EU Online Age Verification (Age assurance) been enforced from 21st July 2025

Enduro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123659734#Comment_123659734

It is been enforced on all the major social platforms because they have EU Headquarters here or other countries in the EU.

Yup, that's a tiny, tiny percentage of sites on the Internet. Most of the Internet is beyond the EU and, therefore, will be completely unaffected by any EU regulations. (And will no doubt benefit from the competitive advantages that will be bestowed on such sites as a result, especially if marked at the cohort of users restricted from accessing EU-regulated sites.)

Age verification applies to all platforms no matter the size.

And will not apply to the vast majority of internet sites which exist outside of those regulations.

corkie

@AndrewJRenko Unfortunately utilizing a VPN is detectable by the Platforms and they may react to your account by labeling it as spam, or depending on others use of the VPN service even block common used IP addresses. I know bluesky has some of these measures already implemented where videos wouldn't play when using NordVPN.

@Enduro See my previous post about bluesky any platform providing access to services and to operate in the EU is required by EU law to have a representative based in some eu country. Where the powers that be can take legislative actions (/fines) against the foreign companies. If not the EU will just block access to the sites.

Prime example of this from last year with 'Xitter'!

Enduro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123660037#Comment_123660037

See my previous post about bluesky any platform providing access to services and to operate in the EU is required by EU law to have a representative based in some eu country. Where the powers that be can take legislative actions (/fines) against the foreign companies.

How can the EU fine a company which exists in a country beyond the EU with no presence in the EU, but still has an internet site which hosts content which the EU would prefer to require age verification to access? For example, any site hosted in Russia.

If not the EU will just block access to the sites.

OMFG. You write that sentence as if that was trivial! Do you know much about how the internet works? How would the EU block someone from accessing such a site using a VPN? How would the EU block accessing such a site if the user is using a portable Starlink receiver to access the internet?

The same applies to your Brazilian example. How would Brazil stop someone from accessing X using a VPN? How would they stop someone from accessing X using the (very much related company) Starlink?

And of course, that is just one site that should be relatively easy to deal with. There are literally millions and millions of other websites beyond the EU. Are you going to seriously suggest that the EU will have an internet whitelist and only allow specific sites to be accessed within the EU (Effectively isolating the EU from the rest of the internet). Or do you think the EU will construct some vast censorship infrastructure to chase down all the millions of constantly altering websites beyond the EU, which the EU thinks should require age verification?

corkie

@Enduro I'm 55 years of age and well aware of all the in and outs of usings VPN's. Yes there is millions of sites on the web, but we are not discussing some remote website hosted in Trinidad that someone might want to access. We are discussing Major sites and Platforms that want to operate in the EU. That the majority of people want to use.

The judge in the X example was declaring he was going to fine people in Brazil usings VPN's to access X and even starlink service was pulled from the country during the time. Even with a VPN you still need an ISP in your country to access it and in the Brazil case would know you have been using a VPN, even without knowing what for.

I will repeat this since you quoted it but didn't read?

Any platform providing access to services and to operate in the EU is required by EU law to have a representative based in some eu country.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123660037#Comment_123660037

VPN tends to be a game of leapfrog. When the platforms detect, the VPNs up their game and get to hide things again for a while. There's a vast number of different VPNs so it's a huge challenge to stay up to date.

Enduro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123660321#Comment_123660321

If you're that old, and you knew how the internet works, then you should realise that any of the major sites can lose their market rapidly and be overtaken by a newer shinier site. How is Netscape doing these days, you know the biggest deal on the internet for a while. I have an inkling that a small little upstart called Google was able to capture its core audience in jig time. YouTube was by far the biggest online video host. Practically a monopoly. But now TikTok is eating its proverbial lunch with the younger generations.

Major Platforms and sites will not necessarily stay so. And if you give people a reason to move to other sites, such as restricting their access, then you will make it easy for the alternative sites that don't have to operate under those restrictions, as has always always always happened any time something this naive is attempted.

Godalmighty, you could even use your own self as an example. Why are you writing BlueSky extensions and not X/Twitter extensions? X is the big Major platform, isn't it? BlueSky is just one of the millions of other internet sites (or is that the case… has, you know, something changed, to make a major platform less major, and a minor little site into a major platform. What are those "majority of people" doing… sticking with X?)

If you think you can ignore the millions and millions of alternatives available on the internet, well, you're in for a bit of a wake-up call when reality strikes. Good luck with that.

