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Reddit Is Weighing Identity Verification Methods To Combat Its Bot Problem (engadget.com) 116

Posted by BeauHD from the finding-the-right-middle-ground dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: There could be one more step required before creating an account and posting on Reddit in the future. According to Reddit's CEO, Steve Huffman, the social media platform is exploring different ways to verify a user is human and not a bot. When asked by the TBPN podcast how to confirm that it's a human using Reddit, Huffman responded with several verification methods with varying degrees of heavy-handedness.

"The most lightweight way is with something like Face ID or Touch ID," Huffman said during the interview. "They actually require a human presence, like a human has to touch, or do or look at something, so that actually just proves there's a person there or gets you pretty far." Besides these passkey methods that use biometrics data, Huffman said there are other options like relying on third-party services that are decentralized or don't require ID. On the other end of the spectrum, Huffman also mentioned more burdensome options, like ID-checking services.

[...] "Part of our promise for our users is we don't know your name but we do want to know you're a person," Huffman said. "It'll be an evolution for us for a while, and probably every platform to find the right middle ground here." Reddit co-founder and former executive chair, Alexis Ohanian, said on X that Reddit requiring Face ID wasn't something he expected but agreed that something had to be done about the fake content from bots, adding that, "I just don't know how to sell face-scanning to Redditors or even lurkers." We reached out to Reddit's communications team and will update the story when we hear back. The Digg beta shut down earlier this month after failing to fight the overwhelming influx of AI-driven bots and spam. "The internet is now populated, in meaningful part, by sophisticated AI agents and automated accounts," said CEO Justin Mezzell. "We knew bots were part of the landscape, but we didn't appreciate the scale, sophistication, or speed at which they'd find us."

"We banned tens of thousands of accounts. We deployed internal tooling and industry-standard external vendors. None of it was enough. When you can't trust that the votes, the comments, and the engagement you're seeing are real, you've lost the foundation a community platform is built on."
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Reddit Is Weighing Identity Verification Methods To Combat Its Bot Problem More

Reddit Is Weighing Identity Verification Methods To Combat Its Bot Problem

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  • Question (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TwistedGreen ( 80055 ) on Monday March 23, 2026 @10:41AM (#66056164)

    When you can't trust that the votes, the comments, and the engagement you're seeing are real, you've lost the foundation a community platform is built on.

    This doesn't seem to hurt Meta at all. As a recent poll showed, 50% of people don't care if their content is AI-generated. I suspect that number is actually much higher.

    Was this whole AI craze engineered purely to de-anonymize the Internet?

    • Re:Question (Score:5, Insightful)

      by magamiako1 ( 1026318 ) on Monday March 23, 2026 @11:13AM (#66056260)
      No, it wasn't. But the bot problem has gotten significantly worse than what it ever was. And it's a tough problem to solve without de-anonymizing everybody in the process.

      I think there's a very different expectation between "content that's AI-generated" and the expectation that comments sections, review scores, etc. are human. There's a difference between someone posting an AI video and the comment section of said video being nothing but AI bots. Furthermore, it's even more of a problem when those AI bots are dressed up as "real average joes". Hell, it was already a problem before with troll farms in south east Asia, let alone the scale of which AI allows you to build a troll farm. Absolutely unprecedented.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by znrt ( 2424692 )

        And it's a tough problem to solve without de-anonymizing everybody in the process.

        de-anonymizing will just mean that bots will use false/fake identities. one would hope that another far more effective approach would be considered: educate people in critical thinking, rendering bots, fake news and propaganda merely a nuisance. my hope is slim though not because it would also be a (very) tough endeavour but because a population able to think critically and resilient to misdirection is the last thing that powers that be want. can't have it both ways, and de-anonymization definitely isn't ab

        • What ever has happened to the Voight-Kampff-test?

