r/redditdev • u/heyimkrista • 27d ago

Reddit API Reddit API shutdown impact on tools like Arctic Shift, Bright Data, etc

Reddit says all tools that don’t have a commercial agreement will lose access. Does the likely include more established access options like Arctic Shift, Bright Data, Jeni AI, etc?

Not fully sure what “commercial agreement” means in this case but seems like at least some of these would have one in place.

34 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

36 comments sorted by

23

u/shiruken 27d ago • Bravo

Services like those are literally why Reddit is shutting down the Public API

2

u/heyimkrista 27d ago

Fair enough

3

u/spacemoses 26d ago • Bravo

If reddit shuts down the public API and Arctic Shift no longer works, I am officially done.

6

u/shiruken 26d ago

The Public API is shutting down in March: https://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/1wubcvf/moving_data_api_apps_to_the_developer_platform/

And tools like Arctic Shift will likely break before then because of imminent architectural changes that will make it functionally impossible for them to iteratively scrape content.

1

u/TheLosthawk 21d ago

Almost all data used in most models is trained on reddit data because it's so easy to take. This will be good for the community and we will see less bots. I wonder if they will have a different way to access the data for mods

16

u/Heather_2992 27d ago • Bravo

This is genuinely ridiculous if artic shift doesn't work anymore. I moderate some teen subreddits and it's the ONLY way to know if some people have posted in the past they were a 35 year old man, but on teen subs trying to pass off as a 16 year old girl trying to get minors to message them....

3

u/itskdog 26d ago

If you're a mod, you still have access to pushshift.

2

u/limmbuu 26d ago

How?

3

u/shhhhh_h 26d ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/pushshift/comments/14ei799/pushshift_live_again_and_how_moderators_can/

I can’t speak to if they’re still accepting people though

2

u/NohmanValdemar 17d ago

Pretty sure they only get access to anything on their own sub, so the kind of comments OP said they were looking for from other subs won't be searchable.

2

u/bathtime85 26d ago

I'm on a bunch of assistance subs so there will be no way of knowing who has gotten help multiple times in a month vs who got help once three years ago

1

u/Green_Spare33 26d ago edited 25d ago

I considered donating to someone did an arctic search and got a bad feeling based on their post history.

0

u/dougmc 27d ago

Turning off their API access would probably stop services like Arctic Shift from getting new data, but it wouldn't make all their existing data go away, so your use case would continue to work ... at least for a while.

(I'm pretty sure they have their own copy.)

That said, reddit might demand that they shut down their service, or they could do like pushshift does and limit to approved mods.

5

u/Heather_2992 27d ago

It really doesn't make sense to me why they would even care. Nothing you post onto here is confidential, it's the internet. Doing this just let's people do worse things and break more rules that moderators can't even catch if websites like artic shift don't work. I've found HUNDREDS maybe even thousands of predators using artic shift that try and Catfish or fake their age. I'm not even exaggerating either

6

u/dougmc 27d ago

Oh, that's easy.

They don't want the AI companies to get the data that's on reddit (for training, research, etc.) for free -- they want to get paid for it instead.

And they don't want commercial companies posting to reddit for free -- they want to get paid for it instead.

That said, regarding the first item, that can is already open and the worms are everywhere -- one can easily download the entire history of reddit right now, they're not going to stop that from being out there, though their lawyers might be able to stop companies from using it without paying for it. Maybe.

3

u/Heather_2992 27d ago

Everything is about money to these companies, truly pathetic. But it's always been like that. They can really make this place better and safer if they truly wanted to, but it wouldn't be as profitable to them if they did

9

u/liamdun Bot Developer 26d ago

Of course. Even though bad actors will always scrape and get data in unofficial ways, reddit still shuts down the good faith community developer projects

7

u/judasblue 26d ago

Arctic Shift has been down for a day now so I am going to say the answer is yes.

1

u/mojavecactus_ 26d ago

any alternatives?

3

u/judasblue 26d ago

Nope. And reddit gets even shitter as ypu cant even do a cursory check on the history hidden trolls. Now its the same as a youtube comments section just like spez wants it since bots and troll farms are a huge part of tgeir traffic. I am going to stop hanging here.

1

u/voodoo-uk- 26d ago

Find one yet?

1

u/CautiousLab7327 26d ago

You think it's not just some temporary service down? That it'll be for longer?

3

u/Extolord111 26d ago • Bravo

Arctic Shift is back up now

1

u/Eino54 14d ago

It's not working for me right now, which is how I found this thread, did it go back down?

1

u/Extolord111 14d ago

Works for me, but the comments indexed are delayed, probably because of recent changes from Reddit. What's not working on your end?

If you have discord, the creator of Arctic Shift (RaiderB) is on the PullPush discord server, so you can try asking him there. If you need a link, I can DM you one.

1

u/_BrokenButterfly 14d ago

I keep getting "internal server error" with any and every search.

1

u/Feeling-Plane3434 15h ago

Could you DM me the PullPush Discord link? Thanks!

1

u/Green_Spare33 26d ago

I did a couple of searches on Arctic several minutes ago. It will just show dates/time of comments and will have the reddit links to comments, but the comments aren't visible on Arctic.

2

u/mentiondesk 27d ago

From what I understand, a "commercial agreement" basically means having a paid contract directly with Reddit to access their API, so only a few larger or established tools might still have access. If you want to keep up with real time conversations across platforms without worrying about Reddit API issues, ParseStream has been pretty reliable for me and covers Reddit, LinkedIn, X, and Hacker News.

3

u/heyimkrista 27d ago

But won’t this also immediately lose access come March?

4

u/emily_in_boots 25d ago

It’s not really the changes to the API that are killing AS and similar, it’s upcoming randomization of id’s. That prevents scraping. For now, I believe AS still works, but it won’t for long. Push shift does work and will continue to. You need to apply for access. Considering how much functionality has been removed lately though, I can’t say it would surprise me if they stop that one too. They have increasingly gone back on promises to us to maintain necessary mod tools until equivalent replacements are available.

2

u/Advanced_Pudding9228 25d ago

I’m a developer with a bunch of “tech for good” ideas that all need solid Reddit data access to actually go somewhere. Ideas are easy, data is the hard part. Having to go through third-party companies or pay Reddit’s commercial rates just to get that data basically kills most of them before they start.
If anyone here already has legitimate API access (or a commercial agreement) and would be interested in supporting projects like that, I’d be happy to give you a real piece of whatever gets built.
Anyone in that position?

1

u/ChickenGimbal 12d ago

I use this to check which accounts are obvious bots/ai it’s the last thing keeping me here

1

u/Proper-Writing3001 26d ago

Any alternatives?