Destroy your Reddit comment history

eraseddit.dart

// Use the contents of your GDPR comments.csv file to edit all 
// of your Reddit history. You can request this history at:
// https://www.reddit.com/settings/data-request
// They don't check whether you're actually an EU citizen :-)

// It uses puppeteer to remotely control a (headless) Chrome browser

// If you have a massive history or you posted in many subs that
// are now private you may want to refine the script's error
// handling which is currently just to dump failed edits to stdout.

// The delays may be excessive, but do mean that this job should be 
// left to run in the background 

import 'dart:convert';
import 'dart:io';
import 'dart:math';

import 'package:csv/csv.dart';
import 'package:puppeteer/puppeteer.dart';

const un = 'username';
const pw = 'hunter2';

// Useful if you're running a few times with different criteria.
const stopWords = ['OLDKEYWORD', 'API ERROR', 'EZEKIEL'];

const newStopWord = 'EZEKIEL';

const newPhrases = [
  "The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the "
      "inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men.",
  "Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds "
      "the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his "
      "brother's keeper and the finder of lost children.",
  "And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious "
      "anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. "
      "And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you.",
];
final _random = Random();

void main() async {
  final input = File('comments.csv').openRead();
  final fields = await input
      .transform(utf8.decoder)
      .transform(CsvToListConverter())
      .toList();

  // Download the Chrome binaries, launch it and connect to the "DevTools"
  var browser = await puppeteer.launch(headless: true);

  // Open a new tab
  var page = await browser.newPage();

  // Load old reddit of course.
  await page.goto('https://old.reddit.com', wait: Until.load);

  await page.type('input[name=user]', un);
  await page.type('input[name=passwd]', pw);
  await Future.wait([
    page.waitForNavigation(),
    page.click('#login_login-main button[type=submit]')
  ]);

  // You're now logged on to this browser instance.

  File outputFile = File('output.json');

  for (var row in fields.skip(1)) {
    var url = (row[1] as String).replaceFirst('www', 'old');
    // Catch any errors and report them to the console for the
    // user to act on or ignore as they wish.
    try {
      await page.goto(url, wait: Until.load);

      // Look for the highlighted area showing the comment.
      var el = await page.waitForSelector(
          '.commentarea div.usertext-body div.md',
          timeout: Duration(seconds: 5));
      String myComment = await el!.propertyValue('textContent');

      // Don't do anything if we've already processed this comment.
      if (stopWords.any((e) => myComment.contains(e))) {
        // Apply delay just in case of rate limiting.
        sleep(Duration(seconds: 2));
        continue;
      }

      // Build the save record.
      var pid = url.split('/')[6];
      var cid = url.split('/')[8];
      var archive = {
        "link_title": await (await page.$("a.title.may-blank.loggedin"))
            .propertyValue('textContent'),
        "link_id": cid,
        "subreddit": await (await page.$("div#header span.redditname a"))
            .propertyValue('textContent'),
        "comment_id": cid,
        "parent_id": pid,
        "score": (await (await page.$("span.score.likes"))
                .propertyValue('textContent'))
            .split(' ')
            .first,
        "body": myComment,
        "created": await page
            .$eval("p.tagline time", r'''e=>e.getAttribute('datetime')'''),
        // await (await page.$("p.tagline time")).propertyValue('datetime')
      };
      
      // Good point at which to decide if you don't want to edit this comment
      // in this pass based on score, length or whatever:
      // if () continue;

      // Press the edit link.
      await page.click('ul.flat-list li a.edit-usertext');

      // Wait for this comment's textarea to be brought forward.
      var editBoxSelector = 'div#thing_t1_$cid .usertext-edit div.md textarea';
      var watchEdit = page.waitForSelector(editBoxSelector,
          visible: true, timeout: Duration(seconds: 5));

      // We can assume it's not null because the `waitForSelector` call
      // would have thrown an exception.
      var editBox = (await watchEdit)!;

      // Delete and replace existing content.
      // You could do an eval call to edit the DOM directly instead.

      await editBox.click(clickCount: 3); // select all (ish)
      await editBox.press(Key.backspace); // delete selection

      // Look for any missed text and delete it.
      var spareText = await page.$eval(editBoxSelector, r'''el => el.value''');
      await editBox.click();
      for (var i = 0; i < spareText.length; i++) {
        await page.keyboard.press(Key.backspace);
      }
      // Includes the comment id as a random element to evade oversensitive
      // spam traps. You could just use any old random string instead.
      await editBox.type('${newPhrases[_random.nextInt(newPhrases.length)]} '
          '[$newStopWord: $cid]\n');

      await page
          .click('div#thing_t1_$cid .usertext-buttons button[type=submit]');

      outputFile.writeAsStringSync('${json.encode(archive)}\n',
          mode: FileMode.append);
      // print('edited $url');
      sleep(Duration(seconds: 10));
    } catch (e) {
      print("Couldn't edit $url");
      // Just in case there is some serious rate limiting happening.
      sleep(Duration(seconds: 20));

      continue;
    }
  }

  // Gracefully close the browser's process
  await browser.close();
}