BRUSSELS—X, the mainstream social media network owned by controversial billionaire Elon Musk, is officially conducting age assurance checks for users to view pornography and adult content on the platform. Social Media Today reports that X will conduct age assurance in compliance with laws in the United Kingdom, Ireland and the European Union.
In the case of Ireland, the Dublin government implemented the Irish Online Safety Code that was developed by the country's digital media regulator. Ireland's online safety measures came into effect last week. The measures stipulate that video-sharing platforms on the internet must implement age-checking measures to ensure the protection of younger users and compliance for all users in the Irish digital space.
This means that major social media networks like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and X are obligated to implement age verification and age assurance to comply with the law. Irish online safety regulations also overlap with the European Union's Digital Services Act, which regulates digital platforms operating in member states' online space. X is also deploying such policies to comply with the Online Safety Act within the United Kingdom.
"We are required by regulations, including the UK's Online Safety Act, the Irish Online Safety Code, and the European Union Digital Services Act, to verify your age for access to certain types of content," reads the age assurance policies recently published by X. "Where X is legally required to do so, we take a multi-step age assurance approach to verify or estimate whether users are 18 or under."
The policy adds, "This helps us apply appropriate settings, such as restricting access to sensitive media, including pornography." X is also not working with third-party age assurance vendors, the company announced.
Methods of verification X announced are considerably multi-layered and combine what it refers to as "highly reliable signals" and "estimation methods." These include cases where users have previously self-attested that they are under 18, completed X’s identification verification processes, or other processes.
For accounts without these signals, X will employ estimation methods that do not require user involvement. These include using the email address associated with an account to estimate age, as well as analyzing social network connections. Both methods rely solely on data that X already possesses, ensuring that users do not need to provide additional information.
These policies are developing, per news reports of the announced policy changes.
