Logged-out Old Reddit access is “significant source of abusive scraping."

Reddit will start requiring people to be logged into Reddit to use old.reddit.com.

The new requirement will take effect “over the next month,” a Reddit employee going by the username boat-botany announced on the social media platform today. The person claimed that the change is part of an ongoing effort to “tighten how automated systems access Reddit.”

The Reddit employee wrote:

Old Reddit’s logged-out experience is a significant source of abusive scraping and automated traffic on the platform. It’s also an important interface for many long-time mods and Redditors. To strike the right balance between preserving your access to Old Reddit while preventing abusive scraping and automated traffic, over the next month we will start requiring everyone to log in.

    • SuspiciousCarrot78@aussie.zoneEnglish
      3·
      2 days ago

      Ah but redreader parses old.reddit.com. So with the proposed changes, you will probably need an account to use even the excellent RedReader.

      IIRC, when the APIpocolypse happened, Reddit tried really hard to nerf Redreader. They got shamed into allowing it access again on accessibility grounds.

      It’s only a matter of time before it stops working.

      Take solace in knowing that “lol, fuck reddit then” is a perfectly cromulent response to this.

      I just hope Lemmy doesn’t become Reddit 2.0