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@Kristin​ Please see Michelle’s reply above. 

@Col_Needham​ @Michelle​ 

1. That does not answer my question as to why you do this "undercover", and don't announce it like you usually do with other changes.

2. Also 

"This extra step is part of our ongoing effort to keep IMDb's reviews a space for genuine, human voices."

Does not explain why people have to log inn to READ, is it a big problem with computers reading reviews?

3.

As mentioned in my comment that was deleted on the original post, IMDb users on the IMDb forum on Reddit are RAGING at the moment. 

@Col_Needham​ We're still waiting for a proper, comprehensive explanation. This will simply not do. Apart from just a commercial enterprise, IMDb has become the most comprehensive and authoritative worldwide media database anywhere, and as such by now an essential part of our collective cultural heritage. It's vitally important to protect its status.

I would speculate that there are worries about folks posting reviews generated by a transformer architecture software trained on data collected from reviews posted from other accounts, who might be employing "word calculator" aides to write theirs as well, which just contributes to model collapse. By placing all of this behind the registration wall, it becomes easier to track which review audiences are entirely-manual, partially-manual partially-automated and entirely-automated, even entirely-automated in "artificially-intelligent" way, and it also gives whatever deep-learning models being run by IMDb developers a competitive edge of some kind.

@jeorj_euler​ Thank you! Yes, this sounds very plausible indeed, but why not be open about it? 

Still, as I pointed out above, I would really hate to see important features like these go behind walls on IMDb and similar sites. What's next? All IMDb Trivia and Lists inaccessible? Wikipedia on registration only? Would we have to register everywhere we look for information?

I've always believed that investing in constant, human monitoring (I guess now with the aid of A.I. as an indicative, though not decisive tool) would be the best way to go to keep sites safe and relevant. 

@jeorj_euler​ You are still conflating issues here. The pushback here is against credentialed viewing of IMDB data, not posting. They are (and should be) completely different permission models.