In July, Siyan, a UK-based Discord user, logged on one morning and found himself unable to access some of his text chats marked NSFW. The channel, a popup informed him, was now age-restricted. The United Kingdom had enacted its far reaching child safety laws, which includes an age requirement system to verify users are over 18. Discord’s updates required users to verify their age, either by government ID or a face scan.
Siyan (who requested to only be referred to by his screen name for privacy reasons) describes himself as “painfully over the age of needing to fake an ID.” He didn’t want to take a photo of his ID. The face scan feature wasn’t yet available on mobile, he says, and he didn’t own a webcam, so he decided to give the platform someone else’s face. First, he tried using an emoji of “an old dude” he often uses on Discord. (“It speaks to me.”) Face scans, however, often require users to submit multiple shots that include them looking a specific way, or specific poses. Siyan needed a passable image of a man with an open mouth.
Two games in his library, Stellar Blade and Death Stranding, include a photo mode that allows players to pose a character and set their expressions; Siyan opted for Death Stranding’s Sam, modeled after 56-year-old actor Norman Reedus.
He dropped screenshots of his success into a discord, after which a friend posted them to X. Siyan’s gambit quickly went viral, inspiring others to try with games like Death Stranding, God of War, and more.
Age verification is now the norm in the UK, though similar laws worldwide are expected to have a profound impact on how we access the web. Companies like Google are rolling out AI-driven age estimation systems for Search and YouTube. On gaming platforms like Roblox, age checks are becoming a key element of safety measures. But whether by using IDs or face scanning, it’s an imperfect system. Several Discord users tell WIRED they’ve already managed to get around face scans using video game characters. Generative AI could make this problem even more difficult to control as the tech grows more sophisticated; just last month, WIRED wrote about a startup working on AI that can create video in real-time. Users are also worried about giving companies their personal information in case of security breaches.
In theory, age verification serves to keep kids safer. On platforms like Roblox, where failed moderation has allowed predators to groom or even assault some children, confirming that someone is a minor—or over the age of 18—is one way to determine what features they can use. For adult content sites like Pornhub, age verification aims to make sure children cannot access pornography. Critics, however, say the systems being put into place are flawed ones, both from a privacy and protection standpoint.
Age verification in gaming is gaining momentum, but the advent of AI-generated fakes poses a pressing challenge for its authenticity and accuracy. The technology must continually evolve to adapt against synthetic proof which can unnerve both players' security as well as platform integrity.
