Some users are circumventing UK's age checks by using VPNs, providing fake AI-generated photo IDs, or using images of high-fidelity video game characters
It's a privacy nightmare and is the slipperest of slopes. @kaidzsu.com : my headcanon is twitter rolled out the UK age verification nightmare for the entirety of Europe because the one remaining developer who wasn't fired by Elon didn't know the difference between the UK and EU Basil / @pacipup : Do not trust anyone who chalks up the UK online age restriction act as “the only people who care about this are gooners” — UK age verification has restricted: —anything related to drug/alcohol, including addiction recovery fourms —SA support fourms —any posts showcasing protest or police brutality David Buchanan / @retr0.id : energy drinks are age-restricted in the uk so “please drink verification can” should work as age verification. I'm a genius please fund my new age verification startup. DominaJemma / @dominajemma.co.uk : 66000 new users on the dark web by 10am of the day age verification became UK law. — Everybody, a slow clap for the UK government please. 🤦♀️ [embedded post] @ducky.ws : So... X just completely outright stops you seeing NSFW in the UK entirely? Age verification isn't great but X somehow made it worse @dancingmonk : The UK implements tough new age verification rules [image] Matt Collins / @mattophobia.ie : Gosh I wonder if people are going to get around the age gate? [image] X: Dany Sterkhov / @danysterkhov : You can use Death Stranding's photo mode to bypass Discord's age verification [image] @teelokay : Honestly the funniest (and scariest) part about all the age verification systems right now is that it's painfully obvious they were all rushed out the door to make the deadline. You do NOT want that system to handle your personal data. @miakiikazu : I don't think people quite understand it isn't just about nsfw stuff it's the fact the govt shouldn't decide what people get to see, it Might cross a thin line and anything that's reasonable nutters could see as “adult” and block it, stuff like sex ed resources or lgbtq resources Jordan Walker / @jayw132 : People in the UK, as the VPNs kick in... [video] @dannyonpc : I'm Dutch and in the Netherlands Why am I getting hit with Bri*ish censoring? [image] @kunley_drukpa : “Evening Sir, you are under arrest for having a surreptitious fiddle with your private member without fully completing all government biometric checks on your digital having a little tug on the old artful todger license. Come with me please Sir” [image] @screenrotpod : Podcasters with a NordVPN affiliate code right now [image] @liberal_reform : The online safety bill is a serious infringement on our civil liberties. Adam Wren / @g0adm : Everyone saying “you can just change your location” or “use a VPN” is really missing the point - 1) most people won't, they are extremely lazy. 2) It's about the principle, the government will try extremely hard to close down every avenue they can. Don't roll over Sam Dumitriu / @sam_dumitriu : Not content with shutting down a forum for hamster owners, the Online Safety Act now prevents anyone from accessing forums discussing cider and quitting smoking without giving some random company a selfie. No wonder our political class are despised. Veles / @menkvi : The UK Online Safety Act means subreddits like /r/cider, the support forum /r/sexualassault, and /r/stopsmoking are now blocked for people under 18. Thank you @Jess4Lowestoft for protecting our CHILDREN from these sick freaks [image] Neneh Cherrysis Evangelion / @foolyoldaccount : If you're 16/17 years old, you're actually allowed to go on r/cider, as long as you've got r/food open in another tab. Charlie / @asonnamedbort : Thank you to our benevolent government for deciding what is best for me to see and not see 🥰 [image] @meowriza : for the british people who got banned from gooning today: ( . Y . ) hope this helps 🙏 Sam Dumitriu / @sam_dumitriu : Today: Britain brings in new age verification laws requiring people to give sites containing ‘adult content’ photos of their Drivers License, despite multiple warnings from cybersecurity experts. Also, today: @brufdpsoma : The fact that literally just a source of information has been got by this law should tell you everything about it. It was never about “protecting children”, it was about censoring that which the government does not want you to see. @thecheapshowpod : Apparently “protecting children” is just to block everything, demonise proclivities, send the curious to more troublesome parts of the internet, ensure adults don't talk to kids about sex in general & blame everything on the web. You protect kids with education, not censorship! @keewa : The “Online Safety Bill” stuff coming out of the UK is absolutely cracked, what do you mean you can't access the Cider subreddit without sending a selfie @casey_business : > lowers the voting age to 16 > bans porn what strategy are the brits cooking Adam Wren / @g0adm : If you're 16 in the UK you're mature enough to vote but not to see videos from Gaza, Ukraine or even from protests happening in your own city for your safety, amazing @joeblillib4090 : Fucking hell that was quick #ICANTGOON [image] Madeline Grant / @madz_grant : Official UK government position is now that 16-year-olds are old enough to vote but are too young to watch videos of people having sex. Clown country Sam W / @sammarkwill : People having to link their IDs to the adult content they access? And that info being stored with some random US offshore provider? This is a privacy disaster waiting to happen, 100%. If we're gonna be Poundshop China, can we at least get some proper high speed trains? @nocontextbrits : Well that escalated quickly. [image] Nick Tyrone / @nicholastyrone : People say this Labour government doesn't care about business, but look at what they have done for the VPN industry this week. Archie / @archiemcw : you can just set anything to 18+ and we get blocked out LOL . new anti british method dropped [image] @christiancalgie : An elderly couple who were billed £200 for NordVPN claim they never ordered it and insist they're ‘not paying a penny’. [image] @astartesineptus : Jess, as