Only search engine that can surface results from Reddit is now Google

Viltzu - Aug. 9, 2024 - Osint
Tags Reddit, Google,

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Reddit, sometimes referenced as "The Frontpage of the Internet", is a popular online platform that functions as a massive collection of forums, where people can share content, ask questions, and discuss a wide variety of topics. Reddit is divided into thousands of subreddits, which are individual forums dedicated to specific topics, interests, or communities. Each subreddit is denoted by "r/" followed by the name of the subreddit (e.g., r/gaming, r/technology, r/science).

Users can create posts in subreddits, which can be text, links, images, videos, or polls. Other users can then comment on these posts, leading to discussions. Posts and comments can be upvoted or downvoted by users, which influences their visibility. Highly upvoted content rises to the top, while downvoted content becomes less visible.

Reddit has been, and still is, a grate source of OSINT information about various topics or users/persons but coming across with Reddit posts and comments has become lot harder after Google's exclusive Reddit access, which was reported in 404 media

 

If you use Bing, DuckDuckGo, Mojeek, Qwant or any other alternative search engine that doesn’t rely on Google’s indexing and search Reddit by using “site:reddit.com,” you will not see any results from the last week. DuckDuckGo is currently turning up seven links when searching Reddit, but provides no data on where the links go or why, instead only saying that

Source: 404 media

 

Reason for this lies in Reddit's AI content licensing deal with Google which was reported by Reuters

 

This something to take in consideration when conducting OSINT investigation. Currently only Google can surface results from reddit. You of course should use multiple search engines when doing OSINT and this is a perfect example why.

Deals like this have also raised a worries about how Google’s near monopoly on search is now actively hindering other companies’ ability to compete with it. Well see if other companies follow Reddit's decision to align themselves with certain search engine making their content harder to reach with other search engines. Personally, I would hate to see internet moving to “silos” where certain content is available or to be found only through certain search engines. Let's see what the future holds for Google, other search engines and internet users like us.
 

 

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