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Bluesky Launches Age Verification in Select States

If you live in two particular states, you'll need to verify how old you are to stay on the site. Bluesky, the funky, semi-decentralized Twitter spin-off, is rolling out age verification systems to comply with new regulations instituted in Europe and parts of the U.S. On Wednesday, the platform announced that it was expanding its verification systems in South Dakota and Wyoming. The United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act created new requirements for platforms that want to operate within its borders

Bluesky is rolling out age verification in South Dakota and Wyoming

Bluesky is expanding its age verification features stateside. The service will require users in South Dakota and Wyoming to verify their ages in order to access direct messaging and adult content on the site. The update comes after both states have enacted laws requiring online platforms that host "harmful" content to verify the ages of their users. Bluesky's approach will mirror its actions in the UK, which also requires age checks following the passage of its Online Safety Act. The company ha

Can I have a new password, please? The $400M question.

Back in August 2023, attackers tied to the Scattered Spider group didn’t exploit a zero-day vulnerability to hack Clorox. They simply called the service desk (run by Cognizant), claimed to be locked-out employees, and asked for password and MFA resets. According to court filings and reporting, the attacker repeatedly phoned Cognizant’s service desk, obtained repeated resets without meaningful verification, and used the resulting access to move quickly toward domain-admin footholds. Clorox says

The growing debate over expanding age verification laws

Technologists and policymakers are reckoning with a generation-defining problem on the internet: while it can be a revolutionary force for unprecedented education and connection across the globe, it can also pose dangers to children when they have completely unfettered access. There is no simple way, however, to monitor children’s internet access without surveilling adults, paving the way for disastrous online privacy violations. While some advocates praise these laws as victories for children

LinkedIn takes on hiring scams with recruiter verification

is a news editor with over a decade’s experience in journalism. He previously worked at Android Police and Tech Advisor. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. LinkedIn is trying to help put a stop to recruitment scams by requiring anyone with a recruitment-related job title to verify their place of employment. Executives will have to go through the same process, while company page verification is now rolling out more widely too. Existing recru

Online Age Verification Rules Are Popping Up Everywhere. Here's What You Need to Know

The internet is full of perils -- this we know. Among the rich trove of content we have at our fingertips is a combination of legal material, illegal material and material that falls into a gray area -- often referred to in vague terms as "harmful." This is the kind of content that might be appropriate for anyone with a fully developed prefrontal cortex to view but that you wouldn't necessarily want your kids stumbling across. In the past, accessing such content has been easy, regardless of ag

Bluesky Goes Dark in Mississippi over Age Verification Law

People in Mississippi can no longer use the social media platform Bluesky. The company announced Friday that it will be blocking all IP addresses within Mississippi for the foreseeable future in response to a recent US Supreme Court decision that allows the state to enforce strict age verification for social media platforms. According to Bluesky, Mississippi’s approach to verification “would fundamentally change” how users access the site. “We think this law creates challenges that go beyond it

Bluesky Goes Dark in Mississippi Over Age Verification Law

People in Mississippi can no longer use the social media platform Bluesky. The company announced Friday that it will be blocking all IP addresses within Mississippi for the foreseeable future in response to a recent US Supreme Court decision that allows the state to enforce strict age verification for social media platforms. According to Bluesky, Mississippi’s approach to verification “would fundamentally change” how users access the site. “We think this law creates challenges that go beyond it

Bluesky blocks service in Mississippi over age assurance law

Social networking startup Bluesky has made the decision to block access to its service in the state of Mississippi, rather than comply with a new age assurance law. In a blog post published on Friday, the company explains that, as a small team, it doesn’t have the resources to make the substantial technical changes this type of law would require, and it raised concerns about the law’s broad scope and privacy implications. Mississippi’s HB 1126 requires platforms to introduce age verification f

Age Verification Is Sweeping Gaming. Is It Ready for the Age of AI Fakes?

