Reddit is putting more limits on Old.Reddit.com
Reddit is implementing stricter access controls for Old.Reddit.com to combat automated abuse and scraping. Starting soon, users must have accessed the platform within the last six months to maintain access, with an exception for moderators. Additionally, the company will discontinue general RSS feed support in November, citing similar concerns about automated traffic.
- ▪Reddit requires users to have used Old.Reddit.com within the previous six months to retain access.
- ▪Moderators are exempt from the six-month usage requirement and can access Old Reddit as long as they are logged in.
- ▪Reddit will stop supporting RSS feeds for general users on November 13 due to scraping concerns.
- ▪CEO Steve Huffman previously indicated that Old Reddit might be rebuilt on a modern tech stack or have its access further limited.
- ▪Reddit spokesperson Rosa Kim stated the changes aim to preserve the site for real users rather than shutting it down.
2 outlets in our directory ran this story, first to last over 3 hours. All of the coverage we found sits in one bucket: centre. That one-sidedness is itself worth noticing.
- ▪ Reddit imposes new restrictions on Old Reddit — Engadget
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Story provenance
Attribution is not the same as permission. This drawer separates discovery metadata, excerpts, WeSearch-generated summaries, reuse status, and whether the publisher receives the visit. Nothing here claims a legal grant the publisher has not made.
Record
| Original publisher | Ars Technica |
| Canonical URL | https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/09/reddit-will-block-old-reddit-com-from-people-who-havent-used-it-in-6-months/ |
| Publication time | Wed, 30 Sep 2026 19:53:33 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-09-30T20:37:01.992Z |
| Last seen | 2026-09-30T20:37:01.992Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | Jq-RVcubD0RL · 2 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
Rights status (four layers)
WeSearch handling by dimension
| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
New rules for Old reddit Reddit is putting more limits on Old.Reddit.com Reddit says it’s fighting “automated abuse.” Scharon Harding – Sep 30, 2026 3:53 pm | 16 Credit: Cheng Xin/Getty Images Credit: Cheng Xin/Getty Images Text settings Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only Learn more Minimize to nav Soon, Reddit won’t let people use Old.Reddit.com unless they have used the site while logged in within the previous six months. In July, Reddit started requiring that users be logged in to access Old Reddit. This new requirement is an effort to reduce Reddit’s biggest source of scraping and automated traffic, the company says. Today, the social media platform announced additional upcoming restrictions on Old Reddit.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Ars Technica.
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