Verifying human authorship with human.json

What happened

A blogger has implemented the new human.json protocol on their Jekyll site to "vouch" for other human-authored websites. It has been reported that a lightweight browser extension can read these vouches and surface whether a site is vouched for by another — neat, if you buy the premise. The author cites a few early adopters as inspiration and says the project was part curiosity, part social signal: small-town trust for the internet age.

How it was done

Implementation was straightforward: the author keeps a humans.yml in Jekyll’s _data folder and generates a human.json at build time using a Liquid template that lists vouches (URLs + dates). They also add a tag in the page head so tools can discover the file. Handling JSON directly “isn’t very human friendly,” they admit — so they source from YAML for easier edits and let the static build do the heavy lifting. Practical, low-friction, and the kind of tinkering that delights web folk.

The rub

Here’s the emotional core: who gets vouched? The author confesses to being torn. Do you exclude a real person who sprinkled in AI-generated images? Or leave out someone who used an LLM for a handful of paragraphs? There’s no clean line. Allegedly, the protocol forces humans to prove their humanness because sites don’t consistently disclose generated content — which feels backward. It’s a little gatekeeper-y, and that tension is the most interesting part of the whole experiment.

Why it matters (or doesn’t)

This won’t topple verification systems or end misinformation overnight. Still, it’s a charming, community-driven attempt to graft human judgment onto the web: low-cost, voluntary, and transparent. The author plans to keep the list updated and asks readers to flag sites that become less “human.” In a corner of the internet where people still tinker with Jekyll and #100DaysToOffload streaks, that kind of earnest effort matters — even if it’s only a small ripple for now.

Sources: joelchrono.xyz, Lobsters