Reddit imposes new restrictions on Old Reddit
The company is also cutting off RSS support.
Last month, Reddit signaled that there would be significant changes coming to "Old Reddit" as it continues to fight AI scraping. Now, the company says that it will soon restrict the 21-year-old desktop version of its website to "recent" users of the classic layout only.
"In the next few months, we'll further limit access for logged-in users to only those who have used Old Reddit in the last six months (which covers the vast majority of all Old Reddit users)," the company wrote in an update on r/modnews. With the change, new accounts will no longer be able to access Old Reddit, and existing users who haven't used it for six months will also be barred. Logged-in moderators won't be subject to "recent usage" requirements, the company said.
While Old Reddit remains popular among a vocal contingent of longtime users, the company has said the older version of the site has been a "significant source" of AI scraping. Last month, the company restricted Old Reddit to users who are logged in, but said more changes would be necessary in the future. In its latest update, the company said that the recent change had already reduced automated abuse on the platform, even though it's further tightening access.
The company still hasn't said definitively whether it will eventually abandon Old Reddit entirely. CEO Steve Huffman has said that his "dream" for Old Reddit would be to "recreate the UI, if not the guts, including the HTML+CSS itself, on a modern foundation so it can live on."
Reddit has taken significant steps to fight AI scraping over the last few years, including API changes that effectively shut down third-party clients. The company is also phasing out its API in favor of a more controlled developer platform. Now, Reddit says it will stop supporting RSS feeds as those too are "a common surface for large-scale scraping and automated abuse." That change will go into effect November 13. "We know RSS has been a beloved part of the open web for a long time, and we're grateful to everyone who used it to stay connected to Reddit," the company wrote.