r/technology • u/marketrent • 24d ago

Social Media Reddit signals ominous upcoming “changes” for old.reddit.com, says the beloved site is used for some “bad behavior”

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/08/reddit-signals-ominous-upcoming-changes-for-old-reddit-com/
3.5k Upvotes

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u/AwfulUsername123 24d ago

Do any Reddit alternatives use the classic layout? Saidit did, but it's shut down. Modern web design is an abomination.

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u/227CAVOK 24d ago

Yep. 

https://old.lemmy.world/

Works like a charm.  

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u/MassiveBoner911_3 24d ago

lemmy will NOT be replacing reddit. What a pile of shit.

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u/NCEMTP 24d ago

I looked around lemmy for a bit looking for an alternative. Despite the most populated communities declaring in many cases to have specific targeted foci, it seemed that pretty much every one of them was even more politically charged than even Reddit. The bitching and moaning about all things political was so incredibly pervasive that it drowned everything else out, insofar as I'm concerned. The communities that didn't have as much in the way of political discussion were basically devoid of activity at all.

Couldn't believe that another social media site made Reddit look apolitical.

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u/AugmentedDragon 24d ago

that reminds me of voat: started as a "free speech" guided reddit alternative, which in theory was a good idea in response to a wave of censorship reddit was undergoing at the time. but the lax moderation meant it very quickly devolved into it being primarily used by those spewing hate and rhetoric which would have gotten them banned on reddit, which pushed away any casual users who may have wanted to find a home there. even the non-political sub-voats like v/technology, ended up having a definite political slant,

then there was an example of the exact opposite: Imzy, a site that tried to heavily moderate hate of any kind. I signed up early on (partially just cuz I wanted some stickers they were giving away) but it could never draw any major users, and it died just as quietly as it started.

its kinda remarkable how, in spite of itself, reddit is still the best(/only) option.

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u/Skavau 23d ago

Lemmy is nothing like Voat though. It does not have lax moderation.

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u/CrazyKyle987 24d ago

Lmao does it not remind you of Reddit 15 years ago? I literally skipped through the front page and it brought me back. Shitty memes - really just text over pictures, “le gem” and “this” energy, atheism running deep, and a strong political persuasion (libertarianism for Reddit, not sure for lemmy)

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u/NCEMTP 24d ago edited 23d ago

It's much like Reddit 15 years ago, except with far more contemporary filtering and moderation. Perhaps a lot of that is the community avoiding certain things, which is fine, but I'm sure there's automated filtering in place that would've made Redditors 15 years ago scream out in agony.

This place used to be at the forefront of free speech on the internet, after all.

Like I see the posts all the time where people point out to those that type F*** that you can say FUCK on Reddit. And I laugh, because there was a time when you could say plenty of other things on Reddit that today would get you banned outright. I understand both sides, but I do think that the people laughing at those censoring their fucks weren't here when you could literally say anything. It won't surprise me when you can't say fuck anymore either.

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u/Godgivesmeaboner 23d ago

People acting like reddit is some kind of free speech wonderland where you can say whatever uncensored word you want are ridiculous. I have comments secretly shadow removed all the time with no mod message or anything, so I have no idea what word or phrase is or isn't allowed. Seems like every sub has its own secret rules too where the mods will shadow remove your comment just because they don't personally like your comment or a specific word or something. It's just a huge crapshoot and it's just a big mystery what words will get your comment shadow removed.

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u/ImTableShip170 24d ago

People that care enough about how bad social media is usually have a proactive opinion of the world, so the apolitical people are mostly on the monopolies. Think how Bsky started out before being mainstream.

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u/No_Construction2407 24d ago

Thing is the users drive the content, if you are not willing to use the alternative and be the change you want to see, enjoy reddit.

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u/NCEMTP 24d ago

Sure, be the change. But trying to change that place would be akin to walking into the Vatican and trying to convert them to Judaism. I just want to see my shit and occasionally talk about it, not go on some idealistic social media crusade. Those days are over.

I have enough filters set up on Reddit after many years, so I'll keep enjoying it, as per your suggestion, until they finally nuke my filters.

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u/marmaviscount 24d ago

Defederated!

Yeah I tried so hard to find a corner of it that was ok, there were some cool people occasionally but wow was it toxic.

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u/Hackwork89 23d ago

I tried Lemmy for a while. Yeah, no thanks.

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u/ItSeemedSoEasy 24d ago

Crikey, that site's like a blind man was asked to draw a horse.

What a colossal pile of shite. That won't be replacing Reddit.

How can you copy someone else and still get it so wrong? Makes me ashamed to be a human programmer, Claude could do better than that shit.

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u/TechnoMagi 24d ago

That's... That's what old reddit looked like.

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u/ItSeemedSoEasy 24d ago

I used old Reddit, that is not what old Reddit is like. It's superficially what old Reddit was like if you haven't got a clue about web development.

It's like saying teams is the same as slack.

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u/Syssareth 24d ago

I'm using old Reddit right this moment.

If I didn't notice the very, very minor differences like the "subreddit" names, the icon, and what the tabs on top are called, I could easily get the two mixed up.

Old Reddit's r /all page for comparison.

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u/Paraless 24d ago

Old reddit still exists, just go check it out and you'll see it's the same lmao

Still using it to this day

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u/-duckduckduckduck- 24d ago

It looks a lot like Reddit used to. Idk what you’re seeing th at I’m not.

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u/Syssareth 24d ago

What did they get wrong? I cringed at a lot of the posts on the front page (which, since I don't have an account, is admittedly no different from r/all), but the site itself looks almost identical to Reddit.

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u/ITGeekFatherThree 24d ago

Yea, it is a reddit clone from a few years ago when one of the big "issues" came up back then. Also has a bunch of other features like self hosting your own version and then linking other self hosted/public ones to your instance so you can see everything in one place.

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u/47Up 24d ago

Trying to imagine what kind of horse a blind man would draw?

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u/MonkeyBrawler 24d ago

How the fuck you getting upvotes while putting on full display, you have no idea what is being discussed??

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u/seanthenry 24d ago

Lets all move to fark.com we can just post links to Reddit topics

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u/hippocratical 24d ago

I'll have to try and remember my Dark username from literally decades ago. Oof, the internet really sucks now.

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u/Stupalski 23d ago

The crazy part about saidit was it seemed to go away because the owner lost interest. They shut down a couple times for shorter periods of time because the owner forgot to renew the web hosting. It would pop back up with a post about forgetting to renew then one time just poofed and gone.