Reddit will no longer allow logged out users or those without an account to view content on its platform, CEO Steve Huffman shared in an update. The change, which the company said will initially be tested in "select markets" outside the US, comes as the company says that search traffic has declined significantly.

"A key piece of work to retain new audiences is shifting Reddit to a logged-in-only experience," Huffman wrote in a shareholder letter. "Moving to primarily logged-in will ensure our users have the best Reddit experience possible, and can find the content and communities most relevant to them."

The change is the most dramatic shift the company has made as it battles AI scraping and changes to internet search. It will also likely rattle users, some of whom are already frustrated with recent moves like restrictions on Old Reddit. Huffman said that it was a "big change" but necessary for the company.

"It is better for our business because we will have more signals for ads targeting, and being logged-in leads to higher engagement generally," he wrote. "It also allows us to protect access to Reddit's extremely valuable corpus of data, and helps us better adapt to emerging regulations around the world."

Huffman didn't explicitly mention age verification laws, but requiring users to log in would presumably help the company comply with such measures.

Huffman said the company is still working on figuring out exactly when logged out users will encounter a "hard prompt" to log in.

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