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

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/67172855

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.

  • WaterWaiver@aussie.zoneEnglish
    6·
    2 days ago

    Already started for me this morning. Reddit is now inaccessible to me. I guess they want to be more like Discord now?

    EDIT: This means I can’t access /r/HFY ;( That’s a heartbreaker for me. (Short science fiction stories)

    • cideyav138@lemmy.ml
      3·
      9 hours ago

      I’m not sure how it’s working, but I’m still able to browse reddit using the open source app, Stealth. I thought it was scraping old.reddit. Maybe not?

      Anyway, if anyone’s interested, this person posted a patched APK about a week ago –

      https://gitlab.com/cosmosapps/stealth/-/work_items/142#note_3472723291

      YMMV installing random APKs from people in that issue thread. Hoping the dev steps in soon and actually implements the changes. Stealth has been my go-to Reddit app ever since Reddit ended open API access.