Reddit to block Internet Archive Wayback Machine

Reddit has announced that they will block the Wayback Machine due to AI companies.

After learning that AI companies use Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to gather data from websites, Reddit will start to block it from touching the site’s posts, comments, and profiles. This is because it goes against Reddit’s platform policies such as user’s privacy and deleting removed content.

“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 Tim Rathschmidt, Reddit’s spokesperson.

Rathschmidt also stated, “Until they’re able to defend their site and comply with platform policies we’re limiting some of their access to Reddit data to protect redditors.”

The company has reached out to Internet Archive to inform them of this change.