‘Scan your facial features’: Brits wake up to find large portions of the internet blocked unless they submit to AI scanning

American politics may be a complete nightmare right now, but spare a thought for the Brits. Today, the island nation is waking up, brewing a refreshing cup of tea, and logging on to their favorite websites to discover – to their horror – the government has blocked them from accessing them.

From midnight last night, the Online Safety Act came into force, a law that mandates rigorous age-checking procedures for any site that hosting content considered inappropriate for children. At the top of the list is blocking adult content, but the Act also applies to any site hosting material considered to encourage or promote: eating disorders, self-harm, suicide, “enabling bullying”, encouraging the use of harmful substances, and “dangerous stunts”.

The Uk government forcing discord to scan my face or show my id to verify my age is genuinely draconian. "Oi you got a license for that" jokes are 100% justified. pic.twitter.com/2AU4yYdtPe

— Katie (@KnucklesOx2) July 24, 2025

So, that covers literally every site on which users can post their own content, at a stroke blocking out much of social media for the Brits. Naturally, there are two ways around this: most obviously, a credit card verification, or other forms of ID. But, somewhat more sinisterly, Brits can also opt to turn their webcams on and have an AI assess their age.

Please, take my biometrics!

But there’s a problem. If you “fail” the AI age check, you’re then locked out of your accounts without any recourse:

Btw for any UK users of Discord who are hit by the new online safety facial ID laws DO NOT USE DISCORD'S FACIAL RECOGNITION TO VERIFY YOUR AGE

If it thinks you look under 13, it will ban you for however many years under 13 it thinks you look

Yes, really pic.twitter.com/wO5mL7qI8o

— Rabbit 🐰🅱️🤡 (@RabbitBVT) July 24, 2025

Consequences for companies in breach of the Act can be brutal, with the UK government able to demand 10% of their global turnover even if they have no offices within the country. As such, many companies are simply shrugging and geoblocking the entire nation:

Wikipedia threaten to limit UK access because of the Online Safety Act – a disastrous piece of legislation that's already caused several websites to shut down in the UK. pic.twitter.com/FqNIoHRqro

— James Blackwell (@jwblackwell) July 23, 2025

Naturally, there’s a very straightforward way around this for Brits: get a VPN and set your online location to anywhere but home. As such, expect VPN usage to now skyrocket amongst Brits, meaning their country will join the illustrious company of such authoritarian online regimes as China, North Korea, Indonesia, Russia, and Qatar.