Soon, Reddit won’t let people use Old.Reddit.com unless they’ve used the site while logged in within the previous six months.
In July, Reddit began requiring users to log in to access old Reddit. This new requirement is an effort to reduce Reddit’s largest source of automated and scraping traffic, the company says.
Today, the social media platform announced additional upcoming restrictions on Old Reddit. A Reddit post from an employee, known as “judy-funnie” on the platform, says that “in the coming months, we will 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).”
There is an exception for moderators, who will still be able to view Old Reddit regardless of when they last used it, as long as they are logged in.
“This helps keep Old Reddit available to the people who depend on it while reducing automated abuse,” the post says.
Today’s post claimed that forcing users to log in to use Old Reddit “helped reduce scraping and automated abuse.” But new restrictions on the site, which many long-time Reddit users prefer over regular Reddit for its look, layout, homepage, and familiarity, have people worried that Reddit will one day shut down Old Reddit.
I asked Reddit if it plans to shut down Old Reddit and spokesperson Rosa Kim told me via email:
As [Reddit CEO Steve Huffman previously] Confirmed, Reddit continues working on the future of Old Reddit. This change is intended to limit unauthenticated access and reduce automated abuse, not to eliminate Old Reddit for the people and moderators who rely on it. We want to preserve Old Reddit for the real people who use it, not let it be a vector for automated abuse.
Reddit’s announcement noted that the current rules allow “any account that is logged in to access Old Reddit, including accounts with no prior use of Old Reddit.” I asked Kim why that’s bad, but got no answer.
