A quick, plain-language look at why more sites are asking to confirm your age, and what that process should actually look like

If you've noticed more websites asking you to prove your age before letting you in, you're not imagining it. This is becoming standard practice across the internet, not just a one-off request from a single site.

Why This Is Happening

In June 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on a case called Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton. The Court upheld a Texas law requiring websites with a significant amount of adult content to confirm that visitors are 18 or older. Before this ruling, similar laws had mostly been struck down in court for putting too much of a burden on adults. This decision changed that, and more than twenty U.S. states have already passed comparable laws, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

In short: online age verification isn't a trend one platform picked up on its own. It's quickly becoming a legal requirement across much of the country.

What Good Age Verification Should Look Like

Not all age checks are built the same way, and the difference matters. A good process should be quick, respect your privacy, and not leave your personal documents sitting around longer than necessary. As one example of how this works in practice, LokdX's own creator verification process asks for a clear photo of a government ID along with a matching verification photo, encrypts that information, and typically completes manual review within 24 to 48 hours.

When you're deciding whether a platform's identity verification process feels trustworthy, a few things are worth checking:

• Is your information encrypted, and does the platform say so clearly, rather than burying it in fine print?
• How long does the review actually take, and is that timeline stated upfront?
• Does the platform explain what happens to your ID after it's been checked?

The Bottom Line

Age checks online aren't going away, and if anything, they're likely to become more common as more states pass similar laws. That makes account verification less of an annoying extra step and more of a basic signal of how seriously a platform takes both legal compliance and your privacy. A platform that treats this step carefully is usually a platform that takes the rest of its user protections just as seriously.


Sources

• U.S. Supreme Court, Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton, 606 U.S. ___ (2025), official slip opinion — supremecourt.gov
• Electronic Frontier Foundation, "The Supreme Court's Decision on Age Verification Tramples Free Speech and Undermines Privacy" — eff.org
• LokdX Creator Hub, Application Guide and Requirements — creatorhub.lokdx.com