Reddit's architecture and ecosystem — why old Reddit still exists
Reddit was founded in 2005 at the University of Virginia by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian, now owned by Advance Publications (parent of Condé Nast). In 2018 Reddit launched a redesign (new UI, default at reddit.com) but preserved old.reddit.com for veteran users — rare among large platforms, driven by Reddit's core heavy-user cohort (mods, technical users, journalists) strongly opposing the bloated new UI, an unusual concession. Three UIs differ: (1) **new Reddit** (reddit.com) — rich media, infinite scroll, feels like Pinterest / Facebook; (2) **old.reddit.com** — minimal text feed, fully featured, fast loading; the RES (Reddit Enhancement Suite) browser-extension ecosystem primarily serves it; (3) **mobile App** (iOS / Android) — in 2023 Reddit began charging $20 per million API requests, killing third-party apps (Apollo, RIF, Sync), leaving only the official app. The 'API revolt' lost many power users, but Reddit pushed monetization through pre-IPO.
The 4 hard-block countries and their real situations
BLOCKED_REGIONS = ["CN","KP","IR","RU"] — 4 hard-block countries. (1) **Mainland China** — Reddit's GFW status has been 'on-off' historically; fully accessible before 2012, intermittently blocked 2018-2020 (especially during hot-thread windows on Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tiananmen), and since 2024 DNS poisoning + TLS SNI blocking on reddit.com has been stable with occasional brief openings. Chinese users need a stable VPN; (2) **North Korea** — country is offline, non-issue; (3) **Iran** — blocked after 2022 Mahsa Amini protests; IRGC cyber units are active, assume monitoring; (4) **Russia** — Roskomnadzor progressively blocked Western social platforms after the 2022 war; Reddit was added in the second wave. VPN strategy: any node to any non-blocked country works; Reddit itself is 1★ lenient with no VPN-type discrimination.
Indonesia's Kominfo partial block — switch DNS and it's gone
Indonesia is **the uniquely 'DNS-only partial block' case in AF3's entire detection matrix** — neither hard-blocked nor fully open, living in a gray zone. Background: Indonesia's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (Kominfo) has required ISPs to include Reddit in adult-content filter lists since 2019, citing the heavy NSFW subreddit presence (r/gonewild etc.). Implementation: Indonesian ISPs (Telkom Indonesia biggest, plus IndiHome / Biznet / First Media) DNS-redirect reddit.com to a government 'internetbaik.id' educational site — users opening reddit.com see an anti-porn education page. But this block is DNS-layer only; **the TCP / TLS connection itself is not blocked**. Bypasses: (1) switch to public DNS (1.1.1.1 Cloudflare / 8.8.8.8 Google / 9.9.9.9 Quad9); (2) DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH, supported in Firefox / Chrome / Brave); (3) VPN (any, since DNS flows through the tunnel). AF3 marks this as ⚠️ Partial rather than ❌ Blocked precisely because the bypass cost is near-zero.
UK NSFW age verification — OSA enforced 2025-07-25
**Starting 2025-07-25, the UK mandates age verification for Reddit NSFW content** — the enforcement phase of the UK's Online Safety Act (OSA, legislated 2023, technical enforcement 2025). Specifics: (1) Reddit partnered with third-party identity service Persona; visiting NSFW subreddits (r/nsfw, r/gonewild, r/realgirls, all over18-tagged subs) triggers a verification wall; (2) verification options: upload government ID photo (passport / driving license) + live face-match, OR credit-card verification (most cards act as adult proof), OR electronic signature declaration (weakest); (3) once passed, the account gets 12-month NSFW access; (4) if you VPN to a UK IP without verifying, NSFW content is hidden. This is a Layer-2 soft block on top of normal access — Reddit isn't blocked, Reddit's adult content is. Workarounds: (1) VPN out of UK (US / DE / NL); (2) if actually in the UK, verify once for 12-month freedom; (3) UK VPN providers (ExpressVPN / NordVPN etc.) now label UK nodes as 'NSFW not recommended.'
Reddit Premium and the coin economy
Reddit Premium is $5.99/mo or $49.99/year. Features: (1) ad-free (site-wide); (2) 700 Reddit Coins per month (virtual currency); (3) exclusive r/lounge access (questionable value, thin content); (4) avatar and username decoration; (5) more emoji / reactions. Reddit Coins uses: tipping posts (Silver Award / Gold Award / Platinum Award, recipient gets partial Premium benefits); or direct exchange for Premium. In 2023 Reddit announced a phase-out of the Coins system, replacing it with a Contributor Program (formally launched late 2024): top creators can earn cash based on karma + engagement, similar to the YouTube creator fund. Payment for VPN users: Reddit Premium supports Stripe + Google Pay + Apple Pay, priced by IP country (small spread, US $5.99 / Europe €4.99 / India ₹299). Mainland Chinese cards can pay directly, but often trigger Stripe anti-fraud; use overseas cards.
AF3's Reddit detection strategy — the Partial tag is an innovation
AF3's Reddit probe set: (1) main reddit.com / www.reddit.com; (2) old.reddit.com; (3) mobile API gateway.reddit.com; (4) CDN (Fastly + Cloudflare dual-live); (5) login oauth.reddit.com. IP scoring is lenient: residential 30, quality_vpn 30, normal_vpn 28, datacenter 27 — 1★ strictness, same tier as Pinterest / Telegram. AF3's innovation: **Indonesia IPs return ⚠️ Partial status**, with the result page showing 'your region has DNS-layer partial blocking, switch DNS to access' — this is unique to AF3. UK IPs return normal ✅ OK because the main site is accessible; NSFW age verification is a platform-internal policy outside AF3's network-reachability scope (AF3 is a network-tool, not an account-state tool). Other regions: outside the 4 hard-blocks, essentially all IP types return ✅ OK; mainland China VPN users have almost no Reddit-access issues, with the sole caveat of account risk (frequent IP hopping can trigger Reddit account lockouts, similar to Google).