Surprise, surprise, Minecraft players are already using mods to bypass Xbox's new age restrictions

Xbox’s social restrictions have finally come for players in the UK who have yet to verify they’re over 18. However, rather than quietly complying with the mandate set out in response to the onset of the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA) last year, Minecraft players on PC are instead turning to mods to circumnavigate it.

If you’ve booted up Minecraft over the past few days, you may have been met with a “chat is not allowed by account settings” message when attempting to chat to friends. If you don’t know why this is happening, then you’ve probably been ignoring those notifications Xbox has been routinely sending for the past year or so, requesting you prove you’re an adult. Last July, abiding by the freshly introduced OSA, Xbox gave users a very clear choice: comply, or eventually lose the ability to directly interact with anyone who isn’t on your friends list.

On Reddit, players have been lamenting the loss of chat access in the multiplayer game. However, you don’t need to scroll far down these threads to find mod-based methods to bypass the blockade. I don’t fancy getting on the bad side of the government, so you won’t find any links here, but, you know – you know.

Let’s be honest, we all saw this coming. When the OSA came into effect, VPNs quickly topped Apple’s App Store chart. When an age verification firm working with Discord was hacked last October, it was reported that nearly 70,000 user ID photos may have been leaked – these photos were never meant to be stored. Although the majority support the OSA’s measures, some are, unsurprisingly, less trusting of the government and third-party entities when it comes to their personal information. “We love when governments use protecting kids as an excuse to spy on its citizens,” writes one Redditor, illustrating this sentiment.

I can only imagine it’s a matter of time before these bypass mods are hit with hefty takedown claims, especially as the UK government looks to introduce firmer restrictions for under-16s at the start of next year. As such, don’t expect to be able to take advantage of them for long.