{"id":560992,"date":"2026-03-26T01:32:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T01:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/560992\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T01:32:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T01:32:10","slug":"reddit-will-require-fishy-accounts-to-verify-they-are-run-by-a-human","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/560992\/","title":{"rendered":"Reddit will require &#8220;fishy&#8221; accounts to verify they are run by a human"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Reddit will require accounts that exhibit \u201cautomated or otherwise fishy behavior\u201d to verify that a human runs them, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/old.reddit.com\/user\/spez\/comments\/1s3ezrc\/humans_welcome_bots_must_wear_name_tags\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Reddit post<\/a> today. The verification process aims to combat unwanted bots from flooding Reddit at a time when AI bots are poised to <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/ai\/2026\/02\/increase-of-ai-bots-on-the-internet-sparks-arms-race\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">take over the Internet<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs AI becomes a bigger part of the Internet, we want to make sure that when you\u2019re on Reddit, you know when you\u2019re talking to a person and when you\u2019re not,\u201d Huffman said.<\/p>\n<p>Human verification will only occur if Reddit suspects that an account is a bot. This is \u201crare\u201d and won\u2019t apply to \u201cmost users,\u201d Huffman emphasized. If the account cannot prove that it\u2019s human, it \u201cmay be restricted,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Reddit will check if an account is run by a human by using third-party tools that Huffman said won\u2019t expose users\u2019 true identity, Reddit username, or Reddit activity. Current methods that Reddit is exploring include passkeys, which Huffman said are a great starting point but don\u2019t provide any \u201cproof of individuality or anything other than \u2018a human probably did something.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Reddit is also looking into third-party biometric services, like <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/ai\/2026\/03\/world-id-wants-you-to-put-a-cryptographically-unique-human-identity-behind-your-ai-agents\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">World ID<\/a>, which uses iris-scanning tech.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think the Internet needs verification solutions like this, where your account information, usage data, and identity never mix,\u201d Huffman said.<\/p>\n<p>A last resort may be third-party government ID services, which Reddit is already required to use in some geographies, <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/tech-policy\/2026\/02\/uk-fines-reddit-for-not-checking-user-ages-aggressively-enough\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">like the UK<\/a>. Huffman said this is \u201cthe least secure, least private, and least preferred\u201d method for human verification on Reddit.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen we are forced to do this, we design the integrations so that we never actually see your ID information, so your Reddit data cannot be tied to you,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reddit will require accounts that exhibit \u201cautomated or otherwise fishy behavior\u201d to verify that a human runs them,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":560993,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,276,277,49,48,61],"class_list":{"0":"post-560992","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=560992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}