this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2025
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The UK's new act blocks access to adult content without identification. Turns out, you only need a copy of Death Stranding and a phone to get around it.

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[–] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 124 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Such an unfathomably stupid idea to use facial recognition for this. It would be funny if it weren't so dangerous.

[–] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 45 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

This is a fascist tool of surveillance capitalism, which will be sold off to data brokers and rolled into big brother sooner than later.

[–] the_riviera_kid@lemmy.world 110 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The great thing about the kind of idiots that pass these stupid laws is that they are idiots.

The terrible thing is that since they are idiots they won't see this as proof that the law is stupid but instead that they should make the law stupider.

[–] Lodespawn@aussie.zone 31 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

HOW DARE YOU SUGGEST THEY ADDRESS THE ROOT CAUSE OF THE PROBLEM RATHER THAN APPLY A BANDAID?!

[–] Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world 17 points 16 hours ago

"Hmm, better criminalise this 'death stranding' hacker programme too."

~ Government

[–] bytesonbike@discuss.online 59 points 1 day ago

That image is hilarious.

What a joke.

[–] ThePantser@sh.itjust.works 55 points 1 day ago

Damn there's a whole bunch of Norman Resdus' in the UK.

[–] M0oP0o@mander.xyz 50 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

So let me try and think this out.

Norman Resdus' face is used to get around this crap ----> they filter out Norman's face ----> poor Norman Resdus can no longer use UK internet.

[–] bear@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 20 hours ago (1 children)
[–] M0oP0o@mander.xyz 8 points 19 hours ago

Could not everyone? Then the internet will crawl

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 40 points 1 day ago

Well, now its government ID or straight to jail.

Another 80’s “unbelievable conspiracy theory” now (or soon) law. Hey if you get the subdermal chip its so convenient.

[–] thermal_shock@lemmy.world 27 points 19 hours ago (1 children)
[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 18 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

I assume the reason this specific tool was mentioned is that the "selfie" requires the person to be striking a specific pose. I estimate less than a week until something like the site you linked comes out which is able to do custom poses.

[–] cley_faye@lemmy.world 13 points 16 hours ago

You can already generate 5s video for free with adobe firefly (two daily), and for static images, you could already do them for a long time on commodity hardware with your custom prompts.

This isn't a fight they lost quickly, this is a fight they lost before showing up, but still showed up.

[–] Evotech@lemmy.world 7 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

Using controlnets you can already make an ai image do whatever pose you want

https://stable-diffusion-art.com/controlnet/

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 4 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Albright. 0 or negative tjme is less than a week :33

Edit: I was high when I wrote this if you're wondering about the spellings

[–] kbal@fedia.io 23 points 23 hours ago

On the Internet, nobody knows you're a repatriate full of cryptobiotes.

[–] plyth@feddit.org 18 points 15 hours ago

It's like ad blockers. They allow the clever people who could give an opposition movement some teeth an easy way out. Too few fight now and when they activate the better filters, everything will be tightened up.

[–] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

you only need a copy of Death Stranding and a phone

Do you actually need the phone or can you use a screenshot?

Also, if they're accessing Baldur's Gate 3 fan fiction, shouldn't they have used the photo mode from Baldur's Gate 3? Surely no one is more entitled to read Minthara erotica than Minthara herself.

[–] floo@retrolemmy.com 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You likely can’t use a screenshot because it’s a static image

[–] Rhaedas@fedia.io 5 points 1 day ago

Good thing there's tools now to make a static image move.

[–] TWeaK@lemmy.today 11 points 1 day ago

Pretty sure it needs a live camera to access. It's less a photo and more a video.

[–] Digestive_Biscuit@feddit.uk 14 points 15 hours ago

I know this is a bit different. I'm in the UK and there's a few sites I use which can't implement the age verification due to being a small team so they've straight up banned all UK traffic.

VPN to another EU location seems to work. I'm actually surprised it was that easy. It also works on a bunch of sites I wish not to have an account. Not all, but most.

The politicians who passed this are either clueless morons or are using this to push some other agenda (no idea what).

[–] nialv7@lemmy.world 13 points 19 hours ago

Cyberpunk in fiction vs this

[–] nuko147@lemmy.world 12 points 16 hours ago

And i title that caught my eye after the article :

Nexus Mods will soon require age verification for UK and EU users looking for its treasure trove of adult mods

SHIT

[–] shadowedcross@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 day ago

Identity theft is not a joke, but sure is useful.

[–] EldenLord@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

Yet another Kojima W

[–] AnyOldName3@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

This is untrue. I can't do this because I can't convince the verification tool that my phone really has a camera, so I can't show it Norman Reedus.

[–] hsr@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

If I understand this correctly, according to UK government's logic, Discord's actions are comparable to a store selling alcohol to (potentially) thousands of minors who are wearing fake beards. What sort of punishment shall befall them for this misdeed, I wonder...

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Didn't Discord add this before the UK law, tho? And can this work around be used for other photo verification things on other sites?

[–] Skua@kbin.earth 4 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Anecdotally, I'm in the UK and Discord has never asked me for ID. I don't have nitro, though, so if it's a nitro thing I would not know

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 5 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

I've only been asked for an ID by actual human people running a discord server if I wanted to get access to their NSFW rooms. Not even by Discord itself.

I didn't give it to the actual server ops, and I definitely wouldn't give it to Discord itself. I don't need to use a chatroom to get porn.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 5 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

I think one of the age ID things needs to detect movement. I tried it with a still photo of Kier Starmer and it wouldn't have it. I'll have to experiment.

[–] baguettefish@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

according to the article it wants you to open and close your mouth, which the death stranding photo mode is easily capable of. you might also be able to do it with other games, or AI photo->video of your favorite politicians, preprogrammed to move around a bit and then open and close its mouth a few seconds later.

[–] cley_faye@lemmy.world 8 points 16 hours ago

They're asking everyone to act like buffoon while striking poses in front of their phone instead of addressing the core issue. Great.

[–] ColdWater@lemmy.ca 5 points 18 hours ago
[–] adhocfungus@midwest.social 4 points 23 hours ago

Incredible. Always good to hear some positivity in the news.