Discord was scared, but he didn’t back down. Show proof or limitations
Discord announced the introduction of global age verification for all users. This was supposed to come into force next month, but this will not happen. After a huge wave of criticism, Discord is delaying its plans.
Discord and age verification
Stanislav Vishnevskiy, one of the co-founders of Discord, announced on the official blog that age verification for all users will be introduced, but only in the second half of 2026.
We knew that introducing verification would be controversial. In hindsight, we should have provided more details about our intentions and how the process would work. I understand this skepticism. It is deserved, not only to us, but to the entire technology industry.
The Discord co-founder claims that less than 10% of people will have to undergo actual age verification using a document or face scan. users. This is because the platform already uses internal algorithms that determine a user’s age. For this purpose, things like: when the account was created, whether a payment method is added to the account, what servers you are on and general behavior patterns in the application are taken into account.
At the same time, he ensures that Discord does not read users’ messages, does not watch the content they share and does not analyze their conversations to determine age. It also promises to provide a detailed age determination methodology before Discord is implemented.
Why the reluctance of users?
Why have Discord’s plans met with so much user resistance? Mainly because the platform has always been a kind of safe haven, where users have control over their own servers and where they can conduct online discussions.
In addition, safety issues also raised doubts. Verification was to be based either on the need to provide an ID document or by scanning the face. Meanwhile, in October last year, there was a data leak of as many as 70,000. Discrod users. Therefore, many people fear that the platform does not have adequate security measures to protect their data.
As if that wasn’t enough, Discord initially cooperated with Persona in the UK to verify age. Investigators quickly discovered that its security was abysmal. Thousands of files were available online when they shouldn’t have been. Fortunately, Discord has already broken off this cooperation.
