Criticism Ensues After Discord Age Verification Announcement
Discord is one of the largest online social messaging platforms, primarily used for games, to create communities for gamers in an online space. With online safety at the forefront of society’s most pressing issues, Discord announced an age verification requirement for users of the site. This has sparked a lot of backlash from users and critics of the move. Here’s all that has happened after the Discord age verification announcement.
Discord Age-Verification
On Monday, Discord announced that all user accounts on the social messaging platform will default to teen safety settings beginning in March. The policy is meant to create a safe environment for teens, restrict adult content, and spaces without verification or assurance of a user’s age. Online safety has been a pressing issue among young users, and this is Discord’s solution to protect users of their platform.
The new system was first rolled out in Australia and the UK, and is now going to hit Canada, and then the U.S. Discord has reported over 200 million global monthly active users, and they will be using an interface model with hundreds of signals to detect the age of an account holder. Users identified as adults will not need to go through an age assurance process.
The age assurance process will have users do a facial age estimation, requiring users to submit a short video selfie, which will be processed by AI on your device to estimate if you are an adult without sending the video to Discord. Another method will ask users to submit a government ID, and the last method will use an age inference model, an AI system that analyzes account data to estimate if a user is an adult, potentially skipping the need for manual verification.
Backlash From Users and Critics
These new policies come after a lot of pressure from other social media platforms to improve online safety for minors on Discord. Last year, the online gaming platform Roblox faced dozens of lawsuits concerning child safety and exploitation on the platform. Discord, which is largely tied to the gaming industry, has faced some pressure to add preventative measures to help protect minors on the internet, which led to the age verification announcement.
However, since the announcement, Discord has recieved a lot of backlash from users and critics of the new policies. People feel that the new policies breach privacy concerns and place blame on the parents of child users, instead of effectively implementing design changes on the platform itself. This has prompted Discord to release a statement on their X account addressing the concerns users and critics have about the new policies. Here’s the full post on X:
We’ve seen some questions about our age assurance update and we want to share more clarity. We know how important these changes are to our community. Here’s what we want you to know:
𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗱 𝗶𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘁𝗲 𝗮 𝗳𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗼𝗿 𝘂𝗽𝗹𝗼𝗮𝗱 𝗮𝗻 𝗜𝗗 𝘁𝗼 𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗱.
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘃𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗷𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝘂𝗲 𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗱 𝗲𝘅𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗹𝘆 𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗱𝗼 𝘁𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆, 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝘀𝗸𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗮𝗴𝗲.
You need to be an adult to access age-restricted experiences such as age-restricted servers and channels or to modify certain safety settings.
For the majority of adult users, we will be able to confirm your age group using information we already have. We use age prediction to determine, with high confidence, when a user is an adult. This allows many adults to access age-appropriate features without completing an explicit age check.
When additional confirmation is required, we offer multiple privacy-forward options through trusted partners.
𝗙𝗮𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗱𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗲. 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘃𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗼𝗿 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗶𝘁.
𝗜𝗗𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗱.
𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗱 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗮𝗴𝗲 — 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝗶𝘁. 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁.
We hope this helps to clarify some of your questions. This work is important because building a safer Discord requires a thoughtful approach alongside the communities who make Discord special.
