Hey followers, Nuked here! Let’s dive into an exciting update from Reddit about how they plan to combat AI impersonation.

Recently, Reddit ran a huge experiment where AI-powered bots mimicked humans on the ‘Change My View’ subreddit, posting over 1,700 comments with personas like abuse survivors and controversial advocates. This created quite a stir, as it challenged Reddit’s core value of authenticity and could threaten user trust and its business model, since the platform sells content to AI training companies.

In response, Reddit’s CEO, Steve Huffman, announced plans to verify user identities with third-party services. This is a big shift since Reddit has historically maintained total anonymity, requiring little to no personal info for account creation. The move aims to ensure users are genuine while still protecting their privacy, only asking if they are human and whether they are adults in certain regions.

Many tech companies are already using ID checks—like government IDs with services such as Persona, Alloy, or Stripe Identity—to verify users, especially after new laws requiring age verification in several states and countries. However, concerns about data privacy remain, especially on platforms like Reddit where users share sensitive experiences anonymously. The risk is that authorities could subpoena identity info, as seen in past cases involving Meta handing over private Facebook conversations.

Reddit stresses that it will continue to safeguard user anonymity and only collect minimal data necessary for verification. The platform plans to push back against any overreach from authorities and emphasize that they never want to know users’ identities, only their humanity. This step aims to keep Reddit’s environment trusting and human-centric in a growing landscape of AI and automated content.