Redditors in the UK will now have to verify their ages before they can view mature content. Just like Bluesky, which announced a few days ago that it was rolling out age verification features, Reddit had to enforce the new rule to comply with the UK Online Safety Act. The UK’s new requirements are meant to prevent children from accessing age-inappropriate posts. Reddit will use a third-party company called Persona to verify a user’s age. Users will either have to upload a photo of their government ID or take a selfie, with the latter option presumably enough for people who absolutely don’t look like a minor anymore.
In its announcement, Reddit said that that it will not have access to those photos and will only be saving their verification status, along with their birthdates. That way, users won’t have to re-enter their birthdays every time they try to access restricted content. The announcement also said that Persona will only be keeping users’ photos for seven days and will not be able to see their Reddit information, such as their posts and the subreddits they visit.
If a user is under 18, Reddit will hide restricted content from them and will limit ads in sensitive categories, like gambling. They will no longer be able to view sexually explicit content, anything that encourages suicide and disordered eating, as well as anything that incites hatred against other people based on their race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, disability and gender. Reddit will also restrict anything that encourages violence and any post that depicts “real or realistic serious violence against a person, an animal, or a fictional creature” for minors. They won’t be able to see posts encouraging challenges that are highly likely to result in serious injury, along with posts encouraging people to ingest harmful substances. Content that shames people’s body types and other physical features will be restricted, as well.
Users outside the UK will not be affected by the new rule, but Reddit said that it may need to verify the ages of people in other regions if they adopt similar laws. Reddit also said that it “would like to be able to confirm whether [users] are a human being or not” in the age of AI and will have more to announce about that later.
