Faced with bots, Reddit wants to ensure that there is a human behind every account

Digg has just shut down, overwhelmed by bots. This seems to have served as a lesson for Reddit. Indeed, on March 25, 2026, Steve Huffman, co-founder and CEO of Reddit, announced a series of measures to combat the proliferation of automated accounts on the platform. Reddit wants to remain a human space at a time when the internet is becoming less and less so.

Targeted Verification for Reddit Accounts

Reddit isn't going to ask everyone to prove they're human. The system is actually targeted. If an account displays suspicious signals such as an abnormally high posting speed, unusual technical behavior, or even atypical activity, Reddit will ask it to undergo a verification test. If it fails, the account may be restricted.

To verify that an account is indeed managed by a person, Reddit will rely on third-party tools such as Apple or Google passkeys, YubiKeys, biometric services like Face ID, or Sam Altman's World ID. In some countries like the UK, Australia, and a few US states, identification may be required, particularly to ensure legal age.

With this verification, the goal is to confirm that there is indeed a person behind an account. Anonymity will, however, be preserved.

Bots, a problem that goes beyond Reddit

According to Cloudflare, bot traffic will surpass human traffic by 2027 when crawlers and AI agents are included in the calculation. Reddit is a prime target, as bots manipulate political narratives. They spread propaganda for companies, spam links, and generate fake ad clicks.

For the past few months, bots have been posting artificial questions and discussions on Reddit solely to generate training data for AI models, just like on LinkedIn. They take advantage of the lucrative agreements Reddit has with AI providers for access to its content. The platform is thus being used as an automated data factory, without the knowledge of its real users.

100,000 deletions per day, but it's not enough

Reddit already deletes an average of 100,000 accounts per day for spam or bot behavior. This figure clearly demonstrates the scale of the problem. Alongside the new verifications, the platform is introducing an APP label to officially identify good bots (those that serve the community).

Alexis Ohanian, the other co-founder of Reddit, had already mentioned the dead internet theory. According to him, bots are now the majority and most content and interactions on the web are automated.