Young gamers «hack» the age verification system with the face of Sam from Death Stranding

British teenagers have learned to circumvent the new law that requires websites to check the age of users before displaying 18+ content. And this was helped by Sam Porter from Death Stranding.

Teenagers have faced problems accessing some sites since July 25. The law requires resources such as Reddit, Nexus Mods, Discord, and even Rule34 to implement serious age verification. This means any content that can be considered adult — i.e. NSFW channels, private messages, mod discussions, etc. Discord, for example, blocks access to such channels without age verification, which includes a scan of a document or even a photo of the user.

And that’s where Sam Porter Bridges and realistic photo mode came in. A few hours after the law came into force, interesting stories appeared on social media posts users. They uploaded selfies a character from Death Stranding. And the funny thing is, this verification worked: Discord recognized Sam’s image as a real adult. The thing is that the platform requires users to perform various actions in real time, such as blinking their eyes. And the photo mode allows you to do something similar.

You can use Death Stranding’s photo mode to bypass Discord’s age verification https://t.co/o9n0c0lwkI pic.twitter.com/mvYmhZZCVp

— Dany Sterkhov 🛡✈ (@DanySterkhov) July 25, 2025

The trick was picked up by other users, so it became a kind of trend in the UK. It is likely a matter of time before this life hack will remain working for long. But how quickly users found a way to circumvent the requirements of the law says a lot about the security systems themselves.

Source: PC Gamer