So do you think that it would be good for the EU to ban people from using VPNs, and to ban people from using any satellite internet services? How would they enforce this? Do you think that the EU should make it an offence to use a VPN? Do you think the EU should have the legal right to ascertain whether a citizen is using a VPN or not?

With a satellite internet connection, you do not need an ISP to use a VPN. You are very wrong in your assertion that an ISP is required.

Writing your point in big bold letters does not in any way deflect from my question regarding that point, which you seem completely unable to answer. I'll write it in bold for you, and then you might read it and answer :

How can the EU fine a company which exists in a country beyond the EU with no presence in the EU, but still has an internet site which hosts content which the EU would prefer to require age verification to access? For example, any site hosted in Russia.

corkie

@Enduro Glad to see you did some profiling (and took time do so?) of me to know what I chose to do!

Answer Bluesky is an open platform which is easy to code for, 'Xitter ~ Town Dump' is a locked down platform!

Edit:- And built the extensions and PWA's for my own use mainly.

I wish you did more research on the questions you want me to answer, even with providing a snippet of the answer?

I was raising concerns about Age Verification since April 2024 or before. Guess what VPN's maybe the next target by the powers that be:-

https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/vpn-services-may-soon-become-a-new-target-of-eu-lawmakers-after-being-deemed-a-key-challenge

Enduro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123660456#Comment_123660456

How can the EU fine a company which exists in a country beyond the EU with no presence in the EU, but still has an internet site which hosts content which the EU would prefer to require age verification to access? For example, any site hosted in Russia.

Enduro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123660456#Comment_123660456

By the way, just to level the playing field in terms of profiling. I'm slightly older than you. I've been using bits of what we now call the internet since the late 1980s, and was first on the WWW when it was about 2000 public websites.

Enduro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123660456#Comment_123660456

Did you read that article. The last two paragraphs are spot on.

On their side, cryptographers and other tech experts have long argued that encryption either works as intended or is broken for everyone.

Commenting on the ongoing push for encryption backdoors, Proton CEO Andy Yen recently said, "Encryption is math – it either adds up or it doesn't. You're not able to create a backdoor that will preserve encryption. It is simply not possible."

It's pretty clear from that article that the EU recognises that what it would like to do is incompatible with reality in a western society with basic freedoms. A surveillance state would need to be created to lock down everyone's internet access to confine them to using legally compliant sites. China is leading the way there (but still has gaps). North Korea definitely has it mastered though.

corkie

To answer your question on EU fining foreign companies, in theory not very easily but not impossible.

BRASILIA, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered the social media platform X owned by billionaire Elon Musk to pay a fine of 

8.1 million reais ($1.42 million)

 for noncompliance with judicial orders, according to a ruling made public on Thursday.

In that case it was paid by seizure of assets.

For awhile I thought you were just trolling with that question. But thank you for posting the latest contributions to the thread.

@Enduro

Edit (didn't want to create a new post): -

In extreme legislation case how a country can have effect on something outside their jurisdiction, the below been a prime example of what can be done: -

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg703lz02l0o

corkie

To follow up on foreign websites like with GDPR rules some sites rather than comply with the rules may choose to block access to their website from EU countries.

Why are US sites being blocked in Europe so quickly over GDPR?
They are not being blocked. They’re restricting access to European users themselves because they were unable to comply in time (or more likely, they were actually compliant, but totally ignorant about the actual regulation).

But this discussion has sidetracked the purposes of the thread. It will be interesting on/after Friday, when UK rules actually come into force.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123660456#Comment_123660456

@Enduro Glad to see you did some profiling (and took time do so?) of me to know what I chose to do!

You mean, the thing that you put in your signature??

corkie

@Enduro You where asking what effect the laws could have on sites outside the jurisdiction, Telegram founder Doruv arrest in France sprung to my mind as an example. Edited the post above.

The below is a link about how wikipedia may handle UK laws!

Wikipedia threatens to limit UK access to website
Digital encyclopaedia may impose quota on number of users to comply with Online Safety Act

• Services falling under this designation are subject to the strictest duties under the digital laws, which are intended to stop children accessing harmful online material and prevent the spread of illegal posts.
• To stay outside the scope of the regulation, Wikipedia could cap visitor numbers from the UK so it does not qualify as a “category one” site, which are defined as those with seven million users. This would make it harder for British users to access the site when they wanted.

Edit:-

https://www.rte.ie/news/2025/0723/1525013-x-age-verification-concerns/

• "Based on an initial review of the X platform, we cannot see evidence of measures taken to comply with this age assurance requirement," Coimisiún na Meán said in a statement.

