I guess I’m going to be a teenager again! If only it meant I could not go to work and spend 8 hours a day playing games.
Discord will restrict your account next month unless you scan ID or face
Submitted 10 hours ago by criss_cross@lemmy.world to games@lemmy.world
https://9to5google.com/2026/02/09/discord-age-restrictions-default-face-id-scans/
Comments
voytrekk@sopuli.xyz 1 hour ago
Aielman15@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Let’s protect the children by scanning everyone’s face and ID and uploading them to a server that’ll get hacked five years from now.
okwhateverdude@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Five years? My, aren’t we optimistic.
criss_cross@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Hell even 3 months ago.
CosmoNova@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
That sounds more like the Discord I know.
Poppa_Mo@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
“Hacked” I’m convinced most of them are selling it, then claiming being hacked so they have plausible deniability when the alias/e-mail you ONLY used for discord starts getting spam+. Depending on if you linked your number, etc…
7112@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
cheesybuddha@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
There’s a disturbing amount of people thinking of the children
Lyra_Lycan@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 hours ago
And said data will never be used for fake CSAM or a library for the powerful to handpick their next victims
cheesybuddha@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
I hear you, but what about: it actually will be used for those things?
Pika@sh.itjust.works 8 hours ago
For ID scans, Discord says that documents “are deleted quickly.”
Just a few months ago they had a data leak which proved that they were indeed /not/ deleting documents and ID’s like they had been claiming.
Granted in that case it was mostly countries that force keeping that data but, I’m sick of companies lying and saying “lol yea we defo delete the data after”
lightnsfw@reddthat.com 10 minutes ago
We delete your data after we hand it off to our partners. Who definitely do not delete it.
thermal_shock@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
I won’t even give hard drives when recycling a computer, I pull and smash myself. Last set of old drives I cut in half with bolt cutters.
moonpiedumplings@programming.dev 1 hour ago
This is not truly foolproof. Data can still be recovered from the spinning metal platter since it can theoretically be removed and put into a recovery device, even in a broken state.
Im addition to that, hard drives/ssd’s have sometimes have small flash memory chips, from which data can sometimes be recovered.
If you want it to actually be unrecoverable then you have to actually ensure all parts thay store data are truly deleted/wiped. Or just use encryption and throw away the key. Or just store them forever in a vault.
Nibodhika@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
That’s overkill, a couple of passes with dd and it’s irrecoverable.
blazeknave@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
I think I’ve never disposed of one for this reason haha
blazeknave@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
My friend is an exec there. After reading this thread bugged him to buy my software that would protect this vulnerability. They confirmed data/file never leaves the user’s device. Sounds pretty safe.
Goodeye8@piefed.social 43 minutes ago
You do know that it’s bullshit? Unless they’re incredibly incompetent they’re lying to you. If the data never leaves the client then all the checks are client-side, which means it’s relatively easy (compared to a server side check) to bypass those checks.
Anarki_@lemmy.blahaj.zone 44 minutes ago
Source: Trust me bro.
theblurstoftimes@leminal.space 1 hour ago
Rest in peace then
merdaverse@lemmy.zip 3 hours ago
This is great news! Discord shooting itself in the foot is a net positive for the whole world.
Oni_eyes@sh.itjust.works 10 hours ago
Well, looks like I’m leaving discord.
Agrivar@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Maybe this bullshit will be the spark needed to move us all off Discord. It’s fine for voice-chat in games, don’t get me wrong, but I HATE how its replaced forums/wikis for so many games/mods/etc. Searching disparate Discord servers is like looking for a nonferrous straw-colored needle in a haystack.
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 hours ago
Worse, it also makes it seem like developer support that is provided through Discord needs to be always on/always available since you can be pinged on Discord 24 hours a day. Why would you do that yourself, I don’t know. At least with forums you can choose to respond on your own time frame and people have less recourse to act like you should be around and available. It’s just asking for higher demand from the userbase since you’re chatting with them in real-time, they begin to expect real-time fast responses.
Spaniard@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
People are already looking to migrate to checks notes apps exactly like discord.
corvi@piefed.social 9 hours ago
Agreed. As if every company just having a subreddit wasn’t bad enough.
Tetsuo@jlai.lu 8 hours ago
Sure.
But what are you replacing it with ?
I tried Mumble and Teamspeak in the past and it’s pretty far from the same level of comfort.
Don’t take that the wrong way though, I’m all for supporting open alternatives, I’m just saying you have to think about the alternatives too.
I just saw something about Stoat.chat but a lot of people will have to bear the cost of self hosting these servers.
I know I will think carefully before slamming the door on discord.
Sineljora@sh.itjust.works 6 hours ago
Stoat looks promising, open source
itsmorgantime@lemmy.radio 7 hours ago
The thing is do you even need to replace it?
neidu3@sh.itjust.works 7 hours ago
I did start a projects aiming to be a more decentralized/federated discord more akin to how IRC was back in the day. Time to revisit it, it seems.
Oni_eyes@sh.itjust.works 6 hours ago
I’ll swap to a shared calendar and any other voice chat software. Sure I can’t post on those but that’s why we also have a group chat for the different gaming groups I’m in.
teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 6 hours ago
Were you trying Teamspeak 6? The UI is different, but the functionality is on par I believe. Not open source, but at least you can self-host.