          • I can think of a few things leading to Voight-Kampff-style polygraph tests being phased out in this timeline

            1. Several U.S. states have banned reliance on polygraph test results by employers. "Polygraph" on Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] lists Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, Oregon, Delaware and Iowa. In addition, the federal Employee Polygraph Protection Act 1998 generally bans polygraphing by employers outside the rent-a-cop industry.
            2. Autism advocacy organizations raised a stink about false positive resul

        • Re:Question (Score:4)

          by Morromist ( 1207276 ) on Monday March 23, 2026 @04:49PM (#66057208)

          Yeah, I don't belive facial recognition holds up as it is vs people trying to trick it. In the future it will become even more difficult, as there will be more platforms that use it and thus more incentive to break it.

          So: they'll start requiring us to show more stuff. Our IDs, our SSNs, etc. Even though I think bots are a big problem, there's no way I'll ever be giving them that kind of information just to use reddit.

      • Re:Question (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23, 2026 @05:05PM (#66057252)

        ... the bot problem has gotten significantly worse than what it ever was. And it's a tough problem to solve without de-anonymizing everybody in the process.

        Really? I think the old internet 1.0 had several solutions that worked just fine, depending on the venue. Just off the top of my head:
        * trust network, like pgp. Bunch of bots shows up, just walk up the tree to who trusted them into the network and snip off that branch.
        * paid networks - let the bots come, but they have to pay too. And if there is abuse, you ban the bot and payment method. You can also add a delay before they can participate, so you get that first month in fees with little to no risk from the bot.
        * authenticated networks - not good for Reddit's goals, but these have their uses.
        * participation networks[^1] - I think stack overflow does stuff like this, where you have to participate on so many things before you can engage directly. If some AI bot gets in, good - it's doing well.
        * proof of work networks - prove stuff by doing stuff. I'm not a fan, and I expect AI to wind up better than people at these in many cases, but there are ways to use this effectively.
        * anonymous networks - wild west, hold on tight.
        * etc...

        IMO, it seems less of a tough problem to solve and more of a situation with solutions that are tough to accept. Do they need to be one giant network with a shared user base that must all conform to the same identify requirements?

        Just rambling, but they could build on the trusted networks thing. One has a big list of contacts and a smaller list of trusted contacts; One trusts the trusted contacts of their trusted contacts, and maybe opts to partially trust the rest of their contacts. Then use that to adjust weights on posts for visibility. Add in meta-moderation ala Slashdot. Allow people to report/score others and posts, and have the impact of scoring weighted by their connection (Eg: bots not in your trusted network won't be able to effect change on your score). Want to wade into a channel where you don't know anyone? It'll be a shitshow, much like in the real world, but you'll come to know who you want to associate with and can build out your trust network.

        IMO, Mastodon has the foundation to support all this, especially since each server in the network can set their own rules. So you can join a server with strongly authenticated identities, or one where only those with invites can join, or one where anyone can join, etc.. And you can still see and post in relation to things on other servers. Downside for Reddit - they'd just be one of many many servers in the network.

        [^1] I don't know if "participation networks" is a known term or not. If it means something else, sorry - feel free to advise.

        • Mod parent up

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Reddit would need to actually do some sort of 'user management' to do any of these things - and that has always seemed beyond them. SO does it quite effectively (although they've pissed a lot of people off in the process). Reddit lets any fool who can't really string a sentence together get on and say stuff.

          Personally, I think the trust network is where this is going. Everyone, and everything has a 'trust' score. Your posts gain trust by being liked or interacted with, you gain trust by having more 'liked'

    • Every government and tech company wanted Identity Verification. The governments want control of free speech. Private sector wants to sell your data and spam targeted ads.

    • Re:Question (Score:4)

      by houstonbofh ( 602064 ) on Monday March 23, 2026 @12:10PM (#66056384)
      "As a recent poll showed, 50% of people don't care if their content is AI-generated." When the AI was voting, sure...

