Many of our favorite apps and sites are now requiring age verification to protect younger users. But, when it comes to Discord, age verification went terribly wrong. Now, the popular community building platform is scrambling to fix it and rebuild user trust.
Discord Panicked Users Over Age Verification
Discord’s first misstep was not accurately explaining who would have to verify their age. The announcement made it seem like every single account would be severely restricted unless you provided a valid ID to prove your age.
Stanislav Vishnevskiy, who built Discord, admitted the announcement should’ve been more clear. Instead of saying the over 200 million Discord users would suddenly have teen accounts, the announcement should have explained that the only users who would have to prove their identity were those trying to access adult-related content.
According to Discord, only around 10-percent of users are affected by the change. So, the massive panic about yet another platform requiring age verification didn’t even affect 90-percent of users.
Partnering With Persona Ruined User Trust
I’m not thrilled with age verification myself. After all, how do we know exactly how our IDs are stored or our privacy protected? Many users are even trying to find alternatives to avoid it. For instance, when the Google Play Store started requiring age verification for some apps, users moved to other app stores.
Almost every app or platform requiring age verification uses a third-party provider to process IDs and facial scans. In Discord’s case, the partner was Persona. If you didn’t hear the news, hackers stole around 70,000 IDs from Persona less than four months before Discord age verification was supposed to roll out.
Discord has already been quietly using Persona for verification in the UK to test the service. However, they claim they weren’t using Persona for anything other than customer support for other areas. Either way, I know for certain I wouldn’t have trusted uploading my ID to a company that had just been hacked.
It gets worse though. Many people believe age verification is about far more than protecting kids. They believe it’s more about surveillance and data collection.
As it turns out, Persona is linked to Palantir, which just happens to build US intelligence surveillance systems. This includes AI-powered systems for military use, such as eliminating targets via drones.
Even if you don’t know whether Discord needs to verify your age, being tied to a company that was recently hacked and has ties to military surveillance might make you think twice.
Discord Delays Age Verification to Regroup
Discord’s decided to delay age verification, though it is rolling out to all users soon. Part of this is to rebuild user trust. I don’t blame them. Discord age verification didn’t exactly inspire confidence.
Discord’s plan now includes a different strategy, including:
- Eliminating all ties to Persona. Discord’s not even using Persona for customer support anymore.
- Third-party identification vendors must pass stringent security and privacy requirements before becoming a partner.
- Any vendors used must delete all verification data within a set time frame.
- Discord won’t store your ID. Only your age group is returned from the verification partner. And, your age is kept private.
- Verification partners won’t have access to your Discord account in any way.
- Only users trying to access age-restricted content have to verify their identity.
- Discord plans to offer other ways to verify identity. Your account age, stored payment methods, and overall activity may all be used to prove your age without any response necessary from you.
- All users accounts lose access to age-restricted content and some adult-only settings. Nothing else changes, such as the servers you’re on or your friends. You still have access to almost every Discord feature, including these lesser known features.
- Discord won’t read your messages to determine your age.
Before the full Discord age verification roll out, Discord promises a transparent guide to exactly how everything works. I hope it’ll be far clearer than before.
Legally Avoid Age Verification on Discord
Many users are turning to VPNs to help bypass age verification. But, if you’re caught, you could get banned. Plus, more and more regions are requiring age verification, so this might not help you for long.
If you want to access age-restricted content, you might want to find alternative platforms that don’t require age verification. Stoat is a popular alternative, but it’s based in the UK and does follow local age verification laws. However, the platform hasn’t rolled out global restrictions at this time.
I recommend taking a legal approach that won’t get you banned. According to Discord, 90-percent of users never try to access age-restricted content. This is the key. Just avoid age-restricted content and you never have to verify your age. On servers that do provide this type of content, images and messages may be blurred to protect underage users. Trying to view them prompts the age verification process.
For parents worried about their teens trying to bypass the restrictions, remember, you can use Family Center to monitor their activity.
Whether we like it or not, age verification is infiltrating numerous platforms, especially social media. Avoiding adult content is usually the best way to bypass verification checks.
