Reddit is now blocking major search engines and AI bots — except the ones that pay

l_b_i ( l_b_i@yiffit.net ) · 2 years ago

Reddit is now blocking major search engines and AI bots — except the ones that pay

Blass Rose ( Blass_Rose@pawb.social ) · 2 years ago

I mean… We basically knew that this was going to happen when they suddenly cared about API usage and staff were reverting people’s comments/posts when they tried to mass-delete/poison them.

l_b_i ( l_b_i@yiffit.net ) · 2 years ago

We knew they were going to sell to AI, I think withholding from search crawlers is a little unexpected.

ProgrammingSocks ( ProgrammingSocks@pawb.social ) · 2 years ago

Especially since it will drive down their traffic significantly. I thought it was well-known that Reddit is the “search engine hack” to get useful results.

I guess they’re betting on the big players just paying.

l_b_i ( l_b_i@yiffit.net ) · 2 years ago

the reddit search engine hack is only because the search engines are so bad and all the old forums are dead. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft pays up, or the government gets involved.