Reddit says AI firms exploited archived content via the Internet Archive—now only its homepage remains archivable.
Starting August 11, 2025, Reddit revealed that it will block the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine from harvesting most of its site. This ban will specifically focus on post pages, comments, and user profiles. From now on, only the Reddit.com homepage will be archived, leaving much of Reddit’s history off‑limits.
This decision comes after Reddit says it discovered that AI companies had been scraping its data via archived snapshots, bypassing Reddit’s own licensing rules and access controls. Reddit spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt told The Verge,
“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.”
Why Now—and What’s at Stake
Reddit’s action isn’t just about controlling content—it’s about safeguarding user privacy and deleted content. This keeps posts that have been removed for moderation or privacy reasons out of reach of archiving systems. Rathschmidt further 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,”
The move reflects a broader effort by Reddit to tighten data access across the board. That includes recent changes to its APIs, paid licensing deals with Google and OpenAI, and even legal challenges, like its lawsuit against Anthropic for unauthorized data scraping.
What the Internet Archive Says
Though Reddit reached out to the Internet Archive in advance, the Archive’s Wayback Machine director, Mark Graham, described the two organizations’ relationship as longstanding, saying discussions are still ongoing.
Still, this move raises broader concerns about the future of web preservation. By limiting archives, Reddit is effectively erasing a portion of public record and making it harder to trace how discussions, communities, or web pages evolved over time.