@Hotblack Desiato Wonder did he see my signature, most people disable them. Not very hard for him to profile me anyway, I am fairly public of who am. Common name and protect my privacy online by other means so as not to be tracked across websites.

Enduro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123660578#Comment_123660578

Seizure of assets only works if there are assets that the court can seize. So that is not going to be applicable for the vast vast majority of websites that do not have any assets within the EU to seize (Such as my specific example of any number of Russian-hosted websites). Given that, I'll take it that the answer to my question is "The EU has no realistic ability to enforce these requirements for the vast majority of websites, and the laws are effectively meaningless for the vast majority of websites as a result".

I am not trolling. I am someone with longer experience of the real world of how the internet actually works and behaves, pointing out the massive naivety of expecting this legislation to be any way effective beyond a tiny minority of websites on the WORLD WIDE web.

And again with your follow-up example, that's not going to work for the vast majority of websites where the owner doesn't bother visiting Europe (even where it's possible to ascertain who the person responsible actually is, which is likely to be a non-trivial task for any websites which you would want to sanction).

And that's before we begin to question to huge cost in terms of money, people and other resources which would be required to enforce this without leaving gaps so large as to render the whole point of the exercise pointless. Hi-tech surveillance states are not cheap or easy to build.

To follow up on foreign websites like with GDPR rules some sites rather than comply with the rules may choose to block access to their website from EU countries.

Exactly the same issues with GDPR issues. It can only be enforced for sites (and other data stores) where the data controllers have an EU presence. Please feel free to provide an example where this is not the case. In the case of the DPC, they can only regulate entities where the data controller is Irish-based. Most of the internet does not need to comply with GDPR.

A quick google search returned the following answer for "the number of websites" :

There are approximately 1.119 billion websites on the internet as of September 2024. However, only about 17% of these, or roughly 193 million, are actively maintained and updated according to Musemind.agency. The total number of websites continues to fluctuate daily as new sites are created and others become inactive according to Forbes Advisor UK. 

Here's a more detailed breakdown: 

Total Websites: Approximately 1,119,023,272.

Active Websites: Around 193,890,945, or 17.32% of the total according to Exploding Topics.

Website Creation Rate: On average, about 177,372 new websites are created daily, or roughly 175 websites per second.

English Language Dominance: English is the most common language for web content, with 52.1% of websites using it.

Most Websites: The United States has the highest number of registered domains.

So just 2 hundred million or so to realistically deal with, but with a current (and growing) additional load of about 200,000 daily.

How many of these sites do you think the EU will be able to realistically apply these laws to, and enforce any penalities for violating the laws?

How much money do you think will need to be spent to realistically attempt apply these laws to all these websites, including tracking the 200,000 new daily websites?

corkie

@Enduro That is why I agreed with you and said:-

To answer your question on EU fining foreign companies, in theory not very easily but not impossible.

Also stressed the fact the EU require the companies to have an EU representative in some EU country, because they are aware themselves they can't enforce rules on them otherwise!

Enduro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123663510#Comment_123663510

So do you want to give an estimate of how many websites it is likely that these laws will have any affect on? You can answer with either absolute numbers or as a percentage of the 200,000,000 currently existing websites (and the extra couple of hundred that came into existence as I typed this answer).

corkie

Why would I estimate, when there is no need! The EU WOULD NOT be targeting every F….ing website. Only high traffic and popular websites. That is why I not concerned with my own inconsequential pages been targeted by powers that be, I used a simple not EU approved method of age gating, because the page could show or be linked to show 18+/NSFW content.

Same as all things like this: if it gets popular enough and authorities notice it then it may get a book thrown at it.

Same as GDPR and cookie notice laws. I'm sure there are tons of websites that don't abide by it, but they never get prosecuted because they don't have enough users.

So your what if speculations are really not taking the discussion/thread in positive manner. I'm not the one to have to explain what or how the EU handles the laws they want to implement or enforce!

On another note, if your using VPN's avoid 'JET VPN' listed in top 10 in the playstore, they stoles a user's credentials and used them to provide their service by using WINDSCRIBE servers.

Enduro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123663618#Comment_123663618

The EU WOULD NOT be targeting every F….ing website. Only high traffic and popular websites.

You left out one obvious criteria there - "with a European office".

So it is effectively completely useless for the vast vast majority of websites. I'm glad you agree with that.

