X begins crackdown on NSFW posts and accounts to comply with UK Online Safety act, with no ID verification option yet

Update 29/07/25 – 10:03 am (IST): Responding to a complaint about the restriction of NSFW posts and there being no option to verify one’s age with ID, Elon Musk said, “We are working on this.” However, there’s still no ETA for the rollout of manual ID verification.

Original article published on July 28, 2025, follows:

It seems hundreds, if not thousands, of X users in the UK got an unwelcome surprise in the past few days when adult content suddenly disappeared behind age verification warnings. Posts containing everything from explicit images to suggestive artwork are now blocked with a message stating: “Due to local laws, we are temporarily restricting access to this content until X estimates your age.”

The change comes just days after the UK’s Online Safety Act ramped up enforcement on July 25, 2025. The law requires platforms to verify users’ ages before showing pornographic content to prevent minors from accessing it.

X is currently guessing users’ ages using account creation dates, email patterns, and the age entered during signup. If the system thinks you’re under 18, you’re completely locked out. But even adults are getting caught in the crossfire, with many reporting they can’t access content they previously viewed without issue.

The platform promises that proper verification methods like ID uploads are coming “in the following weeks,” but users aren’t happy about potentially handing over personal documents to a company with privacy issues.

The restrictions aren’t limited to Britain. Users in Belgium, Finland, and other EU countries report similar blocks appearing overnight. One Belgian user on Reddit called it an overreaching “porn ban.”

Some users initially mentioned that changing their location in the app to somewhere outside the EU helped them bypass the restriction; however, this trick stopped working shortly after. The most effective method at the moment is a VPN. This usually always works for geo-restricted content and it’s no surprise that it helps in this situation too.

Privacy advocates are raising concerns about the eventual ID verification system. Under the Online Safety Act, platforms face fines of up to 10% of global revenue for non-compliance. But requiring government IDs from users opens up new privacy risks. Furthermore, the EU is also testing an age verification app that apparently will only work with Android systems licensed by Google. Meaning, privacy-focused custom ROM users will be left out of the loop.

The crackdown is already pushing some users toward alternatives like Bluesky and Mastodon. While the Online Safety Act aims to protect children online, many users worry it’s driving adult content underground rather than making the internet genuinely safer.

For now, UK users are stuck waiting for X to roll out proper verification systems and hoping they won’t have to choose between privacy and access to legal adult content.