Reddit addresses bot problems, ID verification

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman caused a stir when he told a tech show that the platform was considering some form of ID verification to combat bots. Now Huffman has officially addressed the issues in a message to Reddit users posted right on the platform itself.

Huffman says Reddit isn't looking to identify its anonymity-loving user base. The company just wants to make sure its users are human.

"Reddit works because it’s human – and we want to keep it that way," a Reddit spokesperson told Mashable in a statement, just as Huffman wrote in another post last year.

Huffman's latest post is summarized in its title, "Humans welcome (bots must wear name tags)." Going forward, the CEO wrote, "good bots" on Reddit will now be labeled as "Apps."

Automation is allowed in certain use cases on the platform, Huffman noted. But bot accounts must not impersonate a human being. Developers will be able to officially register their automated accounts with Reddit; details on how to do so will be shared soon. 

What about ID verification? According to Huffman, Reddit will approach this as "human verification." The platform is not looking to identify specific individuals, just confirm that they are an actual person and not a bot.

There will not be any sitewide verification process for Reddit, in other words. Human verification will be performed on a case-by-case basis, if an account is using automation or engaging in other suspicious bot-like activity. Reddit will use a third-party service for human verification.

"If we suspect a user is running an automation, they’ll encounter a verification prompt," a Reddit spokesperson told Mashable. "This will affect a small number of users. Any verification service we use will not have access to your Reddit activity and username, and we will not have access to your real-world identity."

The company says it has successfully been able to detect and remove bots for more than 20 years — and believes these new moves will provide better visibility and transparency to its user base.

As for AI on the platform — including AI slop — Reddit is taking a wait-and-see approach. "For better or worse, using AI to write is part of how people will communicate in the future (albeit annoying), so our current focus is to ensure there is a real, live human behind the accounts you’re seeing," Huffman wrote.

Subreddit communities will able to make their own rules regarding AI, however — and users can always downvote AI content on the platform.

But Huffman isn't closing the door on a sitewide approach to AI in the future. "Things are changing quickly, and we’ll adapt as best we can," he wrote.