Ben Sanders Online Space

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Reddit Blocks the Internet Archives

+ Benjamin Sanders | 28 August 2025 | reddit, internet, archives, indieweb +

So, I was watching an EposVox video titled “It’s time for Reddit to die”. It might be a little hyperbolic of a title and some might say clickbaity but it’s not wrong.

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After the whole API change I personally cut back my Reddit usage. I say cutback because I have still used it occasionally to find older information or even less +occassionally for newer stuff when someone sent me a link. That said though my time just mindlessly browsing Reddit since the API change had dramatically decreased and +I’ve, honestly, been much happier. I don’t even have the app on my phone anymore.

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This more recent news of a change Reddit has made though just seems to add salt to a still open wound by them blocking the Internet Archive from archiving their site. +To be fair I’m aware Reddit is a business and one that is publically traded. I know they need to make money and allowing content to be elswhere probably runs counter +to that goal.

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The internet has always been a place that information wouldn’t just go to die eventually. There has always been people, myself included, that had +a passion for archiving things. Allowing the internet to be a vast treasure trove of human knowledge for future netizens. Things like this latest move by Reddit and +the move to private Discord servers over public IRC channels makes it harder for that knowledge to continue to exist on the internet.

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That is the reason I love the IndieWeb movement and hate when companies do things to restrict information from being free. I believe that it attempts to show people just what we’ve “lost” by using these big corporations for our internet services. +Now, we haven’t actually lost the old internet, which is why I put lost in quotes, but it just needs to be rediscovered by a wider audience. The internet itself and all the +websites and services are decentralized by design. You can use services by corporations like Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, etc or use some independently run website or forum by +a dedicated fan or group of fans.

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Running those independent services cost money though and it’s not as easy as a few clicks to create a subreddit or Discord server. I believe though that if you use a password +manager it does make managing logins easier and even help your security online.

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I’ll leave a link to a Verge article below on the Reddit change and wanted to sign off with one more thought. Check out the IndieWeb and support independent +websites and forums!

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Thanks for reading and see you in the next post! :D

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Articles/Videos mentioned in this post (Links open in same tab):

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Reddit will block the Internet Archive

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It’s Time For Reddit To Die

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P.S. Use the mobile reader in your browser if on mobile.

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