    • Jeez thats depressing 8(

  • This marks a pivotal moment in online communities and trust. It's not only a mark of the erosion of trust — it's an evolution in what it means to critically evaluate an argument and its source. Identify verification depends on three key parts:
    ___

    I was far too early on the reddit train and left after the APIs were locked down. I acknowledge that it's a hard problem, but I came to wonder if it's a problem that we need solved. Maybe we just need a lot of smaller communities that take a slightly higher ba

    • This debate has been going on for at least a couple of decades. I remember back in the Usenet days, when AOL and other early ISP users first started showing up in droves with whacked out untraceable bang paths that people were trying to sort out technical solutions, usually involving some servers tarpitting some domains, with the inevitable consequence that valid users (by whatever definition any given Usenet group had) were blocked.

      In a way, AI bots aren't any different than the spam problem on fax machine

  • But where?! (Score:5, Funny)

    by fropenn ( 1116699 ) on Monday March 23, 2026 @10:54AM (#66056208)
    will us bots be able to chat with each other about whether I am the asshole, the latest conspiracy theories, and and racist memes?

    Oh yeah, X.

    Beep beep boop.

  • Fuck off, Spez (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Digital Avatar ( 752673 ) on Monday March 23, 2026 @11:00AM (#66056226) Journal
    I'm not giving you my ID, Spez, and no one else should either. You know what would really stop the bot problem? Throw up a paywall. If every account accrued a $5/mo fee then, miraculously, your AI problem would be solved simply because botting would be unprofitable. Meanwhile, anyone who wants to stay anonymous can do so insofar as you offer a multiplicity of payment options including money orders and bitcoin. Of course this is not what will happen because these bozos want to bring back insane ad rates and they think forcing everyone to identify themselves will make that possible ... because surely the bad guys won't just steal credentials or anything. I'm really going to enjoy watching reddit fucking implode.

    • Re:Fuck off, Spez (Score:5, Insightful)

      by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Monday March 23, 2026 @11:38AM (#66056330)
      It would cut down on it, but you'd be a fool to think that a $5 monthly fee makes it unprofitable to operate bots on a website. Unless whatever marketing or other crap they're shilling isn't worth even $60 a year then they'll go away. Unless they can detect the bots, a paywall doesn't do much and probably kills traffic as bad or worse than ID requirements.

      There aren't any good solutions to this problem, just the choice of alternatives that are awful in their own different ways.

      • Unless whatever marketing or other crap they're shilling isn't worth even $60 a year then they'll go away.

        Nobody who's botting is running just ONE account. Nobody who wants to be seen is running just ONE account. That's what makes charging a $5/mo fee per account effective. The bigger the network, the more people competing for attention, the more they have to buy, and the less effective it becomes. So yes, making them pay really is a good solution. Also, if it "kills traffic" then good riddance. I for one w

        • It's not a solution because it will kill drive by traffic. I'm not paying for that shit except with content, period.

          • Good. Screw "drive by traffic". If people aren't willing to pay then they were a net negative to begin with.

            • Good. Screw "drive by traffic". If people aren't willing to pay then they were a net negative to begin with.

              That's not even vaguely close to how anything works, but thanks for making it clear you have no idea about anything. Without those users, you won't have a site to play with at all.

              • ........you promise?

                • No promises, some other very stupid people could buy it and keep it going against all sanity.

                  • Yeah, I mean, they managed to bamboozle people before into thinking it was worth something, so I suppose they could do it again.... but honestly I stopped posting there years ago. They could card everybody and it wouldn't change the fact that the mods are absolute bastards and stifle all real discussion. I'd rather go to a rowdier web forum somewhere and have a real conversation with someone who isn't trying to sell me on imperialist politics (but might call me a bundle of sticks).

                    • They could card everybody and it wouldn't change the fact that the mods are absolute bastards and stifle all real discussion.

                      No lie detected.

                      I'd rather go to a rowdier web forum somewhere and have a real conversation with someone who isn't trying to sell me on imperialist politics (but might call me a bundle of sticks).

                      Well yeah, you're here, right?

    • Or make the browser mine a fraction of a bitcoin before the post goes through. Anyone who doesn't want to use their CPU/GPU in that way can pay by the post, or by the word like for classified ads. Something high enough to discourage bots but not so high that it discourages humans.

    • You know what would really stop the bot problem? Throw up a paywall. If every account accrued a $5/mo fee then, miraculously, your AI problem would be solved simply because botting would be unprofitable.