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

Age Verification Doesn't Need to Be a Privacy Footgun

“Won’t someone think of the poor children?” they say, clutching their pearls as they enact another stupid law that will harm the privacy of every adult on Earth and create Prior Restraint that inhibits the freedom of speech in liberal democracies. If you’re totally ignorant of how things work, the proposal of “verifying you’re an adult” before you access adult content sounds, superficially, like a reasonable thing to do. But it’s a patently stupid idea at every level. Age Verification Makes Th

YouTube's Age-Estimation Tech Will Spot Kids Pretending to Be Adults. Here's How It Works

If kids are lying about their age, YouTube will know about it. Or at least will try its best to find out. The streaming service announced Tuesday it's rolling out age-estimation technology that will use various data to determine if someone is under the age of 18, and then use that signal "to deliver our age-appropriate product experiences and protections." Basically -- assuming it works as it should -- kids will not be able to access what YouTube deems as age-restricted content. Google, YouTub

Ready or not, age verification is rolling out across the internet

is a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO. On July 25th, the UK became one of the first countries to widely implement age verification. Its Online Safety Act requires sites hosting porn and other content deemed “harmful” — including Reddit, Discord, Grindr, X, and Bluesky — to verify that users are over the age of 18. The early results have been chaotic. While many services have complied, so

Xbox adds age checks in UK to comply with Online Safety Act

Recap: Digital platforms across the United Kingdom are adjusting their operations after the country's new Online Safety Act came into force, with Microsoft's Xbox gaming service among the latest to announce compliance measures. The legislation, aimed at making digital spaces safer for children and young people, has set off a wave of new regulations that require internet companies to verify users' ages if their platforms could potentially host explicit or harmful content. Microsoft confirmed thi

Microsoft plans to bring Xbox age verification to countries outside of the UK

Microsoft is implementing an age verification system on Xbox accounts to comply with the UK's Online Safety Act, and in a new blog post announcing the move, the company suggests it'll come to other countries, too. Players in the UK who indicate on their account that they're 18 years or older will now "begin seeing notifications encouraging them to verify their age," Microsoft says. The process is optional for now, and players will be able to enjoy playing Xbox games until "early 2026," when ver

The UK is slogging through an online age-gate apocalypse

People across the United Kingdom have been faced with a censored and partially inaccessible online landscape since the country introduced its latest digital safety rules on Friday. The Online Safety Act mandates that web service operators must use “highly effective” age verification measures to stop kids from accessing a wide range of material, on penalty of heavy fines and criminal action against senior managers. It’s primarily focused on pornography and content that promotes suicide, self-har

Microsoft starts rolling out Xbox age verification in the UK

is a senior editor and author of Notepad , who has been covering all things Microsoft, PC, and tech for over 20 years. Microsoft is starting to comply with the UK’s Online Safety Act by prompting Xbox players to verify their age today. The prompts will be shown to Xbox players who indicate they’re over the age of 18 and will be shown when you sign into an Xbox account in the UK. Microsoft says it’s also exploring bringing similar age verification tools to other countries in the future. To powe

Users claim Discord's age verification can be tricked with video game characters

Discord’s new age-verification tool may not be as rigorous as it seems, after users reportedly discovered it can be tricked using video game characters. The instant messaging and VoIP platform, commonly used for gaming, implemented an age-check tool earlier this month for UK users in anticipation of a new set of laws aimed at restricting potentially harmful content for under-18s. The Online Safety Act, passed in 2023, requires service providers that host user-generated content to implement age

Asymmetry of verification and verifier's law

Asymmetry of verification is the idea that some tasks are much easier to verify than to solve. With reinforcement learning (RL) that finally works in a general sense, asymmetry of verification is becoming one of the most important ideas in AI. Understanding asymmetry of verification through examples Asymmetry of verification is everywhere, if you look for it. Some prime examples: Sudoku and crossword puzzles take a lot of time to solve because you have to try many candidates against various c

Asymmetry of Verification and Verifier's Law

Asymmetry of verification is the idea that some tasks are much easier to verify than to solve. With reinforcement learning (RL) that finally works in a general sense, asymmetry of verification is becoming one of the most important ideas in AI. Understanding asymmetry of verification through examples Asymmetry of verification is everywhere, if you look for it. Some prime examples: Sudoku and crossword puzzles take a lot of time to solve because you have to try many candidates against various c

Perplexity offers free AI tools to students worldwide in partnership with SheerID

