redditor AlexanderSalamander created r/RedditBiography late yesterday. Here, according to the section’s sidebar, redditors can “snoop through comment histories and compose detailed life stories and psychological profiles.What have you got to hide?’
r/RedditBiography makes a game out of online stalking. And that’s not really a bad thing. In a way, you could use the section the same way some companies employ hackers to test the security of their networks. Worried you’ve posted too much revealing information on Reddit, but can’t find it yourself? Just post to r/RedditBiography.
The section already boasts over 400 subscribers after being live for less than a day. And a good dozen people have already opened themselves up to the potentially creepy scrutiny of their peers.
One early guinea pig was Howxat from London. “Let’s see how much personal info I’ve posted on Reddit!” he titled is post.
This is what one redditor discovered after poring over his user history:
“First name Howard, from London. Attends University of Southhampton as a computer science major. Plays soccer and [ultimate frisbee] and works out regularly, but doesn’t like tabata sprints. Starcraft, Minecraft and [Team Fortress 2] player. Poor dancer, though. Likes that one song by Ennio Berlusconi.”
“Pretty good!” Howard wrote, though he noted he no longer played soccer.
Still, that detective work paid off for another redditor. He actually found a photograph of Howard.
“Proficient stalking!” Howard replied.