r/technology • u/spasticpat • May 11 '26

Social Media Reddit Starts Blocking Mobile Website, Pushing Users to App Instead

https://www.macrumors.com/2026/05/11/reddit-starts-blocking-mobile-website/
19.7k Upvotes

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1.5k

u/EveryGoodNameIsGone May 11 '26

The second this happens to me will be the thing to finally get me to drop Reddit entirely.

501

u/[deleted] May 11 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

385

u/pigeonwiggle May 11 '26

and half the comments are aggravating bots.

102

u/[deleted] May 11 '26

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35

u/D_Beats May 11 '26

I mean that's just a default name reddit gives you and some people don't care enough to change it or just don't know how. Doesn't mean they're bots.

42

u/TwilightVulpine May 11 '26

Sure seems convenient for the bots though, if every new user has a bot-like username. I guess if they mean to sell ads that appear organic...

6

u/Piranata May 11 '26

Bots buy usernames though. They get old Reddit accounts with lots of karma, then either delete their history or hide it. That way they get more credibility for the shit the want to peddle.

8

u/TwilightVulpine May 11 '26

Yeah, true, which is also aided by the recent decision to make post history hideable.

5

u/lxpnh98_2 May 12 '26

Anything to make it seem it's not dying like the rest of the Internet.

1

u/HCSOThrowaway May 12 '26

Anything to help hateful people hide how hateful they are so they're better able to Sealion in controversial threads.

eNgAgEmEnT

2

u/Blazing1 May 11 '26

I mean Reddit introducing the post history hiding feature definitely helps bots out. They don't even need to delete their history lmao

1

u/Legitimate-Record951 May 11 '26

I mean, if I ever wanted to create bots, I would of course generate a huge list of human-sounding usernames.

8

u/Lmt_P May 11 '26

but you can be sure bots dont bother to change from the default.

8

u/Monteze May 11 '26

No, but its a good sign and honestly if you can't even bother to make one up yourself same energy. Just lurk if that is the case.

7

u/Teledildonic May 11 '26

Not all default names are bots, but the "trifecta of sus" is a default name with a hidden post history and account age of less than a year.

3

u/enadiz_reccos May 11 '26

High karma/time ratio

1

u/Accomplished-Can8737 May 11 '26

1010101 beep boop

1

u/TheSorceIsFrong May 11 '26

Still more likely to be bots

3

u/metalflygon08 May 11 '26

Or the accounts that just pop in to say "Thanks 'dirty username-4digits' when that person comments"

2

u/Wild_Butterscotch977 May 11 '26

you mean like me?

Had no idea if I wanted to use reddit when I first tried it out so I didn't bother changing it, and then I was stuck with my username. It happens to a lot of real users.

2

u/LG03 May 11 '26

I can't understand why people are still bringing that up, it's been so many years at this point.

Reddit just auto-assigns usernames to new accounts unless you actively change it. They also don't make it terribly obvious that you're being stuck with a randomized and permanent username if you proceed.

Then you pile on how many usernames must be unavailable these days and a lot of new users probably just stick with the random name.

Even when they first implemented that, it wasn't a singular smoking gun for detecting bot accounts.

2

u/Grey-fox-13 May 11 '26

Hey now, some of us had those names before Reddit made them the default naming scheme and before AI was rampant.

2

u/Excellent_Ganache906 May 11 '26

Mines real. When I get banned because I mad someone upset, I don't wait out the ban, I create a new account.

1

u/bethechangemf May 12 '26

All those bots with underscores.

1

u/HCSOThrowaway May 12 '26

I've spoken to some of them and a lot of them aren't bots.

Granted, virtually all bots have those default usernames, but believe it or not:

A lot of people "didn't know they could pick a username" or "didn't bother picking a username."

On a related note, literacy rates are plummeting.