Comment on Discord requiring you to add a phone number **after** the creation of your account

kitnaht@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

• scytale@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  I work in the cybersecurity field and I hate that the official discord server of one of the international orgs I’m involved in requires a phone number to participate. The irony.

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  • kitnaht@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    I don’t think many people know about sim-swap attacks, so they think people knowing their phone number is fine.

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• FrostyPolicy@suppo.fi ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  This is or was part of their anti-spam/flooding protection.

  That’s the official explanation. A phone number is a nice way to attach a real world identity to the data (which of course is sold to advertisers/data brokers etc).

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  • kitnaht@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Again - which isn’t required.

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• moosetwin@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  They do not require this just for a discord account last I checked. It’s likely due to whatever discord server you’re trying to join.

  This has changed, it gives you this popup whenever you make a new account, even if you haven’t joined any servers. I tried making an account for my brother a few months ago, and I saw this as well.

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• FauxLiving@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  It’s because your data is orders of magnitude more valuable if it has enough information to identify you as a person.

  They can’t sell it to data brokers for a lot of money if those data brokers can’t find any information to link that data with their existing profiles.

  Surveillance capitalism 101, companies obtain the most value by enabling other corporations to spy on every detail of your life.

  If you can’t use a service anonymously, without it being linked to your actual person, then you can either be okay with living with the panopticon, or don’t use the service.

  Discord has been slowing rolling this out over the years. It started being offered as a “spam protection” feature and eventually it’ll be a requirement to have an account.

  They depend on the masses of people who will trade all of their privacy in exchange for not having to learn how to use VoIP software, video streaming software or IM software.

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