One more step may be necessary before creating an account and posting to Reddit in the future. According to Reddit’s CEO, Steve HuffmanThe social media platform is exploring different ways to verify that a user is human and not a bot. When he asked it TBPN Podcast how to confirm you’re a human using reddit, Huffman responded with several verification methods with varying degrees of heavy-handedness.
“The lightest 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, which actually shows that there’s a person there or takes you pretty far away.”
In addition to these passcode methods that use biometric data, Huffman said there are other options, such as relying on third-party services that are decentralized or do not require identification. On the other end of the spectrum, Huffman also mentioned more onerous options, such as identity verification services.
Recent years have seen a rise in bots flooding social media platforms, including Reddit, where they have even been used to conduct secret experiments. It doesn’t appear that Reddit has yet figured out how to verify the human identity of its users, but Huffman emphasized that the platform still wants to prioritize the anonymity of its users. However, verifying humanity through personal, identifiable data could end up being a deal-breaker for Reddit users who value the platform’s anonymity.
“Part of our promise to our users is that we don’t know your name, but we do want to know that you are a person,” Huffman said. “It will be an evolution for us for a while and probably for all platforms we will find the right middle ground here.”
Reddit co-founder and former CEO Alexis Ohanian said on We’ve reached out to Reddit’s communications team and will update the story when we hear back.
