this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2026

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Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month (www.theverge.com)

submitted 1 day ago by tonytins@pawb.social to c/technology@lemmy.world

425 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

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[–] ARANDOMTURKISHGUY@lemmy.world 4 points 4 hours ago

Fuck discord. From now I am in matrix.

[–] naught101@lemmy.world 8 points 7 hours ago

https://taggart-tech.com/discord-alternatives/

[–] TerdFerguson@lemmy.world 24 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (6 children)

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!

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[–] HalfSalesman@lemmy.world 13 points 11 hours ago

Yeah, I'm not doing that.

[–] ikidd@lemmy.world 16 points 12 hours ago

Month after they'll need a semen sample and hat size.

And people will do it.

[–] wuffah@lemmy.world 24 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (6 children)

Discord is not needed. Quit. Kill them. Watch them BEG to get us back, then say no.

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[–] hayvan@feddit.nl 10 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

“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.

[–] TerdFerguson@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Translation: we wont age verify you or collect the biometrics if we already have what we want through other channels (federated SSO, data sharing agreements)

Your facial geometry wont be needed if facebook already has it and your discord identity is linked to that one(through your permission or not)

[–] baitu@jlai.lu 18 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Each day that pass we get closer from Chinese internet

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[–] LoafedBurrito@lemmy.world 5 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Luckily i never understood what discord was for, so i never joined. But yet another company that will crash and burn because they hate consumer privacy.

[–] Soup@lemmy.world 4 points 10 hours ago

It’s for online communities, group chats, and audio/video calls with streaming built-in. It’s really very good and incredibly easy to learn how to use, but recently it’s been pulling some increasingly concerning shit. Started simple and clean, then started adding shit for who knows why.

In this case it’s to please the anti-porn companies and places like the UK.

[–] Thor_Whale@lemmus.org 11 points 14 hours ago

If that's true then rest in peace discord. Or rest in hell I should say.

[–] uniquethrowagay@feddit.org 87 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (12 children)

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.

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[–] termaxima@slrpnk.net 15 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

My discord account is ELEVEN YEARS OLD !? Why would I ever need to prove that I am not a teen !? I would have had to create my account when I was 6 years old to still be a teen with this account, which is obviously ridiculous.

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[–] Doc_Crankenstein@slrpnk.net 27 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

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?

[–] amos@slrpnk.net 19 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

This should serve as motivation to move away from any and all corporations. Do not lose your community. Find a proper free-libre-open-source alternative and move the community there. Communities are important. Corporations are not.

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[–] amos@slrpnk.net 18 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (2 children)

Slightly Off-Topic:

I never liked Discord. First and foremost, nowadays, I cannot log into it when I am using a VPN. And back when I could, it always felt so laggy and clunky.

I think todays society is not used to performant software. Everyone just buys a new computer/smartphone every year or every 2 years or so, so they probably have compute power to run whatsoever. I run old shit. 13 year old desktops or so, with no dedicated graphics card, old smartphones, etc. I need software to be performant.

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