Discord announced on Monday that it’s rolling out age verification on its platform globally starting next month, when it will automatically set all users’ accounts to a “teen-appropriate” experience unless they demonstrate that they’re adults.

Users who aren’t verified as adults will not be able to access age-restricted servers and channels, won’t be able to speak in Discord’s livestream-like “stage” channels, and will see content filters for any content Discord detects as graphic or sensitive. They will also get warning prompts for friend requests from potentially unfamiliar users, and DMs from unfamiliar users will be automatically filtered into a separate inbox.

Direct messages and servers that are not age-restricted will continue to function normally, but users won’t be able to send messages or view content in an age-restricted server until they complete the age check process, even if it’s a server they were part of before age verification rolled out. Savannah Badalich, Discord’s global head of product policy, said in an interview with The Verge that those servers will be “obfuscated” with a black screen until the user verifies they’re an adult. Users also won’t be able to join any new age-restricted servers without verifying their age.

  • Loce@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Always hated discord mostly as a technology, now i just hate it as is.

  • TerdFerguson@lemmy.world
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    Ok. Well I will delete my account then.

    This kind of enshittification is intolerable. The reason this exists is solely to tie your online behaviour to your real life identity.

    “They” want to control people’s conversations in the digital third spaces. And to find ways to punish you for the thoughts they disapprove of. Discord is happy to sell that data to whomever is buying it.

    Oh well. More fediverse, please!

  • uniquethrowagay@feddit.org
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    The German passport ID card (and I’m sure many others) has a NFC chip in it and you can use it with an open source app to securely prove your identity online. In cases like this, the only information pulled from your ID would be “over 18” or “not over 18”.

    It’s one of the few things my government did right in the digital space. And yet almost nobody in the private sector uses this. I’m tired of being asked to upload a photo of my ID for age verification.

  • wuffah@lemmy.world
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    Discord is not needed. Quit. Kill it. Watch them BEG to get us back, then say no.

  • ikidd@lemmy.world
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    Month after they’ll need a semen sample and hat size.

    And people will do it.

  • Mark with a Z@suppo.fi
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    Badalich also says after the October data breach, Discord “immediately stopped doing any sort of age verification flows with that vendor” and is now using a different third-party vendor.

    Oh thanks, it’s fixed

    The ID is immediately deleted. We do not keep any information around like your name, the city that you live in, if you used a birth certificate or something else, any of that information.

    Suure

    • Prove_your_argument@piefed.social
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      Oh yeah it’s totally deleted from that one server! Of course all information is kept for “quality and training purposes” and to hand over to palantir and whoever is willing to pay.

      • Optional@lemmy.world
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        Now what sort of unethical corporate greed machine would do that?

        . . . All of them?

        Oh. Oh dear.

      • criss_cross@lemmy.world
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        And for advertising so that they can bucket you accordingly.

        Gotta juice the B2B spigot for the upcoming IPO

        • Prove_your_argument@piefed.social
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          Of course, but they also derive demographic information from all the texts, links, communities you interact with.

          Now they’ll have verifiable racial characteristics to target you with customized ads that look like you. It’s definitely more effective.

          It’s a horrible company that preys on youth.

      • Lucelu2@lemmy.zip
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        3 days ago

        Well, you need to understand, Palantir needs a library for their facial recognition software. What if those young people refused to take advantage of the smartphone biometrics? Don’t they know it is for their security??? /s

    • TheLadyAugust@lemmy.world
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      If this was true, then they would have no problem with agreeing to paying us $50 mil each in the event of a data breach, since it could never happen, right?

  • GutterRat42@lemmy.world
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    Discord leaked my email. How do I know it was Discord? Because that email address was specifically for Discord. Anyways, now that email is full of spam. Anyways anyways, no way I am letting them leak my face

  • hayvan@feddit.nl
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    2 days ago

    “For most adults, age verification won’t be required, as Discord’s age inference model uses account information such as account tenure, device and activity data, and aggregated, high-level patterns across Discord communities. Discord does not use private messages or any message content in this process,”

    The inference model probably sucks and will fail yo distinguish a lot of users.

  • Doc_Crankenstein@slrpnk.net
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    Fucking seriously? One of the last places I still have a fucking community and now I’m going to get kicked from it cause corporate assholes can’t learn to respect fucking privacy?

    • TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works
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      Minecraft, though…

      And no, VoxelLibre is not a good replacement. They need to fix their UI first so it doesn’t look like a 2004 app

      • MrKoyun@lemmy.world
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        Minecraft Java is (now) a source available (I dont know if thats the right term, but new java edition versions are now completely deobfuscated.) game where anyone can either play offline or spin up their own server to play multiplayer, even with no connection to mojang’s servers. I dont think its a big concern. There’s already a mod for Java to just remove the age verification.

        Also, there isnt really an alternative for a game. There are only other similiar in genre games.

