About r/privacy
In its own words:
Privacy in the digital age (this is not a SECURITY subreddit, and PUBLIC data, closed source, etc is off-topic)
Community guide
r/privacy (#633, about 1.7 million subscribers) is oriented around: Privacy in the digital age (this is not a SECURITY subreddit, and PUBLIC data, closed source, etc is off-topic) Recent activity samples show 28 posts/day in recent samples (~65% text, ~34% link, ~1% video). Public rules we collected include: No Closed Source Software; Submission Rules for Developers; Don’t Engage In Self Promotion; Only Approved Surveys, Fundraising & Petitions Allowed; Be Nice!.
What belongs here
Stay inside the room’s stated scope rather than adjacent fandoms or general off-topic dumps. Piracy and illegal distribution talk is removed; keep discussion to legitimate viewing/playing options. This is not positioned as a tech-support desk; troubleshooting belongs in dedicated help communities. Low-effort memes or empty shitposts are commonly removed—add context that fits the room’s purpose.
How it differs from lookalikes
If you need install/fix help, prefer a support-oriented sub; keep this room for news, opinion, and on-topic discussion flagged by its rules. The length of the public rule list is itself a signal: skim all of them once before assuming defaults from similar communities.
Practical pointers
Read the current sidebar/rules on Reddit before posting; collected rules can lag. Avoid clickbait titles; say what the post actually is. Common flairs in samples include: question, news, discussion, age verification.
SubMouse Editorial
The community was created on Mar 21, 2008, which makes it 18 years old. Since Oct 26, 2026, it has gained 2,308 subscribers (+0.14%). It sits just behind r/ShittyLifeProTips (#632) and ahead of r/Basketball (#634) in our ranking.
What sets r/privacy apart
r/privacy is far more text-driven than most big subreddits: 65% of its recent posts are text posts, against a median of 35% across the Top 100. It is also one of the faster-growing big communities: its 0.77% gain since Sep 19, 2026 beats 90% of the Top 100. Its rhythm is strongly tied to time zones: the busiest hour (18:00 UTC) sees about 16.0× as many posts as the quietest (04:00 UTC).
Subscriber growth
Between Sep 19, 2026 and Nov 2, 2026, r/privacy climbed from 1,668,281 to 1,681,109 subscribers (+12.8K, +0.77%). That is about 292 new members per day. The chart uses our weekly snapshots (9 so far), so it gets longer every week.
What r/privacy talks about
Across 167 recent posts (Oct 29–Nov 4), the words that come up most are “data”, “proton”, “social”, “age” and “media”. Other frequent themes are app, verification, surveillance, private, meta and personal. Recurring phrases include “social media”, “manifestos fear”, “loser thinking” and “thinking inside”. By format, 65% are text posts, 34% are links and 1% are videos.
Popular post flairs: question (46), news (43), discussion (37), age verification (12), guide (8), data breach (6).
Activity and best time to post
r/privacy gets about 28 new posts a day. The public archive holds 254,063 posts and 2,649,417 comments in total, about 10.4 comments per post. Last week the busiest day was Tuesday (33 posts) and the quietest was Sunday (12). Posting peaks around 18:00 UTC and is lowest around 04:00 UTC.
Rules of r/privacy
The moderators of r/privacy list 14 rules. In short:
- No Closed Source Software
- Submission Rules for Developers
- Don’t Engage In Self Promotion
- Only Approved Surveys, Fundraising & Petitions Allowed
- Be Nice!
- No Violence
- Topic Already Covered
- Not Tech Support
- Using Editorialized Title
- Original Source
How to join
Open reddit.com/r/privacy and press “Join”. Read the community rules in the sidebar before you post: every subreddit is run by its own volunteer moderators.
Frequently asked questions
How many subscribers does r/privacy have?
r/privacy has 1,681,109 subscribers (Nov 2, 2026), which makes it the #633 safe-for-work subreddit in the SubMouse ranking. It added 12,828 members between Sep 19, 2026 and Nov 2, 2026.
When was r/privacy created?
r/privacy was created on Mar 21, 2008, so it has been around for 18 years.
Is r/privacy still active?
Yes. r/privacy gets about 28 new posts a day (average of the last four weeks). Over its lifetime the archive counts 254,063 posts and 2,649,417 comments. In a sample of 167 recent posts we counted 140 different authors.
What is the best time to post in r/privacy?
Based on post counts from Oct 29, 2026 to Nov 4, 2026, the busiest day was Tuesday and the quietest Sunday, and most posts arrive around 18:00 UTC, with the fewest around 04:00 UTC. More posts also means more competition, so a quieter hour can help a post get noticed.
What kind of posts are on r/privacy?
The community describes itself as: “Privacy in the digital age (this is not a SECURITY subreddit, and PUBLIC data, closed source, etc is off-topic)” Recent post titles often mention data, proton, social, age and media. Most posts are text posts (65%).
Is r/privacy SFW?
Yes. Reddit does not mark r/privacy as an 18+ (NSFW) community. SubMouse lists safe-for-work subreddits only.
What are the rules of r/privacy?
Join the community on Reddit first, then use “Create post”. r/privacy accepts both text and link posts. It has 14 posted rules, starting with: “No Closed Source Software”; “Submission Rules for Developers”; “Don’t Engage In Self Promotion”. Moderators remove posts that break the rules, so read them in the sidebar before posting.
What subreddits are similar to r/privacy?
Communities with similar topics include r/digitalnomad (2.4M), r/datascience (2.8M), r/Cinemagraphs (1.8M), r/marketing (2M) and r/Piracy (3.1M).
Stats from public data (data updated Nov 2, 2026; activity, rules and archive totals via the Arctic Shift archive, Nov 6, 2026). Point and comment counts are archive snapshots and can be lower than on Reddit today. SubMouse is an independent directory and is not affiliated with Reddit or the moderators of r/privacy.