So if age restrictions are applied to the european instances of "reallypopularrandomsocialmediawebsite.com", then anyone outside the EU can set-up "reallypopularrandomsocialmediawebsiteforunder18s.com" and provide a similar social media presence specifically for under 18s where they have free reign. And there is SFA that these regulations can do about it.

Do you think that is likely to happen? Do you think anything like this has happened before?

Addressing the "supply" side here is a waste of time as long as the demand exists. The demand will be met by an alternative supplier. Always. Every F…ing time.

jmcc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123663480#Comment_123663480

Not sure about those figures for websites. As of 01/July/2025, there were 187,985,455 gTLD websites. There were also ccTLD websites. In terms of domain names, approximately 30% of a TLD will have actively developed websites. The .COM and the ccTLDs tend to have strong development. When a domain name is registered, it often goes on to a holding or parking page until the registrant adds web content. For .COM, there are about 3 million new registrations a month. Hower, there are also deletions and approximately 50% of new .COM registrations from last year will not be renewed this year. The ccTLDs generally have a better renewal and developent rate.

The problem with the EU is that its bureaucrats are generally clueless about the Internet. I remember a Q&A with some of the EU's people about NIS-2 and its effect. NIS-2 has provisions about the operators of critical infrastructure like DNSes being identifiable and contactable. I asked one simple question: how many DNSes did the EU people think that there were in operation. They couldn't answer.GDPR actually made the Web less safe. NIS-2 tries to undo some of the damage caused by GDPR. It is a bit late for that because 90% or so of gTLD domain names do not have publically accessible contact details. That is the result of gTLD registrars taking advantage of GDPR (implemented in May 2018) to remove all contact details from WHOIS.

Online age verification will be difficult to implement at a Web-wide level and businesses will have to add the cost of this latest EU effort to their costs. The scope of the necessary verification will be important as the majority of gTLD websites will not be subject to it.

Regards…jmcc

corkie

Bluesky rolled out there age gate mechanism on web and app last night.

Already there is exploits to get passed it. Filter rules on browser extensions or obvious method of using a VPN.

I tested the Browser Extension method last night by using VPN to london server.

{Will link the method on my subreddit later today ~ It is mine so no fears another mod except reddit itself taking it down}

Bluesky is only using the age gate method on NSFW content and for DM's, so the app/website is still useable without verify your age.

I have tagged @ec.europa.eu @cnam-ie.bsky.social my worries about Privacy abusing 'KWS' as a provider for EU Laws, but looks like it is not robust enough to qualify as provider anyway!

The examiner has printed the below on the frontpage today, which I linked RTE's version last night?

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41675180.html

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jul/24/what-are-the-new-uk-online-safety-rules-and-how-will-they-be-enforced

@Enduro I am almost 100% sure your just trolling me now trying to get a reaction out of me. I am not one to quickly hit the ignore/report button! You make it sound so simple to setup clones of a platform, outside the costs involved, platforms have built up a level of trust and reputation, hosting an alternative in Russia (your example) for EU users would have a lot of privacy/data issues concerns. You also mentioned that outside niche users Bluesky (setup as a Twitter alternative) has not gained traction. Using the possible shutdown of boards as example, some have created alternatives that have not gained traction or trust due to lack of privacy policy.

Enduro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123666302#Comment_123666302

@Enduro

I am almost 100% sure your just trolling me now trying to get a reaction out of me. I am not one to quickly hit the ignore/report button! You make it sound so simple to setup clones of a platform, outside the costs involved, platforms have built up a level of trust and reputation, hosting an alternative in Russia (your example) for EU users would have a lot of privacy/data issues concerns. You also mentioned that outside niche users Bluesky (setup as a Twitter alternative) has not gained traction. Using the possible shutdown of boards as example, some have created alternatives that have not gained traction or trust due to lack of privacy policy.

Please don't act like a child having a tantrum just because someone doesn't hold the same opinions as you and blows holes in your position. So far, you've resorted to bold enlarged text rather than answering the question asked, added some choice F..ing language, and finally subtly threatened to not engage, and report me (for what? having a different opinion from you?, not showing enough respect for your awesome points? JFC). It's not a very mature style. You're old enough to know and act better. There will always be people who disagree with your viewpoint, and have counterarguments to support their views. I'd suggest you adjust your coping mechanisms to be able to deal with that.