        • KeenFlame@feddit.nu
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          I just bought keys for my tiny kids and hosted a world for us. It was no problem except for the Microsoft part I Hated that part but once set up now it’s no problem

          • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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            I’ve had some difficulty with the parental controls preventing my kid from joining my server on the same network. Microsoft’s parental controls are so overly granular yet incredibly unclear in the specifics, there isn’t feature parity between the mobile app and the web interface forcing one to download their shitty app to toggle certain settings, and it seems like even their documentation authors and support are unclear on how to set it up exactly

            • KeenFlame@feddit.nu
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              Yeah, its on the web, but very insanely badly ux. Xbox something something… but we are playing five people on the same ip with no issue

              • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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                Oh yeah I’m sure if I struggled through I’d eventually find the value to toggle, it’s just a royal pain and I don’t wanna!

      • timestatic@feddit.org
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        Vintage Story, soon Hytale bit for bit. Also there are just mods for Minecraft to circumvent chat blocks

      • anon5621@lemmy.ml
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        U can pirate Minecraft in this case just easy I think it justifies

        • paraphrand@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          Ok, let’s say it is. They just want to invade our privacy. Now set that aside.

          On a separate topic: What’s an alternative solution for the “there’s porn on the playground” problem that discord has? They are participants in it, they are facilitators. They shouldn’t be immune. Giving platforms a pass on things like this is pernicious. Giving platforms a pass is why Elon Musk thinks he can get away with CSAM generators.

          • spring_cedar_dust@reddthat.com
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            I’m sorry are we putting aside biometric infomation being aggregated across multiple platforms and assigned to browsing habits so that governments know exactly where you’re browsing at any single moment?

            Are we just putting that aside???

            If discord can’t handle it don’t blame me. I mean what even is this point???

            • paraphrand@lemmy.world
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              I’m not putting it aside to dismiss the idea that it’s bad. I was doing so just for the sake of conversation. You’re really overreacting to conversation.

              This age verification stuff is an invasion of privacy, and we should have a better answer to the claims that it is the only way to put in protection on the platform side. “Parents” is not the answer to the platform’s responsibility here as a facilitator who profits from facilitating.

              Age verification systems are invasive and harm privacy AND it’s weird that we think platforms should be all ages with no serious/effective barriers. It’s weird that we just act like there is no solution, and bemoan parents.

              I was quite clear about switching the topic focus.

              • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
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                the better solution is to ban porn from the platform. that’s it. there are some people who won’t like it, but they will find another porn platform.

            • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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              Any kind of required age verification has significant privacy and security implications. Honestly I think the best approach is the pinky promise we’ve generally had until now, where by default the platform will not display explicit content until the user actively consents and asserts that they are of legal age.

              Why exactly do we need to be verifying age? Any kind of legal/government documents and agreements are already covered by purjory laws, physical deliveries and purchases are already handled by photo ID checks, and porn is of course harmful to teens/preteens but they’ve always been finding ways to access porn even before the home computer era (and honestly this would be better handled through education by schools and parents than forceful legislation)

                • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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                  Is preventing teens’ access to pornography worth sacrificing the ability for every adult to have privacy online?

                  This is a society level value judgement that has to be made, I’m not necessarily looking for hard answers

            • paraphrand@lemmy.world
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              I don’t disagree. We need better tools for this.

              The problem is making sure these tools are not used as tools of the state for tracking.

          • iceonfire1@lemmy.world
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            Are platforms responsible for the content their users post? No. Rules for unusual situations (CSAM, terrorism, copyright, etc) have been established for probably decades by this point.

            An online chat/message board is not comparable to an image generator because the company is not creating potentially harmful content.

            • paraphrand@lemmy.world
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              I think it has become increasingly clear that letting platforms off the hook has been really bad for society across the world across many dimensions. We need something in the middle of zero responsibility and full responsibility.

              • iceonfire1@lemmy.world
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                These are actually separate issues. TPB isn’t legally responsible for theft if someone leaks an unreleased song. But, the publishing company can sue them for damages related to lost income based on TPB’s distribution of content.

                • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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                  But, the publishing company can sue them for damages related to lost income based on TPB’s distribution of content.

                  Wasn’t the argument supposed to be that because they only link to torrents but don’t host the content that the torrents link to themselves they’re not a disributor just a link aggregator?

                • KeenFlame@feddit.nu
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                  But we have established, for centuries, that platform owners are not liable for what their users publish…?

          • Bakkoda@lemmy.world
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            Boycott the platform. No one’s gonna rescue the end user anymore. There’s no more oversight. Remove yourself from the ecosystem and encourage healthier alternatives.

      • Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip
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        Parents should try parenting for once instead of relying on the government to (use them as a thinly veiled excuse to) implement draconian monitoring on their populace.

        • Spaniard@lemmy.world
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          Why do that when government and corporations can do it for them? It’s going to be their kids / property anyway.

        • paraphrand@lemmy.world
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          Right, it’s weird that parents let kids play on platforms that have porn on them. Something needs to be done, maybe we should go after the parents instead.

          Or is the answer just saying parents should do something and then do nothing? We need a clever solution that does not involve sharing proof of identity… any ideas? Banning adult content completely would work too.

        • paraphrand@lemmy.world
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          Because Elon Musk loves mixing kids and porn.

          Edit: it’s so fucking stupid and contradictory that this comment has upvotes and my other comments in this thread don’t.

          They all say the same thing. Mixing kids and porn is weird. Discord mixes kids and porn too. Elon just enjoys it.