Reddit has announced a series of updates aimed at moderators and developers, but one of them spells trouble for those who champion a more open internet: the platform is doing away with RSS feed support. According to Reddit, RSS has turned into a "common surface for large-scale scraping and automated abuse," which drove the decision to phase out RSS feeds across the site. In its announcement, the company expressed appreciation for the format's history, stating, "We know RSS has been a beloved part of the open web for a long time, and we're grateful to everyone who used it to stay connected to Reddit." The same announcement also revealed that its public API will shut down in March 2027. RSS support itself will end on November 13.

RSS—short for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary—is a web feed format that allows users and applications to pull updates from a website in a standardized way. It gained widespread popularity during the blogging boom, giving people a simple method to subscribe to a site's new posts through a news-reading app. Google once ran the most widely used RSS reader, but it discontinued the service in 2013, leaving the space to competitors like Feedly and various independent applications.

The move to eliminate Reddit's RSS feeds arrives as the site's vast collection of user-generated forum content has turned into a lucrative secondary revenue stream through AI licensing agreements. In its second quarter, Reddit reported that "other revenue" outside of advertising climbed 24% year-over-year, reaching $43 million. Given those numbers, it's understandable that Reddit is reluctant to hand over any of that data at no cost.

For moderators who have depended on RSS channels for their own notifications, Reddit now suggests switching to the Discord Relay Devvit app. The company advised moderators and their teams to examine their current setups and move their workflows over before the November 13 shutdown to prevent any interruptions. That said, Reddit acknowledged there is no substitute for RSS feeds that were being used for feeds beyond the moderators' own community.

Moderators have already voiced concerns about how this transition will affect the way they work. When Reddit first signaled that it was moving toward ending RSS on its platform, many pushed back, arguing that Reddit would become impossible for them to manage. At the same time, a large number of users emphasized that RSS was their preferred way of consuming Reddit content.

The RSS change was just one of several announcements the company made on Wednesday. Another significant shift involves the discontinuation of its public API. Public API access will also come to an end by March 2027, affecting any tools that relied on it for programmatic access to Reddit conversations—including social listening products, research tools, and AI products like AI assistants. Currently, those assistants can tap into Reddit to answer questions, but once public API access is closed, they will need to abandon commercial deals with Reddit for its data.

Beyond that, Reddit shared a progress update on its Rules Hub and auto-mod adjustments, and announced it was "adding safeguards" to the classic, text-heavy version of its site commonly known as Old Reddit. These safeguards will include restricting access to logged-in moderators and recent users—measures Reddit said were also necessary due to "abusive scraping and automated traffic."

Over the coming months, Reddit plans to limit access for logged-in users to those who have visited Old Reddit within the last 90 days. The company also issued a reminder to developers building approved third-party apps and bots: register them with the company before January 12, 2027, to avoid any disruption. After that deadline, Reddit will revoke API access for any developer who has not registered.