Reddit Restricts Old Reddit Access to Combat AI Bot Scraping

What Reddit announced

• On September 30, 2026, Reddit said it will further restrict access to the “Old Reddit” interface.
• Users must be logged in and have visited Old Reddit within the six‑month window after the change is rolled out to continue using the classic experience.
• Moderators are exempt from the recent‑use requirement and can still access Old Reddit freely.
• RSS feeds will be discontinued on November 13, 2026, with Reddit citing large‑scale scraping as the reason.
• As part of its Developer Platform transition, Reddit will cut API access for unregistered apps on January 12, 2027, and end all remaining public API access in March 2027.

Details of the rollout

• Reddit claims the six‑month window will cover “the vast majority of all Old Reddit users.”
• The earlier login requirement already reduced scraping but still allowed any logged‑in account, even unused ones, to reach Old Reddit.
• The RSS shutdown is justified because RSS has become “a common surface for large‑scale scraping and automated abuse.” Reddit suggested Discord Relay for moderation help but offers no replacement for general RSS use.
• The platform has been actively fighting unsanctioned data access: it blocked the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, sued Anthropic over alleged unauthorized bot access, and struck licensing deals with Google and OpenAI to use Reddit data for AI training.
• CEO Steve Huffman in May 2025 pledged to keep Old Reddit online “as long as people are using it.” By August 2025, he warned that “we need to make some changes” because the experience was being used by “everyone who spams, scrapes, or does anything bad on Reddit.”
• Moderators will retain unrestricted Old Reddit access regardless of recent usage.
• The upcoming API changes require developers to register their apps by Jan 12, 2027; after that date, any unregistered app loses access, and all public API endpoints will be shut down by March 2027.

Industry context

• Reddit’s restrictions are part of a larger industry trend to curb AI‑driven data harvesting, as platforms grapple with bots that scrape massive amounts of content for training large language models.
• Similar moves by other services—tightening API access, disabling legacy feeds, and blocking archival tools—reflect growing concerns over unauthorized AI training and the need to protect user‑generated content from automated abuse.