Reddit to Stop Supporting RSS Feeds on November 13, Blaming AI Scraping
Reddit will cease supporting RSS feeds as of November 13, citing widespread use for large-scale scraping and automated abuse. In a post to moderators on Wednesday, the company explained that RSS is primarily used for alerts within communities moderated by users. For these moderators, Reddit offers an alternative with Discord Relay apps. However, those who rely on RSS outside moderation will lose this feature, with no replacement provided.
Changes to Old Reddit and API Access
Reddit is also making significant changes to access Old Reddit, its classic text-heavy design. Currently, users must log in, and in the coming months, only moderators and those who actively used it within the past six months will retain access. This covers most active users, according to Reddit. Public API access will end in March 2027, with new requests accepted until October 31st. From January 12th, apps that have not registered will be gradually cut off.
Over 14,000 apps and bots have registered to transition to Reddit's Developer Platform, for which Reddit offers a $1,000 incentive per eligible app completing the move from a $1 million fund.
Moderators expressed criticism in the comments, with some concerned that losing Automod tools will lead to more bans.
Background and Related Articles
Reddit first announced these changes in August, replacing parts of Automod with AI rules enforcement. This comes as Reddit also considers cutting Google off from its content and faces increasing bot traffic, estimated at 1,000 times human traffic by Cloudflare's CEO this week.
For more insights, explore related articles on the impact of AI on scraping, social media platforms' policy changes, and digital marketing trends in the SaaS industry.