Substack said it wouldn’t need to age-verify anyone who had a valid Stripe account connected to the site because we were assumed over 16 by default. That was apparently a lie since this morning I was locked out on all devices until I verified my age. The only option they give you for some reason is facial recognition, which initially didn’t work, so for a panicky little while it seemed I was going to be locked out for good with no way of telling my subscribers why I disappeared. Thankfully the genius AI eventually decided that the heavily bearded 40 year old face it was looking at was not that of a child.