someone who's about to be a first-time parent, what my child is and isn't able to access on the Internet is the responsibility of myself and my child's mother. Not you. Not the state. You have overreached your mandate and punished all because of an irresponsible few. @theo : Wait you actually have to submit your ID to access anything *potentially* 18+ online in the UK now? The same day of the Tea hack? Oh boy. @dauragon : ID verification for websites is flawed because when you have to show ID in real life it tends to just involve a person looking at it for 2 seconds with their own eyeballs before it goes right back into your wallet, instead of being scanned and uploaded to god knows where. Jess Asato MP / @jess4lowestoft : @DrMarianaClaire This is how it estimates your age: https://www.allpasstrust.com/ ... [image] Tom Jones / @93vintagejones : Settings & Privacy > Your Account > Account Information > Country > set it as somewhere outside UK & EU. [image] Crawford Tillinghast / @ashtarveddartha : This is actually insane. This is more invasive than putting your documents out there, no government should have access to your entire digital footprint like this Ricky Hale / @rickyhale_ : So glad we don't live in one of those bad countries like North Korea. They censor the internet over there. https://x.com/... Adam Wren / @g0adm : Amazing - another backdoor subsidy by the UK government, this time for VPN providers @ifindwankers : Fellow Brits on X censored from this new online safety act law, that are getting their content blocked and asked to verify ID, bit of a work around is: Settings- Your account -account information - change location to United States or somewhere else. 🖕🏻 government W⚓️'s... [image] Josh Housden / @joshhousden : Considering it blocks access to • footage from Gaza & Ukraine • footage of protests • private DMs • LGBT support groups • self-harm support groups • sexual assault support groups • addiction support groups • potentially *Wikipedia* No, it's a bad policy @evolvepolitics : Wikipedia is currently in a legal battle with the UK government to try and stop the platform being censored in the UK - or even completely blocked - thanks to the Online Safety Act. @epichedeadmeme : All Reform or Conservatives need to do is say “we will repeal the online safety act” and they've won the next election btw Dr Helen Ingram / @drhingram : Every UK household this morning now that the Online Safety Act has come into effect [image] James Meadway / @meadwaj : Wikipedia is one of the few remaining unalloyed Good Things about the internet... so *of course* it's being put at risk by the Online Safety Act. Harry / @harry_jrh : in the UK you have to verify your age to access wikipedia [image] Joe / @ascots_funk : Everybody is talking about the porn ban but nobody is discussing the literal fact that the government has already extended the censorship to cover multiple SFW hobby spaces, multiple sites discussing quitting smoking/drinking and are actively looking at ways to censor Wikipedia. @khubiez : just tried to open wikipedia lads [image] Ramie / @modestmousiey : Oi wat is all this a bout en? Can't have me a morning jillwaggy without the royal cunts spyin' on mi gnosh viewin habits? Pish posh [image] Paul Graham / @paulg : Now the British need VPNs to know what's happening, just like the Chinese. @protonvpn : Just a few minutes after the Online Safety Act went into effect last night, Proton VPN signups originating in the UK surged by more than 1,400%. Unlike previous surges, this one is sustained, and is significantly higher than when France lost access to adult content. [image] Jess Asato MP / @jess4lowestoft : Well done to everyone who campaigned to ensure age verification for pornography was in the Online Safety Act! Today it comes into force and while no doubt there will be some who get around it, it means young kids in particular won't be stumbling on violent and harmful porn. [image] Forums: r/pcgaming : Users claim Discord's age verification test can be tricked with video game characters r/technology : Users claim Discord's age verification test can be tricked with video game characters
Context & Ripple Effects
The UK rollout is part of a widening deployment of age gates: Bluesky introduced UK account limits tied to age verification, while Australia also moved to require age checks for logged-in search users. The reported workarounds expose the gap between a compliance requirement and the ability of consumer-facing systems to reliably establish age.
The story matters because the same verification stack is being applied across social platforms, games, and other services. As access controls broaden, both the privacy cost of proving age and the incentive to evade checks rise together.
First-order effects
- UK users can avoid some age-gated restrictions through VPN location masking or by presenting synthetic IDs and game-character imagery to photo-based checks.
- Platforms and verification vendors face weaker assurance that a completed check represents a real, eligible user, while legitimate users still bear the document, selfie, or data-sharing burden.
Second-order effects
- Services using image-based verification are likely to tighten liveness, document, and location checks, increasing friction and the risk that valid users are rejected or restricted.
- Operators adopting different methods—from Bluesky's UK verification limits to Steam's card-based mature-content checks—will have to weigh stronger assurance against data collection, implementation cost, and user drop-off.
Third-order effects
- If circumvention remains easy, age-assurance rules may evolve into a continuing enforcement-and-evasion cycle rather than a durable access boundary, pressuring regulators to define what counts as effective verification.
- The broader outcome could be more persistent identity infrastructure at the service edge, with privacy and access disputes extending beyond explicitly adult content to support, information, and community services.
The trend: This is one data point in the expansion of access-control regulation, where age-gating mandates are driving both identity verification adoption and increasingly sophisticated evasion attempts.