Technology

People need to realize that this isn't JUST a Discord issue. This is a policy issue AS WELL. Fucking pay attention to the politics around you. And this isn't just a United States issue as well.

This is misleading. Discord is not reversing course. It was in their original announcement that they would try to automatically determine everyone’s age and “most” people won’t need to do any sort of verification. A lot of people and journalists didn’t read that far apparently.

So they're going to scan everything you do with AI to figure out how old you are instead. Not really better.

They didn't walk back shit, they upped the stakes by saying they use your chats to analyse your age. That's just as bad.

If Discord cared about this, they’d use the same identity platforms governments use. For example, in the US, id.me is a requirement for many federal services. While it does deanonymize me and there are privacy concerns expanding this tech beyond government services, I trust id.me to take my data security seriously. It has to have federal security requirements. If their data is breached, there will be repercussions and reparations.

Discord, on the other hand, uses random vendors. There were no repercussions or reparations for the previous leak. Discord said moving forward they’d require SOC2 Type II or ISO 27001 for vendors. Crucially, neither of these certifications matter a fucking iota for personally identifiable information and Discord itself will not be completely them so even if the vendors were PII secure Discord will not hold itself to the same standards. Discord does not care about its users; Discord only cares about the ad revenue this will open up.

Decentralize and federate or die.

They still have the AI shit that looks at your posts to try and determine if you are an adult.

Fuck that.

Does Discord even have an community relations department, because they suck. Seriously what a stupid decision to just announce age verification and then provide no additional details or context.

This ~~clarification~~ pathetic attempt at backpedalling, isn't much better either, they've still provided essentially no information on exactly what the process is going to be, and exactly how it is going to work. I also do not like the fact that they're basically just giving up on any attempts to implement this themselves, and are going with third party solutions. We all know that "third party solutions" means the lowest bidder, so this will be implemented poorly with no operational security, and absolutely will result in a data breach.

I created my account at least 15 years ago so if they require age verification from me they're idiots.

"For most users" the whole point here is to gradually get people used to having to show their papers to access the internet. We must accept nothing less than a total reversal here. Give them an inch each day and eventually they'll have their mile.

The company's deploying AI-powered inference to estimate user ages based on behavioral patterns, account history, and other signals already in its systems. Only when that automated prediction fails or flags uncertainty will users face requests for manual verification through ID uploads or facial scanning.

Oh, so it's even easier to game it and pretend to be "an adult". Simply avoid any minecraft and roblox communities to be an instant adult.

Discord didn't specify exactly what percentage constitutes a "vast majority," nor did it detail which signals feed into its age prediction models. That lack of transparency could become its own issue as regulators increasingly scrutinize how platforms handle youth safety versus privacy rights.

Big brother is watching you masturbate, for your own good, of course.

For the subset of users who do get flagged for manual verification, Discord says it's partnering with third-party services that specialize in age verification tech. These vendors typically process ID documents or facial scans without permanently storing biometric data, though implementation details remain vague.

It's not permanent storage if they delete after safely selling to interested buys!

As lawmakers ramp up age verification requirements globally, expect more platforms to walk this tightrope between compliance and community trust.

I wonder if this is what might actually push more people into "host your own shit" that's easy to shut down and migrate as needed.

DIscord: GUYs! You'll NEVER BELIEVE THIS!!! Instead of invasively reading out every one of your personal identifications and selling the data on your likes/dislikes, we can ACTUALLY just use an AI to tell if you're a child by how your interact with people!!!

Us: Maybe you could have the AI just stop the stalkers.

Discord:

Deleting posts is just setting visibility to 0. They still exist, and you should assume they exist forever.

Sorry but I’m not clicking a link ending in .ai

I’ll wait for another source.

So they haven't walked anything back, they're just adding in a motherfucking clanker as a middleman. What could go wrong?

Big corporations have absolutely laid waste to the internet. There's nothing left unspoiled at this point.

I don't believe them lol.

Bro it might even be worse because they gotta watch your every move to implement this shit. I'm moving to fluxer.app

?? You don't get to walk back my fears. You can walk back the source, but you don't get to say "nevermind, you're not worried about this".

They haven't though.

They've just restated the exact same thing but then added on hollow empty promises of "this time we'll be better, I swear!"

Until they walk back the walkback.

wreaks of “fuck you got mine”… so an invasive AI scan has scanned your content and deemed you 18+… gross… but at least you don’t have to upload ID (to a company that literally just had a major breach of their ID data)

but

now a new user joins. they don’t have that history of interaction, so what are they meant to do? either upload ID or not be part of their community

Oh look, so they're saying they're already training ai on all the data they have on us? Yeah I feel my privacy being so respected.

I left as soon as I saw something asking for age verification in the client.

They aren't walking back anything. They just repeated their claim, that "most people won't even have to give their IDs, because our AI will read all your messages and decide if you're 18"

migrate to matrix.

I'll be honest, The UK introduced these age verification and ID issues and many places were forced to follow suit. Discord being one of them and I'm sure at somepoint it did pop up but I've never signed up for it and I've continued to use the software without issue.

My Xbox demands to see my ID so I cancelled my Subscription. If discord starts demanding it I'll be moving back to Teamspeak or Mumble.

The cat has been let out of the bag. I'm still moving somewhere else once I figured out where with friends.

hold up.

so y'all took the two hottest takes in online culture right now and decided to do both of them?

what the actual fuck is wrong with people these days. it's almost like everyone in silicon valley is fucking delusional.

so we're going to invade your right to privacy and scan your identity then sell it to 3rd parties. oh, that's not acceptable? well I guess we could have AI profile you and then we still sell your identity to 3rd parties. fuck me you say? shockedpikachu.jpg

1. They're instead scanning your data using AI... Not exactly an improvement.
2. Shitty AI article.

Yep. Too late, i fucking deleted that shit without hesitation or regret.

Never really used discord in the first place. I tried to join a few support threads for random gizmos that had no forums but realized that its a terrible place for support compared to forums. The whole UI was just chaotic to me as well.

Yeah, so, "most users" won't have to post video selfies or their ID, but you'll still have to accept active spyware feeding information to an AI model that checks all your activity.

This is still equally as bad.

Yep to late deleted all my servers and Discord yesterday so no going back.