Social platform Reddit intends to gradually restrict the ability to view the site without authentication. The company plans to move to a model where full use of the service will require signing in to an account. The first trials of the new rules will begin in the coming months.
On October 29, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman reported this. Details of the changes were also revealed by The Verge and Axios.
For the past two decades, users have been able to read most Reddit posts without registration. Now the company intends to change this principle, making authorization the primary way of accessing the platform.
According to Huffman, the change is driven by the need to improve personalization of recommendations, increase ad effectiveness, and protect Reddit's content from automated data scraping.
The company's head noted that a significant portion of unauthorized data collection happens precisely through pages accessible to visitors without authentication. In recent years, this problem has become especially relevant with the development of artificial intelligence and the growing demand for user discussions to train AI models.
What changes await Reddit users
The first tests of the new restrictions will take place in selected countries outside the US. The specific list of countries has not been disclosed. After testing, Reddit will assess the impact of the changes on traffic and platform operations before deciding on further rollout of the new rules.
However, this does not mean completely blocking all posts from unregistered visitors.
Huffman emphasized that the company is interested in maintaining access to the main page of the site, as well as to content that users arrive at from search engines or direct links.
Thus, opening an individual Reddit post via a link should still be possible without logging in. However, the final boundaries of access are yet to be determined during testing.
Full participation in discussions, voting on posts, joining communities, and other interactive features will continue to be available only to authorized users.
The head of Reddit also assured that the new rules do not imply mandatory disclosure of real names or identity verification. Users will be able to continue using pseudonyms.
Additionally, the company updated the incognito mode in the mobile app. It allows browsing posts and searching for information without affecting the main account's recommendations. However, commenting and voting are not possible in this mode.
Reddit aims to reduce dependence on search engines
The announcement coincided with the publication of the company's financial results for the third quarter of 2026.
According to the official reporting, Reddit's quarterly revenue increased by 53% compared to the same period last year, reaching $895 million. Advertising revenue grew by 54% to $847 million.
However, the company faced a decline in traffic from search engines. In October, the number decreased by an average of more than a million per week. This was especially noticeable among visitors who accessed Reddit through a browser without authentication.
Meanwhile, the platform's average daily audience in the third quarter was 130.3 million users, up 12% year over year.
According to Huffman, authorized users and the mobile app audience account for more than 80% of Reddit's monetization. That is why the company expects that the transition to a predominantly closed-access model will increase audience engagement and advertising revenue.
At the same time, Reddit will continue to enter commercial agreements to grant access to its data. Previously, such deals were reached, in particular, with Google and OpenAI.
The exact timing for introducing mandatory authorization for most users has not been set. Reddit also did not specify whether the first phase of testing will affect Ukraine.