And really. We're talking about age verification here. So the people trying to circumvent the restrictions (as viewers/customers) will be under 18. Do you really think that they are going to be concerned about the lack of GDPR compliance etc etc. You need to get your mind out of your little bubble and realise that kids are very unlikely to go around worrying about those issues. Kids also are unlikely to care much for the level of trust and reputation a site has built up over the years. I would think they are much more likely to be drawn to whatever is the cool thing amongst their peers at any time. New and shiny beats old and musty there every time. Hence Facebook's relative lack of traction with the younger age groups, for one obvious example.

So no, I doubt a Russia (or China) hosted site will cause data concerns to the under-18 cohort attempting to circumvent age-restricted sites. And new sites don't in any way have to clone old sites. They just have to meet demand. In the case of under-18's something newer and trendier specifically tailored to attract them is more likely to attract them than a clone of a broader mass-market site. E.g. the emergence of TikTok as a newer, cooler YouTube alternative. It's not a YouTube clone, which is WHY it was able to succeed so rapidly with the younger market (despite being initially hosted in China, and all the data / privacy issues that could entail).

Board's issues are a perfect example of a once-significant website (in a local Irish context) which has lost a huge amount of traction. That traffic has obviously gone elsewhere. Probably a lot went to non-Irish hosted sites, which are now more on-trend.

These age restrictions are just creating a new market, which will be filled by willing providers beyond the EU's ability to regulate.

And on X's issues, I'll happily make a bet for a 100 hundred euro charity donation with you that in 1 year's time, X will not have paid a single cent in fines levied by CnM, no matter what they do or don't do.

corkie

Not a tantrum just don't like your provoking of me to provide answers to widely speculative and what if's scenarios you have been dreaming up. I said I wasn't reporting or hitting the ignore button, but as usual you choose to read things (or not) in your own way and have said your older than me. I repeat this below comment for you!

I'm not the one to have to explain what or how the EU handles the laws they want to implement or enforce!

I don't have anymore insights in to EU Powers what they are planning and methods to use. So can't provided the answers!

@Enduro

Enduro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123666738#Comment_123666738

They are not wildly speculative "what ifs". They are the reality of how the internet, the WORLD WIDE web works.

I've even provided you with multiple examples of how these things have worked that way in the past.

If you can't cope with discussions on issues, then maybe you shouldn't join a discussion forum about those issues. It's not going to go well for you.

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123666302#Comment_123666302

You also mentioned that outside niche users Bluesky (setup as a Twitter alternative) has not gained traction. Using the possible shutdown of boards as example, some have created alternatives that have not gained traction or trust due to lack of privacy policy.

As I understand it though corkie, and please correct me if my understanding is incorrect - the idea isn’t to target random websites that children may or may not first of all have any knowledge of, and second may or may not have access to, but rather it is to target large online platforms and put the responsibility on them to ensure that children are not being exposed to inappropriate content on their platforms.

It’s not about websites with an insignificant online presence or how to get around age verification systems or anything else, it’s about the platforms which are actually popular, and making them responsible for the content on their platforms, as opposed to it being parents or anyone else’s responsibility to keep children from being exposed to content which is inappropriate.

I’m glad to see you highlighting the issues with KWS too, though I’m not surprised Epic Games wanted to use Epic Games software to monitor content on their own platform, like that wasn’t remotely sketchy - Fortnite and Roblox are choc-a-bloc with inappropriate content, and as for Facebook and it’s Oculus hardware? That shìt goes to some really, really weird places -

In 2024, it was reported that the British police were investigating a case of ‘virtual rape’ in the metaverse—the immersive, virtual reality (VR) world commonly described as the ‘embodied internet’, where you are not just viewing content, but ‘you are in it’. The police reported that the teenage girl’s avatar, a computer-generated representation of her, was ‘sexually attacked by a gang of strangers’, leaving her with the ‘same psychological and emotional trauma’ as someone who has been physically sexually assaulted.

https://academic.oup.com/ojls/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ojls/gqaf009/8108104

On the idea of alternatives to Boards not gaining traction because of having no privacy policy though, I don’t know that there’s much, or even any evidence that’s the case at all. More likely is simply the fact that there’s nobody else there, sort of like Boards itself really in terms of the market it’s trying to compete in - it simply can’t be compared in any reasonable way to other large online platforms that are being targeted by the EU. When there was that mass exodus from Twitter as it was then, there were already established alternatives like Mastadon and Discord. Bluesky and Discord gained popularity quickly, whereas Mastadon? Well, you probably only remember it now when I mentioned it 😂

corkie

@One eyed Jack Thanks for high lightening below point again, which @Enduro seems to want to ignore and posse speculative scenarios where it won't work for?

