Last week, millions of UK users opened platforms like Reddit, Discord and Bluesky and were greeted with a new requirement: age verification. If you don’t submit a picture of a government ID, or have one of your selfies algorithmically verified as belonging to an adult, then 18+ content on many platforms will become inaccessible. This sudden change is actually years in the making: it’s an Ofcom-mandated implementation of the 2023 Online Safety Act (OSA), which aims to ‘protect childrenhellip;read more raquo;