Reddit's looking to protect its data and reduce the impact of automated bots posting to subreddit communities by rolling out two updates to its developer tools.
First, Reddit is ending support for RSS, which enables third-party platforms to display the latest Reddit updates.
According to Reddit, this has become a vector for scraping, so it’s pulling support for RSS feeds.
As explained by Reddit: “Because RSS is now a common surface for large-scale scraping and automated abuse, we'll stop supporting RSS feeds on November 13, 2026 while preserving moderation workflows that depend on it through supported alternatives.”
Reddit said that moderators can maintain alerts through Devvit apps, but its traditional update feeds are going away.
“If your mod team relies on RSS, review your setup and migrate workflows before November 13 to ensure your needs are uninterrupted,” Reddit said. “If you use RSS for feeds outside of a community you moderate, there is no replacement.”
Reddit is also moving its public data API to its Developer Platform, which will make all Reddit data access paid only.
Until now, Reddit offered limited API access for free to approved developers. However, moving forward the platform is going to charge for this access, which will impact some third-party Reddit tools and systems that offer updates based on posts in subreddit communities.
Reddit has been working to restrict access to its data for some time, in order to stop artificial intelligence agents from scraping the platform to feed their LLMs.
Reddit increased its API pricing in 2023 to ensure that it would be able to make money from AI projects that want to use its data. In May 2024, Reddit launched an updated Public Content Policy to establish new parameters around outside access to the same, and last year the platform launched legal action against a range of data scrapers that allegedly tried to siphon off Reddit data and sell it to OpenAI and Meta, among others.
In its Q2 performance update, Reddit reported that its other revenue streams, apart from advertising, generated $42 million, up 24% year over year. Data licensing is a key element of this, and since Reddit is also one of the most commonly cited sources for AI chatbot answers, it makes sense that the platform wants to protect that and ensure that it continues to monetize this.
At the same time, a recent report from PromptWatch showed that Reddit citations in ChatGPT responses dropped significantly last month, highlighting the platform’s vulnerability on this front,which could be another reason why it wants to solidify its AI supply deals.
