Plain-language answers to "why am I seeing a warning banner?" and "what happens next?"
A growing number of U.S. states have passed laws that require adult-oriented websites to verify that users are 18 or older using a government ID (and in some cases a selfie match). Different states define "adult content" and require different levels of proof; some of these laws are currently blocked in court.
Why is KinkWeb affected?
KinkWeb is an adult-oriented social platform. Many of these state laws apply to any site that hosts a significant amount of sexually explicit material. Where those laws apply and are actively enforceable, we must verify ages of users located in that state.
Why am I seeing this banner right now?
Our geolocation indicates you're in a state with an active age-verification law. We're not requiring verification yet — we're giving advance notice so you can prepare. Your account, profile, photos, and any compatibility-web progress are unaffected.
Upload a government-issued ID and take a short selfie through a third-party service. The whole process typically takes around 60 seconds on a phone. You won't have to re-verify on every visit — once you pass, a token is stored on your account.
KinkWeb never sees or stores your ID or your selfie. Our verification partner (currently planned: Persona) processes the document on their own infrastructure, deletes the image after checking, and sends us back only a yes/no signal and an opaque token.
Persona's own privacy practices are public: withpersona.com/legal/privacy-policy.
Not during beta. We'll send advance notice — both an in-app banner and an email — at least 30 days before verification becomes required for your state. You'll have the full 30 days to complete verification without any loss of access during that window.
Your account won't be deleted. When enforcement starts in your state, you'll lose access to age-gated features (explicit media, private messaging involving adult content, etc.) but your profile, posts, and the text-only parts of the platform remain available. You can also export your data or delete your account at any time from Settings.
Go to Settings → Account → Location & Compliance and set your state manually. We'll use your override instead of our automatic detection.
No. We don't accuse anyone of VPN use based on IP heuristics alone. If a datacenter or anonymizing IP is detected, we simply skip the location warning — we'd rather err on the side of privacy.
Some have been. Several states' laws are currently enjoined (blocked) by lower-court rulings, and we don't apply warnings for those. However, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Texas's law in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton (2025), so we anticipate the underlying legal framework will remain in force and expand to more states.
Last reviewed: April 17, 2026.