Reddit says it will fundamentally transform how it works, forcing users to log in - The Independent
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Reddit will start forcing its users to log in to see much of the posts on its site and app.
The decision marks a major change for Reddit, which for much of the more than 20 years it has existed has looked to support the open web by allowing its posts to be publicly available. Now, however, it has decided to make the “big change” to make Reddit primarily a “logged-in experience”, said its chief executive Steve Huffman.
Users will still be able to see some limited parts of the site – such as its front page, and when clicking from a search – when they are logged out. But those will be dramatically reduced, and much of Reddit will start to become inaccessible to those who are not logged in, he said.
“We’re making the change because it’s better for user experience, better for our ads business, is more in line with safety regulations, and more protective of Reddit data,” Mr Huffman said. “And we can do this while continuing to ensure user privacy.”
On Reddit, many users blamed the proliferation of artificial intelligence for the changes. Because the site is home to a particularly large set of human-written text, it has become valuable to those who are looking to train artificial intelligence systems, who typically do so by automatically navigating the site and downloading posts.
Mr Huffman suggested that was one of the key reasons that Reddit was making the change. The “vast majority of unauthorised access to Reddit (basically the scraping and stealing of Reddit’s data) happens through our logged-out experiences”, he wrote.
The company does license its users’ posts through commercial deals with AI companies. But Mr Huffman said those deals come with “guardrails that protect our users and our business”, which can’t be enforced when it comes to unlicensed scraping.
But there were many other reasons that Reddit had decided to make the change, he said. They include making it “easier to adapt to emerging regulations around the world” – which may include age-verification requirements – as well as allowing it to make more money through advertising by gathering more data and therefore offering more personalised ads.
“This is better for business outcomes, but it's also better for users,” he claimed. “A non-targeted ad is just a waste of space for everybody.”
Primarily, however, Mr Huffman said the change was intended at making the experience of using Reddit more personalised for each user. The site “used to be the same product for everybody”, with every user seeing the same thing, but it is now so big that that approach “doesn't work”, he said.
Requiring users to log in means that the company can ensure that each of them will see a version of their feed that has been tailored to them, he suggested. As such, it is in line with broader attempts from Reddit to personalise its app and website, and the announcement came just a day after it said that it would launch a “for you” feed that aims to downgrade the importance of joining communities and instead use an algorithm to decide what people might want to see.
Mr Huffman acknowledged that forcing people to log in and thereby track their usage could bring privacy concerns. But he said Reddit would offer an “incognito mode” to avoid tracking, and users can opt out of the personalisation features but he warned that it “just won't work as well”.
Much about the change remains undecided, Mr Huffman said, including how much of the site will become hidden. It will start testing in “select markets outside the U.S. in the coming months”, and use that to “figure out where the right boundaries are, and go from there”, he said.
