New age-verification laws in the UK are making it more complicated for those who want to access adult material online. Some X users, for example, are being blocked because the social network cannot estimate their ages.
Unlike other networks like Bluesky, Discord, and Reddit, X hasn’t yet introduced a widely available system for UK users to prove they’re over 18. X is instead opting to estimate through other data points, which means some users are getting hit with the following notice: “Due to local laws, we are temporarily restricting access to this content until X estimates your age.”
X owner Elon Musk confirmed the company is working on a fix for the issue after someone tweeted: “There is no current way to prove my age.”
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X’s European Age Assurance policy says it will now estimate a user’s age. For example, if you’ve previously said you’re under 18, your account will be limited. If your account was created before 2012, you’ll be given adult access. The same goes for those who were previously verified under the legacy system or if you have a Verified Organization account. If you subscribe to X Premium, you can also use a manual ID verification process.
X’s Age Assurance policy says a manual verification feature will be coming later. Under a section called “User-involved verification options,” it reads, “In this case, X is planning to give users a choice between two secure, privacy-respecting options.” Those options are facial age estimation from a live selfie and ID verification using a government-issued ID.
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Introducing that system quickly may be X’s way of ensuring users can reestablish full access to their accounts. One user, posting to Reddit, said they share adult content, and they’re no longer able to use many of their account’s features as they can no longer see NSFW posts.
Some other users have found that their bookmarks are no longer available unless they fake their locations. On July 25, users found they could change their location in X’s settings to access adult content. On July 26, many found that the option stopped working, and now the only way to access content is to use a VPN as a workaround.
Musk isn’t a fan of the UK’s Online Safety Act, posting to X on Saturday that its “purpose is suppression of the people.”
Social media networks are restricting access to adult content to avoid large fines. The UK law will be enforced by the government body Ofcom, which plans to fine companies £18 million or 10% of their worldwide income, whichever is larger.
Age verification has also proven tricky for other social media services. Although Discord has a system in place to judge a user’s age, it’s easy to break. One user found they were able to fool the tool using the main character in Death Stranding 2: On The Beach and the game’s photo mode. When asked to open your mouth during the verification process, the user could do so with the player character, and it would believe it’s a real person.
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