Overview
- Reddit announced it will start requiring users to be logged in to use the legacy old.reddit.com interface and plans to phase the change in over the next month.
- The company says the logged‑out old.reddit.com experience has been a major vector for scraping and automated traffic because the legacy site lacks modern security protections.
- Reddit staff say requiring sign‑ins will provide more account‑level signals so the platform can identify rule‑breaking accounts and block or enforce against abusive programs and apps.
- As of the latest report the login rule had been announced but old.reddit.com remained accessible without signing in, and moderators and long‑time users are expected to push back over convenience and privacy concerns.
- If enforced, the change could alter moderators’ and privacy‑minded visitors’ workflows and may shift how third‑party tools and scrapers interact with Reddit’s API and content access rules.