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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.”
This crackdown is not unique to Reddit. Across the internet, more companies and publishers are locking their content behind paywalls or gated APIs, arguing that AI firms are exploiting open access to train their models without consent or compensation.
While some see this as a way to force licensing deals, it also closes off public avenues to knowledge and history that were once freely available.
The Internet Archive, for its part, has spent decades doing important work and preserving digital history, including old web pages, books, video, and audio, ensuring that even deleted or altered material can still be studied.
The Wayback Machine has been an essential tool for journalists, researchers, and ordinary users trying to recover information that might otherwise be lost to censorship, political pressure, or corporate rebranding. Restricting its reach weakens one of the last truly public safeguards for the internet’s collective memory.
Reddit says the new limits begin taking effect immediately and that the Internet Archive was notified in advance.
This follows a pattern: in 2023, Reddit sold data access to Google for both search and AI purposes, then blocked major search engines that did not pay. That same year, it enacted API changes that shuttered numerous third-party apps, sparking widespread protests. The company has since struck a deal with OpenAI and is suing Anthropic, alleging continued scraping despite assurances it had stopped.
Mark Graham, director of the Wayback Machine, responded, “We have a longstanding relationship with Reddit and continue to have ongoing discussions about this matter.”
By targeting the Internet Archive alongside AI scrapers, Reddit is feeding into a larger trend where fear of AI misuse becomes a pretext for locking away the public web.
This may protect profits, but risks erasing parts of the digital record that cannot be replaced once gone.
If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net.
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Author: Cindy Harper
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