The UK recently introduced the Online Safety Act, which contains new requirements for social media platforms to protect users, particularly minors, from illegal or harmful content. As part of the regulation, users must now verify their age to access platforms that may contain adult content, including services like Discord and Reddit.
To comply, many platforms have rolled out age verification tools, such as facial recognition software and ID document uploads. Discord, for example, uses a service called k-ID, which asks users to either submit a government-issued ID or complete a video selfie to estimate their age. Discord claims ID data is quickly deleted from third-party servers, while “video selfie footage never even leaves your device.” Despite these assurances, privacy concerns remain.
However, some users have found an unconventional workaround in the form of a video game. Death Stranding 2: On The Beach has an advanced photo mode which allows players to manipulate the main character, Sam Bridges, into mimicking human expressions with enough realism to trick facial recognition tools.
Gamers discovered that by pointing their phone at a screen the game is playing on, they can adjust Bridges’ facial expressions to match the instructions. According to PC Gamer, this method has successfully bypassed the verification systems on multiple platforms.
You can use Death Stranding’s photo mode to bypass Discord’s age verification https://t.co/o9n0c0lwkI pic.twitter.com/mvYmhZZCVp
— Dany Sterkhov 🛡✈ (@DanySterkhov) July 25, 2025
The Verge’s Tom Warren also used Death Stranding 2 to bypass the checks, getting past both Reddit’s and Discord’s systems. “Both were completed within seconds, and it was unbelievably easy to bypass these age checks,” he writes.
Another platform, Bluesky, which uses Yoti for verification, is reportedly not susceptible to the trick. Yoti also provides facial age estimation for Instagram users as a verification option.
The new regulations have already sparked a surge in VPN subscriptions, making some experts worry that the restrictions may push younger users toward riskier corners of the internet.
“Age verification impedes people’s ability to anonymously access information online,” says Riana Pfefferkorn, a policy researcher at Stanford University, in an interview with Wired.
“That includes information that adults have every right to access but might not want anyone else knowing they’re consuming — such as pornography — as well as information that kids want to access but that for political reasons gets deemed inappropriate for them, such as accurate information about sex, reproductive health information, and LGBTQ content.”
Death Standing 2 is made by famed video game director Hideo Kojima, who argued in 2021 that video game photo modes help hone the craft of photography.