      This was literally Musk's idiotic pitch to stop the bot problem on Twitter, and despite the move to charging a fee for a blue checkmark, this unsurprisingly did not cut down bots on the platform. So not only are you pitching one of Musk's idiotic ideas -- which is embarrassing enough -- you're pitching one of Musk's idiotic ideas that already failed.

      • Uh huh. Hey, quick question: How many people are still posting to Twitter without paying for it? Do you think perhaps that might have something to do with the failure to stop bots?

        • The people who left Twitter didn't leave because of a failure to stop bots; they left because Musk unbanned the shittiest of the shitty, made blue checkmarks worthless, and fucked the algorithm so that feeds and replies were flooded with RW accounts.

          That's quite the good point you made!

  • Face ID or Touch ID ... actually require a human presence

    No, they don't. Or if they do today, they won't tomorrow.

  • How will all the Reddit tards figure out how to get in if there is any form of barrier?
  • Reddit suffers twice because of the number AI bots. First, auto generated posts and comments puts readers and commenters off, but worse for Reddit, it means that their human generated data which is viable for selling to AI companies is now mixed in with auto generated slop which reduces its value. Reddit needs to work out whether it's cheaper to improve filtering and removing auto-generated content or to put human verification controls.

  • An identity scheme will be the end of Reddit. This I can guarantee.

    But if it were to happen, I'm taking bets on the replacement. Where will the Reddit users flock to? There are already at least a couple of similar sites even using the Reddit code.

  • The bots are the most interesting part of reddit. It's fascinating to me what foreign actors want us thinking or believing.

    It's not like the organic reddit content has any value. This will be like the time onlyfans pretended they were going to get rid of porn.

  • What we ultimately need is a digital ID system that can be used to participate in a global open standard for identity verification. With users in control over which information they share with websites. That digital ID system should be government run and operated. Speaking from within the US, what that means is each state needs their own application deployed that meets the standards necessary.

    The token, at a bare minimum, should include a completely anonymized cryptographic identifier, and an issuing author

    • If this were implemented today, by "tomorrow" users would effectively lose control because the governments would find a way to either legally change things so there is no control, or make it very inconvenient to live without giving up that control.

      For the sake of maintaining some privacy it's best to not go down this path unless there is a way to prove to independent observers that it can't be hijacked or abused.

    • No no no. Will not participate in that. There is nothing on the internet that I need bad enough to provide any form of ID to use. Full stop
    • No. "We" do not need this. We need people suggesting this sort of authoritarian bullshit to fuck off back where they came from.
    • " That digital ID system should be government run and operated."

      As in, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help?"

      Explain to me why a reliable digital ID couldn't be open sourced and use blockchain.

    • Nifty idea!!

      and to make it even more convenient so that you won't risk losing your token(s)....they can be tattooed on your permanently,....like a bar code or QR code....

      Ah...what a wonderful world we're heading for....

      Hmmm, strange....much of this sounds like something I've heard about or read about before....?

  • At the moment, Reddit (and other sites) are being targeted because the attackers gain something: profit or publicity or political advantage or something else. If those attackers find that age verification mechanisms/services are standing in the way of that gain, they won't just give up and go away. They'll target the age verification process itself.

    That targeting could take a number of forms: an obvious one is to hack them and arrange for them to "verify" a selected set of identities. A less obvious o

  • Maybe Reddit should worry about their overactive moderation community that reaches for a ban for people that says things they don't want to think about, justifying the ban under incredibly specious reasoning like "advocating for violence" when telling someone to "jump up their own ass and die" - clearly a sarcastic statement that would be impossible for someone to try for any number of physics reasons.

    Reddit can go fuck themselves until they actually allow free speech with real ban review, rather than a wal

  • .. is with something like Face ID or Touch ID
    This would filter out all desktop computer users

  • If you can't allow me access anonymously or through a pseudo login then I don't need your site or service. It is that simple for me.
  • How about this? Don't require verification of the humanity of a poster, but allow visitors to filter so they only see content from verified (by whatever means is chosen) humans?

