Reddit adds new verification tools to fight bot activity
Reddit will implement new human verification requirements for accounts suspected of bot activity, the company announced Wednesday.
This initiative aims to combat the increasing presence of automated accounts on the platform, addressing concerns about misinformation, market manipulation, and artificial content generation.
The company will label automated accounts providing services to users. Verification will only be triggered by suspicious activity or technical markers.
If an account fails verification, Reddit may restrict its access. The company stated this is not a sitewide requirement. Reddit will deploy specialized tools to identify potential bots, analyzing account-level signals and posting frequency. The use of AI for content creation is not against company policy.
Verification methods will include third-party tools such as passkeys from Apple, Google, and YubiKey, as well as biometric services like Face ID and Sam Altman’s World ID.
Government identification may be required in some countries, including the U.K. and Australia, and certain U.S. states due to age verification regulations. Reddit noted this is not its preferred method.
“If we need to verify an account is human, we’ll do it in a privacy-first way,” Reddit CEO Steve Huffman stated in the announcement. “Our aim is to confirm there is a person behind the account, not who that person is.”
Huffman added that the goal is to increase transparency on Reddit while preserving user anonymity. The changes address a broader issue of bots influencing social platforms and the web. Cloudflare has projected that bot traffic will surpass human traffic by 2027.
Reddit has become a target for bots used to manipulate narratives, drive traffic, and generate content. Concerns also exist that bots are posting questions to create more training data for AI models.
Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian has discussed the “dead internet theory,” which posits that bots outnumber humans online and generate the majority of web content.
The company previously announced human verification requirements last year in response to increasing bot activity and regulatory demands. Huffman noted current solutions are not optimal.
“The best long-term solutions will be decentralized, individualized, private, and ideally not require an ID at all,” Huffman wrote. Reddit will continue to remove bots and spam, averaging 100,000 account removals daily. The company will also improve tools for reporting suspected bots.
Developers operating “good bots” can find information on labeling them with the new “APP” label in the r/redditdev community.