Reddit is sharply reducing what the Internet Archive can store, blocking the Wayback Machine from saving most of the site.
Only the Reddit.com homepage will remain available for archiving, meaning the public record will no longer include individual posts, comment sections, or user profiles.
The change effectively strips away the ability to look back at the full discussions that once played out on the platform, leaving little more than a daily snapshot of trending headlines.
The company says it is responding to AI developers who have been using the Wayback Machine as a backdoor to harvest Reddit data. “Internet Archive provides a service to the open web, but we’ve been made aware of instances where AI companies violate platform policies, including ours, and scrape data from the Wayback Machine,” said Reddit spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt.
He added, “Until they’re able to defend their site and comply with platform policies (e.g., respecting user privacy, re: deleting removed content), we’re limiting some of their access to Reddit data to protect redditors.”