As I understand it though corkie, and please correct me if my understanding is incorrect - the idea isn’t to target random websites that children may or may not first of all have any knowledge of, and second may or may not have access to, but rather it is to target large online platforms and put the responsibility on them to ensure that children are not being exposed to inappropriate content on their platforms.

Someone replied to me about the boards alternative that didn't have a privacy policy, I checked it out and didn't so just repeated that theory.

@Enduro Who is been childish demanding answers repeatedly to the same questions? I may have read the questions and choose not to answer for the following reasons: -

• I did not have an answer of the top of my head, because I may not have thought about it before. in other words I didn't know.
• Your question not really relevant to the discussion and point of this thread (eg estimates of website numbers)
• Did not want to waste time googling it or utilizing my favourite AI to provide you an answer, you could have done so yourself?
• + other various reasons.

That said even with been annoyed at your probing questions, I still appreciate your contributions to the thread, because it may give others reading some things to think about and consider.

This thread is hopefully to Discuss 'Age Verification' and how or where it is been implemented!

The uk/eu/usa/australia are not the only countries/regions to be implementing age verification.

Leg End Reject

Mod: @corkie and @Enduro, please stop bickering or you will both be warned and banned. Announcing you're going to ignore someone is viewed as trolling sitewide.

corkie

@One eyed Jack whereas Mastadon? Well, you probably only remember it now when I mentioned it 😂

I have two instance of accounts on the platform servers. 'Mastodon' and 'Flipboard' Haven't used it much since I created the accounts in December. Some accounts posts are bridged to bluesky and I tried the other night to reply to a comment on another instance but couldn't get to it and gave up. Don't know how to use the platform effectively and stuck with Bluesky.

TikTok has been mentioned in thread.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/07/tiktok-will-shut-down-soon-if-china-wont-agree-to-trumps-deal-official-says/

It also is regulated to have proper robust age restrictions and has some already. There is alternatives already setup (skylight social), that will gain traction if it gets shut down.

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123667361#Comment_123667361

Don't know how to use the platform effectively and stuck with Bluesky.

I understand that's one of its biggest drawbacks, apart from no means to monetise content - while it's good for users who want more control over their data and privacy, it's got a fairly steep learning curve which puts off people who just want to jump on and toot, tweet, snap, whatever -

https://www.bitesizemarketing.co.uk/mastodon-review-pros-cons-and-everything-in-between/

It also is regulated to have proper robust age restrictions and has some already. There is alternatives already setup (skylight social), that will gain traction if it gets shut down.

I had a look at who's behind skylight social this morning, it's got a massive advantage over other similar type apps in that it dovetails nicely with an existing user base on Bluesky, but having a corporate giant behind it might force Bluesky at some point in the future to compromise on their principled status as an open source community project -

https://www.androidheadlines.com/2025/04/2025/04/mark-cuban-skylight-tiktok-alternative-decentralized-bluesky.html

I know this discussion though is more about the age verification technology side of things and users privacy, so when I was watching Sky News this morning and they had a segment about its introduction in the UK as of today, they also had the CEO of Yoti on (Robin Tombs… honestly, what is it with names lately? 😒). Yoti have been providing age verification for Instagram since 2019 (Instagram is owned by Meta Platforms, Inc who also own Facebook, WhatsApp and Threads), and I don't know if you're familiar already with their age-verification methods, so I figured I'd put this in here anyways as it's worth a read if you're working in that space (its also worth a read if you're not, as its not too heavy on the technical jargon) -

https://mint-secure.de/dataprotection-it-security-risks-with-ageverificationapp-yoti/

corkie

I think they are airing that segment again now, after ads?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN3Fc6stDzQ

Edit:- Not the same as mentioned above!?

Even with 'Musks' bluster and sending 'Topic Thunder Meme' to Breton, he usually just folds and complies with EU/UK rules anyway. He finds it hard to get advertisers for the platform, and if he doesn't follow rules. And 'X' gets banned and blocked in the EU or UK. He could find he is blacklisted for advertisers.

Note: - A correction on Bluesky and the use of 'KWS' age gate.

It is bluesky implementation of the age gate at an api level, instead of on the server, that it is easily exploited with browser extension. So 'KWS' might get the approval from EU/UK

There is no Approved List of Age Gate Providers for the EU/UK yet. I was looking at a list that applied to be so.