On July 25, the United Kingdom imposed the Online Safety Act across the nation, reconfiguring how sites hosting adult content or anything potentially harmful to minors are accessed. This includes everything from social media platforms like Twitter and Meta to the ‘obvious‘ sites that you’d expect to have harsh age verification barriers.
Unfortunately, a slew of gaming-related sites and platforms have been impacted by these new laws that are now hampering gamers across the United Kingdom.
Which Sites Need Age Verification?
In the gaming space, several key platforms have been impacted by the Online Safety Act in the United Kingdom. If you’re a gamer living in England, Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland, you’ll wake up and realise that you’re much more restricted than you were before the law came into effect.
Here’s the spread of sites that now require age verification in some capacity following the deployment of the Online Safety Act:
Steam
Valve’s hyper-popular PC storefront hosts adult-rated games and NSFW content, which means it’s now obligated to verify the age of users in the United Kingdom trying to access this content. Recently, Steam updated its policies to address adult content following a ‘clamping down’ across the platform by payment processors.
Nexus Mods
Nexus Mods is the home of many NSFW mods and files, and as a result, users need to complete age checks, including facial recognition scans, to access adult content. Games like Stellar Blade that have stacks of adult mods will be inaccessible on Nexus Mods until you complete verification steps as part of the new Online Safety Act.
Discord
Discord offers the ability to mark servers and channels as NSFW, which is enough to trigger a response related to the Online Safety Act. With that being said, users are finding that they’re being requested to verify their age before being able to access certain Discord servers, even if they own the servers.
Reddit has long been known as a home for adult content, especially user-generated content. This is why it’s a prime target for the Online Safety Act. Before you can access certain NSFW-themed subreddits and threads, you’ll need to verify your age, which is a step that’s directly impacting gaming communities worldwide.
Impact of the Online Safety Act
The Online Safety Act isn’t a terrible idea, but the execution of the thing has been nothing short of flawed. There are already stories circulating online about malicious apps surfacing, claiming to verify your age before promptly stealing your information or even scamming you financially.
Many games, like Roblox, already have considerations in place when it comes to age verification. In recent months, the Roblox Corporation has strengthened age verification features on the platform following years of concerns that the Roblox ecosystem is a hunting ground for predators.
Aside from being irritating and controlling, there are intense concerns from gamers about uploading their face scans or personal data to third-party applications just to access games, services, and social media platforms.
Have you been impacted by the Online Safety Act in the United Kingdom? Let me know on the Insider Gaming forum.
For more Insider Gaming coverage, check out the news that Sony wants to take PlayStation games to other platforms
Grant has been gaming for 30+ years and in the industry for 10+. You'll probably find him playing a post-apocalyptic game or an extraction shooter somewhere.
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