Last week, we noted that Substack had caved into the UK censorship regime and was restricting the content that UK users can access unless they verified their age with either a selfie or a government-approved ID.
Age verification is not about keeping children “safe,” it is about control: age verification online is increasingly being integrated with digital ID systems, particularly through government-backed digital identity wallets, and is becoming a foundational component of digital ID systems with several countries, including the US, European Union member states, the UK and Australia, advancing digital ID frameworks where age verification is a core function.
For example, the GOV.UK Wallet is under development and will be used for identity verification, with age verification being a key application. And in Australia, the Digital ID Act 2024 established the Australian Government Digital ID System, allows users to prove identity online.
The example we used in our previous article to demonstrate the type of content being censored for UK users on Substack, unless we comply with the rolling out of the digital ID agenda, was the article ‘UK’s open border policy is not normal; nor is it acceptable’.
Along similar lines, yesterday, a Substack user re-stacked our article ‘London Primary school teacher is banned from working with children for telling a Muslim pupil that Britain is a Christian country’. Substack has censored the article for non-paying users who have not complied with age verification.
Hellbound and Down 