X is the latest platform to add age assurance checks, after coming under pressure from Irish regulators over new requirements under Ireland’s Online Safety Code.
Ireland’s new online safety measures, which came into effect this week, stipulate that all video-sharing platforms must implement age-checking measures, to ensure the protection of younger users. That means that Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and X are all now obliged to implement age-checking processes in line with the new law.
Companies face fines of up to $US23 million, or 10% of a platform's annual turnover (whichever is greater) for any breaches.
Irish regulators have been pushing X to update its processes to align with the new laws, and earlier this week, they reported that they had seen no evidence of X moving to align with this requirement.
But today, X has updated its official documentation with new details on its age assurance measures, which outline how, exactly, it’ll be looking to verify user ages in the app.
As per 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. This helps us apply appropriate settings, such as restricting access to sensitive media, including pornography.”
Though unlike Meta, X isn’t looking to use third-party age verification. Instead, X is looking to take a less stringent approach to user age checking.
“Where these exist with regard to a user, we start by assessing certain highly reliable signals in order to verify a user’s age. Such signals include:
- Self-attested age: If a user previously indicated that they are under 18.
- ID verification: If a user previously completed X’s ID verification process.
- Legacy verified public figures: If a user was verified according to our Legacy Verified policy.
- Account creation date: If an account was created in 2012 or earlier.
- Grey Badged accounts: The grey checkmark indicates that an account represents a government/multilateral organization or official.
- Gold Badged accounts: The gold checkmark indicates that the account is an official organization account through Verified Organizations.”
So there are some questionable, or at least, interesting elements here.
First, the fact that X is still using “legacy verification” as an indicator points to the flaws in the current verification system, in that X is no longer verifying anything, so long as you’re willing to pay.
Account creation date is also not a great indicator, because what if someone takes over another person’s account, or uses a brand account that’s been passed down? And Gold checkmarks are also available to the highest bidder, so they’re not a definitive measure of account holder age.
But this is what X is going with, so…
In addition to this, and barring these elements, X also says that it will use email-based estimation to determine a users’ age, as well as “reverse address book median age estimation, in which a users’ social connections will be used to estimate their age.
Yeah, those aren’t going to cut it either, and I can’t imagine the Irish regulatory folk are going to accept this.
Finally, if all of these measures don’t work, X says that it will also offer:
- Facial age estimation: Users can upload a live selfie, which will be used to estimate their age by our artificial intelligence systems.
- ID verification: Users can submit a government-issued ID, which will be used to estimate their age by our artificial intelligence systems. These measures should be made available in the following weeks. We will update this page in due course.
So X doesn’t actually have these in place as yet, despite the Irish law coming into effect four days ago.
Honestly, it’s a pretty half-hearted approach from X, and one that won’t meet the requirements of legitimate age checking, as outlined in the new law.
But it seems like X is hoping to show enough of an effort to avoid a fine, while also resisting the push to verify user ages in its own way.
Which is pretty reflective of X’s general dislike of government regulation, and its efforts, under Elon Musk, to push back on such wherever it can, though it’s unlikely to go in X’s favor in this case, with Irish regulators already scrutinizing the platform’s efforts to align with the law.
So what happens next? Well, X will argue that it’s implemented these measures in good faith, in order to buy itself more time to seemingly oppose the laws. But it could lead to more fines for the company, and another legal battle for Musk’s team.
Also, expect a lot of X users to be more than a little upset if X really starts pushing age verification.