Want smarter insights in your inbox? Sign up for our weekly newsletters to get only what matters to enterprise AI, data, and security leaders. Subscribe Now Perplexity, the AI-powered search engine that competes with Google and ChatGPT, has partnered with identity verification company SheerID to offer up to two years of free premium service to more than 264 million students worldwide, the companies announced Monday. The deal tackles a key challenge for AI companies: providing educational acces

Five EU countries to test age-check app under new child safety rules

France, Spain, Italy, Denmark, and Greece are preparing to test a new age verification system as part of the EU’s push to regulate how children access online content. Here are the details. The pilot program, announced by the European Commission on Monday (via Reuters), is built on the same technical standards as the upcoming European Digital Identity Wallet, which is set to launch across the EU next year. The move comes alongside new EU guidelines aimed at helping platforms comply with the Dig

Reddit is rolling out age verification in the UK

Reddit users in the United Kingdom will now be blocked from accessing “certain mature content” unless they complete the platform’s new age verification process. Reddit announced on Monday that UK users will need to upload a selfie or a photo of their government ID in order to view content that’s restricted for under-18s by the UK Online Safety Act (OSA), including abusive, violent, and sexually explicit materials. The age verification process is performed by Persona, a third-party provider that

The EU is testing a prototype age verification app

The European Union is piloting a blueprint for age verification apps in Denmark, Greece, Spain, France, and Italy that aims to make it easier for online platforms to comply with rules that require them to protect minors. The app prototype was announced on Monday alongside guidelines that online platforms are recommended to adopt in order to comply with the bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA). “Making sure our children and young people are safe online is of paramount importance to this Commission,

The Supreme Court just upended internet law, and I have questions

is a senior tech and policy editor focused on VR, online platforms, and free expression. Adi has covered video games, biohacking, and more for The Verge since 2011. Age verification is perhaps the hottest battleground for online speech, and the Supreme Court just settled a pivotal question: does using it to gate adult content violate the First Amendment in the US? For roughly the past 20 years the answer has been “yes” — now, as of Friday, it’s an unambiguous “no.” Justice Clarence Thomas’ opi

You may soon be scanning your ID just to access websites, and you’ve got SCOTUS to blame

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority TL;DR Texas House Bill 1181 requires age verification for users trying to access websites offering adult content. After lower courts ruled it unconstitutional, the Supreme Court has upheld the bill in a 6–3 ruling. States are now free to force websites to demand a copy of your ID, raising substantial privacy concerns. Being asked to prove who you are is just an everyday part of going online: select all the bicycles if you’re not a robot; click this box aff

You may soon be scanning your ID just to access websites, and you’ve the SCOTUS to blame

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority TL;DR Texas House Bill 1181 requires age verification for users trying to access websites offering adult content. After lower courts ruled it unconstitutional, the Supreme Court has upheld the bill in a 6–3 ruling. States are now free to force websites to demand a copy of your ID, raising substantial privacy concerns. Being asked to prove who you are is just an everyday part of going online: select all the bicycles if you’re not a robot; click this box aff

Supreme Court Says Age Verification Laws for Porn Sites Are Constitutional

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Friday that states with laws requiring age verification for porn sites is constitutional. The case, known as Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton (Ken Paxton is the Attorney General of Texas), was decided 6-3 with the court’s three liberal justices dissenting. The Texas law, which requires age verification using a credit card or a government-issued ID document, went into effect in 2023 and Pornhub started blocking access to the site in the Lone Star State in protest.

75 million deepfakes blocked: Persona leads the corporate fight against hiring fraud

Join the event trusted by enterprise leaders for nearly two decades. VB Transform brings together the people building real enterprise AI strategy. Learn more As remote work has become the norm, a shadowy threat has emerged in corporate hiring departments: sophisticated AI-powered fake candidates who can pass video interviews, submit convincing resumes, and even fool human resources professionals into offering them jobs. Now, companies are racing to deploy advanced identity verification technol

Reddit Looks to Get in Bed With Altman’s Creepy ‘World ID’ Orbs for User Verification

Gaze into the Orb if you want your upvotes. According to a report from Semafor, Reddit is actively considering partnering with World ID, the verification system co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, to perform user verification on its platform. Per the report, Reddit’s potential partnership with World ID would allow users to verify that they are human by staring into one of World ID’s eye-scanning orbs. Once confirmed to be a real person, users would be able to continue using Reddit without reve