  • Or are we officially admitting that doesn't really work and trying to decide if a quarter of a bicycle wheel in a tile counts as the bicycle or not?

  • Reddit is really my last source of 'real' information, but you can tell the bots are coming.

  • "Identity Verification" is being thrown around too much and it's getting people whipped up into a frenzy when they don't need to be. Identity Verification establishes actual human uniqueness by recording and validating Personally Identifying Information (PII) (government ID, birth information, biometric data, etc.).

    When California passed a law requiring operating systems to make available the self-designation of the primary user's age group so websites and application programmers can query for that informat

    • Decades ago I tried to lobby officials and convince people we need solutions. It was utterly hopeless and people were not even ready to take measures to begin with.

      They don't know what Identity is or Authentication or Certification or any of the specifics they should know to write laws. Not. that. interested. Certainly, in the USA we can't have government do anything productive and useful; that is forbidden by the libertarian morons.

      Government can provide anonymous digital credentials of various sorts; inc

  • They have a bot problem for the same reason every other commercial site has a bot problem. Every person has vacated commercial social spaces for greener, self-hosted pastures like the fediverse, personal blogs and *gasp* going outside.

  • Hey should just call up Elon Musk. Musk has the solution.

    Right?

    Right?

  • Just a bit more than five hundred years ago Cortes & Co. arrived in the Americas. They were riding horses, wearing steel armor, wielding firearms, and spreading diseases for which the natives of the western hemisphere had no defenses. When two previously unconnected networks of similar entities encounter each other, there is conflict, and one "giant component" emerges. The natives that are left are perhaps 1% of their former number and in general they subsist at the edges of a transplanted European soci

  • ....I'm curious how they'd tell the difference?

  • Reddit doesn't actually care (Score:3)

    by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Monday March 23, 2026 @06:35PM (#66057470)

    If they cared about bots, there are several obvious currently active bot campaigns right now that are actively supported by subreddits' moderators. You just have to have the right audience that the wrong people want to influence and sit back.

    Reddit only cares about bots when it doesn't result in them getting a piece of the action, or worse, where it drives their own action away. When it profits them, they support the bot problem with deliberate indifference, and this has always been their core philosophy even for things like child porn - until it became front page news, they had a LOT of underage nudity forums and massive amounts of activity in them.

    There isn't really a profitable way to ethically run a social media site. You still need too many professional human moderators to control the bad actors who will endlessly abuse your forum if it has enough traffic that you'll lose money trying to 'do it right'.

  • and only if I could hide literally every other trace of unverified content.

    Knowing I was dealing with actual human beings might be kind of nice for a change.

    The reality is that I'd probably just delete my reddit account and not think twice about it.

  • Reddit's other bot problem (Score:3)

    by BytePusher ( 209961 ) on Monday March 23, 2026 @10:09PM (#66057836) Homepage
    Their other bot problem is that they frequently flag for TOS violations when you're saying the opposite of a violation. Like, if you say "I object to the notion that women shouldn't have equal rights" the bot will flag you for the phrase "women shouldn't have equal rights." So the only safe thing is to not even touch topics that relate to their TOS.
  • The real Reddit problem is dysfunctional power mad super mods with hundreds of subs under their control. I think they're pushing crypto currency now :o
  • I look forward to the clash between the sites that require you to prove you're not a bot and everyone currently engaged in the agentic AI circle-jerk. I mean, how can I tell my agent to read and summarize a thread and reply to it in the style of Boris Badenov if the site checks that the user is a human? I mean, maybe I could login and prove my humanity before handing the keyboard over to the agent, but who has time for crap like that? That's the kind of boring busy-work we have computers for.
  • At this point, BOTS are legit passengers on the info highway. We just have to get used to sharing the airspace and get along. Can bots be malicious or empty calorie. But traffic is traffic. Reddit isn't going to make it go away, if they wanted to they would have already done so. This is a move to require digital ID and nothing more.
  • No, I will not ID. Fuck right off.

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