// ARS TECHNICA — MODA & SOCIETÀ
Reddit signals ominous upcoming "changes” for old.reddit.com
Reddit says the beloved site is used for some “bad behavior.”
Reddit has strayed from saying that it will shutter the website, which many long-time Redditors prefer for its layout, navigation, and fewer feed recommendations.
In a blog post today, Reddit made a vague statement about upcoming “changes” to Old Reddit:
In order to protect our platform, business, and users from abusive scraping and spamming, over time we plan to make changes involving Old Reddit, the legacy desktop web experience for Reddit that was built 21 years ago. In the short term, we will continue to require users to be logged in to access it and will work on migrating critical bots and moderator workflows to our modern stack. These efforts will help us mitigate the bad behavior and give us time to plan the complex follow-up steps.
In late July, Reddit started requiring people to log in to Reddit in order to use Old Reddit. At the time, a Reddit employee said that “Old Reddit’s logged-out experience is a significant source of abusive scraping and automated traffic on the platform.”
Today’s blog post further claimed that Old Reddit is leading to unwarranted content scraping.
“These changes will strengthen Reddit’s foundation, ensure the platform is ready to support thriving communities for future generations, and preserve what makes Reddit uniquely human,” the blog says.
Ars Technica asked Reddit what specifically it means by “changes,” and company spokesperson Rosa Kim said the company is “exploring different options” without providing specifics. She added:
We don’t have a hard timeline right now, but we will work directly with the mods, developers, and communities that depend on our systems and make sure to keep everyone updated.
This follows June comments from a Reddit employee about Old Reddit, stating, “we can’t promise it will be around forever” while noting CEO Steve Huffman’s earlier promises to keep supporting the site while people still use it.