Reddit Ends RSS Feeds and Public API to Curb AI Scraping

Reddit announced on September 30, 2026 that it will end support for RSS feeds and close public access to its application programming interface by March 2027, saying both have become major channels for automated scraping and abuse, much of it linked to artificial intelligence systems.¹²³⁴

Restricting Old Reddit

Reddit said it will further restrict the classic 'Old Reddit' interface, limiting access to logged-in users who have used it within the past six months, a change the company said would still encompass nearly all of Old Reddit's present-day audience. Reddit stated: "In the next few months, we'll further limit access for logged-in users to only those who have used Old Reddit in the last six months."²³⁴⁵

According to Reddit, a recent requirement that users log in to view Old Reddit had already cut down on automated abuse. CEO Steve Huffman said Reddit had originally intended to keep Old Reddit available for however long people continued using it, but decided changes were needed once it became clear, in his words, that the experience 'was being used by everyone who spams, scrapes, or does anything bad on Reddit.' Reddit said new accounts will be barred from Old Reddit entirely, while logged-in moderators will be excluded from the six-month usage requirement.²⁵

RSS and API wind-down

Reddit said RSS feeds, long used to follow posts without logging into the site, will stop being supported on November 13, and that there is no substitute for users who relied on RSS outside communities they moderate. The company said: "If you use RSS for feeds outside of a community you moderate, there is no replacement." Reddit added that it remains grateful to those who used RSS to stay connected to the platform.¹²⁴⁶

The public API, used by third-party apps, bots and researchers, will stop accepting new access requests, with Reddit beginning to remove access for developers who have not registered by January 12, 2027, before closing all remaining public API access by March 2027. Reddit reported that upward of 14,000 apps and bots have signed up so far to shift to its Developer Platform, and said it is providing $1,000 grants, drawn from a $1 million pool, to qualifying apps that finish the transition.¹³⁴⁶

For moderators, Reddit is recommending a Discord Relay tool, which it says supports up to six webhook destinations and can be configured for mod queue alerts in roughly 15 to 20 minutes without coding experience. The company has also been testing a separate Rules Hub with moderators from more than 700 communities, and says Automoderator's non-enforcement capabilities remain unchanged, even as enforcement powers have been disabled for newly created communities.³⁴

AI scraping and revenue

Reddit said RSS had effectively become an entry point for large-scale scraping and automated abuse. The company stated: "RSS has now become a common surface for large-scale scraping and automated abuse." It said AI assistants currently draw on Reddit content to answer questions, and that once the public API closes, such systems will need commercial agreements with Reddit instead.¹

The changes come as Reddit's revenue outside advertising, which includes data licensing tied to AI, grew 24 percent year-over-year to $43 million in the second quarter. TechCrunch observed: "It's no wonder that Reddit doesn't want to give any of that data away for free."¹⁶

Reaction

Some moderators have said the loss of RSS will disrupt how they track new posts, with one telling a reporter, "RSS is the only way I find out about posts in subs like this one," and warning that losing Automod enforcement would lead to more bans in their communities. Reddit, for its part, said it plans to address related gaps, including content filtering, in the coming months.¹³⁴