The internet is currently facing an existential crisis, and Reddit is somehow in the middle of it, too. Co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman says that the company will soon be requiring users to verify whether they are humans using biometric tools like Apple"s FaceID, TouchID, or device-based passkeys. As Huffman bluntly put it in his post, "Reddit is for people."
AI bots today can easily mimic human conversations, sway public opinion, and even farm engagement. With more and more "AI slop" getting generated each day, Reddit has been aggressively trying to curb AI spam on its platform.
This isn"t the first time Reddit is at war with AI. Back in 2023, Reddit steeply increased its API pricing to a whopping $12,000 for 50 million requests. Although the company did this to stop tech giants from scraping Reddit"s vast data, the move had severe collateral damage and forced many beloved third-party apps to shut down. It even triggered widespread community protests, including AMA moderators halting coordination with high-profile celebrities.
Now, Reddit is targeting the bots on the platforms themselves. Huffman"s vision relies on what he describes as an "ass in the seat" approach. By using WebAuthn standards and passkeys that require a physical human action like looking at a screen or tapping a fingerprint sensor, Reddit hopes to prove human presence, without ever needing to know the user"s actual legal identity.
However, people aren"t really happy with requiring even something like FaceID to access a meme subreddit or a political discussion board. Reddit"s cofounder Alexis Ohanian quoted the tweet to voice a collective skepticism on this idea.
RDDT requiring Face ID was not something I had on my bingo card but something has got to be done about all the fake / botted content ā I just don"t know how to sell face-scanning to redditors or even lurkers. https://t.co/7e7K3Di4ip
ā Alexis Ohanian š½ (@alexisohanian) March 21, 2026
Reddit"s entire value proposition was built on the freedom of pseudonymity. It"s a place where people confess deep secrets, seek advice on sensitive topics, and even blow the whistle.
This is why Reddit notes that human verification isn"t a "sitewide requirement" and that it will do it in a "privacy-first way."
When confirming that there is a human behind an account, we prefer third-party tools that keep a distance between verification and Reddit itself. Any system we use will not expose your real-world identity to Reddit nor your Reddit username or activity to any third party. There are a handful of ways to do this, and Iām sure there will be more. Each have their tradeoffs:
Reddit says that it is continuing to remove the "vast majority" of bots and spam, which is around 100,000 every day, and that it will continue to take measures to reduce spam on its platform.
via TechCrunch