Forget VPNs, Death Stranding's Photo Mode Defeats Age Verification On Reddit And Discord

The Online Safety Act is now in effect in the United Kingdom, which requires that sites and services must verify a user’s age if they host any adult content. Naturally, this has led many users to explore workarounds to these kinds of verification, such as using VPNs. However, an inventive bunch of individuals have found an unexpected way to bypass the verification process, and it has nothing to do with VPN software.

A user, Dany Sterkhov, shared on X how he was able to skirt by Discord’s age verification with the help of a popular video game. He hopped into Death Stranding 2’s photo mode, pointed his phone at the screen when prompted to do so, and was then granted access to the service as an adult. Fancy that!

The reason it works is a combination of the verification process and the robustness of the game’s ...