New age-verification laws in the UK are proving complicated for those who want to access adult material online. Social media network X users are seeing a notification on content with adult themes that reads, “Due to local laws, we are temporarily restricting access to this content until X estimates your age.”
Unlike other networks like Bluesky, Discord, and Reddit, X hasn’t yet introduced a widely available system for UK users to submit evidence proving they’re over 18. X is instead opting to estimate through other data points, and it has meant some users are finding their feed shows the disclaimer saying X is unable to verify their age.
Elon Musk, owner of X, has confirmed the company is working on a fix for the issue. One user said, “There is no current way to prove my age,” which Musk responded to by saying “We are working on this.” X itself has yet to comment on the issue.
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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, but that isn’t available to those who don’t pay for a subscription.
X’s Age Assurance policy says a manual verification feature will be coming at a later date. 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 to ensure users are able to 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 their bookmarks are no longer available, although those who were able to fake their location said the bookmarks return when outside restrictions. On July 25, users found they were able to change their location in X’s settings to be able to access adult content. On July 26, many found that option stopped working, and now the only way to access content was to use a VPN as a workaround.
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Musk isn’t a fan of the UK’s Online Safety Act posting to X on Saturday that he believes 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 government body Ofcom, which plans to fine companies the larger amount of either £18 million or 10% of a company’s worldwide income.
Age-verification has also proven tricking for other social media services. Although Discord has a system in place to judge a user’s age, it has so far proven 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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