The UK has just imposed a sweeping new set of internet regulations in the name of protecting children from adult content on sites. This has been…controversial to say the least, as it’s not just places like Pornhub, users have seen the verification pop up in places like Spotify, Reddit and Discord as well.
But intrepid teens, or just those that don’t want to feed in personal information to the government, are finding video game-based ways to get around these new systems, namely one that requires “live selfies” to verify your identity as an adult person through facial age estimation.
This past week, a lot of UK internet users started looking like Walking Dead star Norman Reedus. That’s because of his role in Death Stranding 2, where a hyper-realistic version of the actor appears in the game, and can be posed in various ways in photo mode, including performing actions the UK system requests like opening and closing your mouth.
Now, users are moving into even less realistic game characters, as there’s video circulating of people using Garry’s Mod to get around the system, where again, you can rig up facial commands to do what it asks. I’m wondering just how many games this might work with. Cyberpunk 2077 and its elaborate photo mode come to mind, and I’d like to see someone try that.
The idea of these kinds of regulations is starting to spread, and YouTube announced a somewhat similar system to get age data from its users to verify they are actually adults. This includes viewing habits, but also using AI systems to check age. If they get it wrong, the user has to report that and prove their age in some other way with a driver’s license or credit card, something many may not want to hand over to Google. No word if Norman Reedus can get people out of this one.
All of this has sparked a lot of debate about what is actually about protecting children, and what is a way to make the internet more obtuse and force citizens to hand over private information to the government or large corporations that they wouldn’t otherwise. But as it stands, it does not seem like these policies are going anywhere. You are free to try these methods, but it’s not clear if they’re going to end up working for everyone. Regardless, this is all very funny.
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