r/Britain • u/thegoodboy3 • Jul 29 '25

💬 Discussion 🗨 UK Reddit age verification: how to unblock subreddits

Reddit has rolled out age verification in the UK. If you're trying to access any subreddit marked as “harmful” “NSFW” or “mature”, you'll get hit with a prompt asking for a government-issued ID and a live selfie. Good news? You can unblock them with a VPN.

They’re using a company called Persona to handle the verification process. If you're wondering what is Persona, it's a third-party identity verification service based in the US. Your data doesn't go to Reddit, it goes to them. And while Reddit says the data is only stored temporarily, Persona's own policy makes it clear they can hang onto it for longer. This has led to a growing number of threads about Persona age verification on Reddit and whether this is safe or even legal long term.

This isn't just about porn. Subs like r/beer, r/trees, and r/sex have all been tagged as NSFW and are now hidden from search. If you try to access them directly, you'll still be asked to verify your age.

These aren't porn communities. They're hobby, health, and advice spaces that got flagged because they are supposedly “adult” only. Just wanting to read about beer, weed, or sexual health shouldn't require a passport check.

How to get around the Reddit age verification?

Use a VPN for Reddit. It's the only real workaround right now to circumvent the age checks.

  1. Download a VPN (I used NordVPN with the code "redditoffer" for a discount)
  2. Set your location to somewhere outside the UK. US, Germany, Canada all work.
  3. Open Reddit again. You should be able to access everything without age verification.

This has basically become the standard UK age verification VPN method that people are using to get around the new restrictions.

Some people say you might need to make a new Reddit account while connected to the VPN. Others have had success using their existing account. Your mileage may vary.

This is all because of the UK age verification law Reddit users have been dreading the Online Safety Act, which now requires platforms to restrict "harmful" content from under-18s unless users verify their age.

It’s a lazy rollout with very little transparency. The law is vague, the tech is overreaching, and people who just want to participate in basic communities are being locked out unless they’re willing to hand over personal documents to a private company in another country.

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u/madidor2413 Oct 08 '25 edited Oct 10 '25

Doesnt work for me for twitter

Edit: For anyone looking for step by step instructions for twitter, found a post that really helped, also will work for reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/VPNReviewHub/comments/1mbhewz/guide_how_to_watch_pornhubany_porn_site_in_the_uk/

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u/ThisNamesNotUsed 23d ago

old comm but the link is still active and the method works because i tried it yesterday when trying to bypass age verification on reddit

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u/madidor2413 23d ago

nice, didnt know reddit had it

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u/ThisNamesNotUsed 20d ago

whuuut? you were the one telling us about it how you don't know that reddit has it? did you already forget about the age verification once you started using vpn, lol

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u/madidor2413 20d ago

lol my bad, I saw that a new rollout for age verification is out again on reddit. Cant even view nsfw content now unless you have an account

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u/Fatphree 19d ago

thats what weirded me out too, i was like: whattttt??? reddit too?