Nexus Mods to get Age Verification in UK / EU for adult content, plus a new cross-platform app upgrade

Nexus Mods recently changed ownership, and some major changes have been announced in regards to some of the naughtier mods.

In an official news post from July 1st, the Nexus Mods team noted they have to comply with the UK government’s new Online Safety Act and the EU’s Digital Services Act. As part of that, they’re going to be introducing age verification for people in the UK / EU “for the majority of adult content hosted on the site” but they’re not going into the specifics of what just yet. This does not affect people outside the UK / EU — yet.

Additionally they’re tightening the rules on “illegal content” along with introducing an “automated detection for Child Sexual Abuse Material”.

This is something they absolutely have to do, or end up potentially facing huge fines.

On top of that there’s new community controls like a new “Ignore” feature hiding content from people you don’t like, they’re also adding a way for mod author to block specific users too.

Read more in the news post.

Jumping into the discussion, the previous owner of Nexus Mods commented:

For the people who think this is the fault of the new owners of Nexus Mods, please either read the news post above properly or read up on the laws around child safety online that are coming to every major western country either this month, or in the coming year (including most states in the US).

We did not write these laws, we have no control over these laws. Nexus Mods is not an underground website operating on the dark web – it’s a legitimate business that has to follow the laws of the countries it operates in. If we don’t follow these new laws then we will get fined out of existence (the fine in the UK alone is 10% of worldwide revenue or £18 million ($25 million USD) – whichever is higher).

Whoever owned Nexus Mods, whether it was still me or the new ownership, would have had to have dealt with it this year no matter what. Frankly, I’m relieved that it is not me who has to deal with this or be responsible for the content on the site directly because I have some big misgivings about how it is being enforced. However, if it was me, I would still have followed the letter of the law, and I’d have been doing what is written above. Because I’d have to.

So yes, you can be worried or angry with the direction the internet is taking and the amount of control governments are enforcing on it around the world, but the law is the law, and Nexus Mods will, and must, follow the law.

It’s something even GamingOnLinux has to be aware of, and we had to make various changes to ensure we comply with laws like the UK’s Online Safety Act.

On top of the above news, they also recently released version 0.13.4 of their in-development open source and cross-platform Nexus Mods app. It includes the ability to now easily set a location where mods are installed, there’s some new artwork and various bug fixes.

Their team mentioned in a app update post that they’re currently working on:

• Further progress on collection creation and curation.
• Continued improvements to mod updates.
• Ongoing support for Baldur’s Gate 3.
• Epic Games Store support.
• Custom mod storage locations.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.