I’m not sure if it’s a coincidence, but I raised a case with the ICO in the UK, and today they got back to me asking for all my communication with Reddit. Also today - after a month of silence - Reddit also emailed me with this
If you’re in the UK and had been affected by posts being restored, I’d recommend contacting the ICO. It takes less than 5 minutes
I definitely do not believe any of these stories of comments intentionally restored. Not one piece of concrete proof of it happening has been submitted by anyone. It's definitely one of those "do your own research" things.
But also, Reddit is responsible for this situation by not having a first party tool for self-service full account deletions. They deserve all these conspiracies hitting them for omitting such an essential feature.
Your comment misses the very important point that nobody who experienced this issue had the clairvoyance to screenshot their cleared profile on Day A to prove that their comments were restored on Day B, C, or D. You're expecting someone to have explicitly predicted that exact circumstance and deliberately documented it before it ever happened to them. That's like complaining to your neighbor they they can't prove the scratch wasn't already in their car door after they watch you hit it with your own.
Demanding I prove a negative because countless people have never once proved a positive? That's pretty much the definition of conspiracy thinking.
These rumors of restored comments have been going on since the start of the reddit blackouts. And they're largely not happening anymore now that the blackouts are over. It was the blackouts. I checked my comments and deleted new ones almost every day during the blackouts, and whenever they "came back" they were all on a previously-private sub and they "came back" as a bloc. It was private subs having comments be private, then turning public/restricted and "restoring" the previously-inaccessible comments.
There is absolutely zero change Reddit would be restoring only certain comments. It would be widespread if they were doing it. They aren't going to send out one of the professional sitewide mods with admin tools to review deletions and randomly restore only certain comments.