Reddit is killing RSS feeds and ending public API access because of AI bots

Reddit announced Wednesday that it is ending support for RSS feeds, with RSS support ceasing on November 13. The company said RSS has become a "common surface for large-scale scraping and automated abuse." In its announcement, Reddit also shared a March 2027 shutdown date for its public API.

RSS, or Really Simple Syndication/Rich Site Summary, is a web feed format that lets users and applications access website updates in a standardized way. The format became popular during the blogging era as a way to subscribe to a site's new posts in a news-reading app. Google once operated the most popular RSS reader but shut it down in 2013.

Reddit recommended that moderators who relied on RSS channels for alerts shift to the Discord Relay Devvit app. It advised moderators and their teams to review their setups and migrate workflows before November 13 to avoid disruption. Reddit said there is no replacement for RSS feeds used outside the moderators' community. Moderators had previously complained that losing RSS would make Reddit unmanageable, and many users said RSS was how they accessed Reddit content.

The end of public API access by March 2027 will affect tools using it for programmatic access to Reddit conversations, including social listening products, research tools, and AI products such as AI assistants. After public API access closes, those assistants will need commercial deals with Reddit for its data. Reddit said its "other revenue" beyond advertising grew 24% year-over-year to $43 million in its second quarter.

Reddit also provided an update on its Rules Hub progress and auto-mod changes, and said it was adding safeguards to Old Reddit, including limiting access to logged-in moderators and recent users, citing abusive scraping and automated traffic. In the next few months, it will limit logged-in access to users who have used Old Reddit in the last 90 days. Developers building approved third-party apps and bots must register them with Reddit before January 12, 2027, to avoid disruption; after that date, Reddit will remove API access for unregistered developers.