TemplaerDude@sh.itjust.works 9 hours ago
I would barely be okay with a bank or government website asking for this information, I sure as shit would not give it to a fucking chat app.
starman2112@sh.itjust.works 6 hours ago
I’ll gladly scan a face. I just happen to look exactly like Gale Dekarios
sommerset@thelemmy.club 1 hour ago
Wait really? Wtfff
bassgirl09@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
Yeah, no. Companies don’t get to scan my face or ID. You know they are selling your data.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 1 hour ago
Yep, straight to Palantir.
In 10 years, when MAGA has everything locked down, and you complain about something online, they’ll put out a BOLO, and instantly, the entire network will start checking every camera for your face, and within a few minutes they will have a timeline on your movements for as far back as they want, including every time you enter or leave your house. If you aren’t in your house, they’ll find you out there somewhere, and immediately dispatch ICE Apes to find you, detain you, and send you to the nearest work camp, where you will be leased out as a slave to some corporation.
orenj@lemmy.sdf.org 1 hour ago
this is making my ttrpg group actually consider letting me host stuff for them and I’m unironically thrilled… so like, matrix is the way, right? Or should I be looking at mumble or something?
Arke@lemmy.zip 49 minutes ago
I’m very interested in this question too. I tried Mumble but it looks like it does not support screen streaming which honestly is pretty good. 99% of my discord use since I stopped playing wow is just hanging around with 3 friends of mine and speaking about crap. We like to play or watch movies together and it’s nice to be able to share stuff.
Joeffect@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
Good Ole team speak
Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Anyone remember xFire? It was better 15 years ago than Discord ever was or will be.
…damn I miss that shit. They were litigated out of existence by a frivolous lawsuit from Yahoo. This is why we can’t have nice things.
omarfw@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
Xfire was all we ever needed.
criss_cross@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Dude xFire was my jam.
I remember leaving xFire handles in my forum signatures with a random anime picture. Those were the days…
thatradomguy@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
Big brother, is that you?
mlg@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Wow I guess I get to finally dump Discord as my last proprietary chat app.
There are lots of self hosted alternatives like Mattermost, Mumble, and Matrix (decentralized).
There’s also the new Freenet River demo: freenet.org/quickstart/
Maybe I’ll make my own discord clone lol.
aksdb@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Before you start your own, contribute to
RevoltStoatchat.
sommerset@thelemmy.club 1 hour ago
In us too? I’m not giving my license
OldQWERTYbastard@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
I never had a need for discord and never will. Good riddance.
PieMePlenty@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
I’ll scan my ass.
neidu3@sh.itjust.works 7 hours ago
They’ll have a “retina” scan of a brown-eyed cyclops.
kmartburrito@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Ol Toothless, that’s his name
Knot@lemmy.zip 9 hours ago
Additionally, Discord will implement its age inference model, a new system that runs in the background to help determine whether an account belongs to an adult
from the official release.
RaoulDook@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Sounds like creepy spyware
spamfajitas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 hours ago
I wonder if it’ll function like Twitch where you can get tons of people banned all at once by getting them to say they’re under 13.
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 10 hours ago
Hope this will mass exodus into Matrix, like it happened with Twitter / X.
okwhateverdude@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Matrix will sadly never be a thing, much like XMPP never really became a thing (well, it was a thing until google pulled a play from the 90-00s era Microsoft of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish). And each of those is tried to replace IRC which still works and is perfectly fine.
gegil@sopuli.xyz 9 hours ago
As a matrix user and a former discord user (4 years ago), i can say that matrix just sucks compared to amount of features even 4 year old discord had.
Unless there will be an alternative social networks which do all the basic discord features like: large communities, channels, voice/video chats, roles, bots; and it does it all well, than nobody will move off discord.
People would rather tolerate significant anti-features if software has lots of features, than tolerate lack of features despite not having anti-features.
littleomid@feddit.org 8 hours ago
Matrix can literally do everything you just mentioned. It’s clunky, but it works.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
How well does Matrix / Element work for screen sharing games?
rozodru@piefed.world 8 hours ago
doubt it. better off just setting up channels in libera chat on IRC and doin voice via teamspeak/mumble like we used to do it back in the day.
shit, someone needs to bring back ICQ.
undrwater@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
IRC protocol is audio capable.
shelf@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 hours ago
Matrix doesn’t have any of the same features discord has for voice and video.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
Nice. Now when someone tries to make me use discord, I’ll have a better excuse than “I hate it”
Paradachshund@lemmy.today 9 hours ago
CaptDust@sh.itjust.works 9 hours ago
Discord said I’m certified teen full rizz all drip fr what’s up 67ers?
Freakazoid@lemmy.ml 9 hours ago
For those looking for an alternative, try stoat.chat or matrix
SalamenceFury@piefed.social 9 hours ago
Stoat it is lol (stoat.chat)
gegil@sopuli.xyz 8 hours ago
This project looks interesting, i might try it. As i undesrtand, its designed around all of the basic discord features, and nothing else that nobody asked for.
The cool thing about being foss project, is if the developers for some reason become too greedy (lets be real, its true for foss), the next exact second there will be a new fork created, a new team formed, a new server hosted, and all of the users will move to it instantly.
Walk_blesseD@piefed.blahaj.zone 7 hours ago
Half of Lemmy, for some reason: grr we hate kids!!! Ban them from social media!!!!
Lemmy users when platforms start doing as they asked: 😮
Zorque@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Almost like social sites arent monolithic, and different people can be outraged by different things!
Walk_blesseD@piefed.blahaj.zone 5 hours ago
Are you surprised that the blunt instrument of boomer legislation is operating without the nuance you’d like?
Hond@piefed.social 9 hours ago
I’m on discord for piracy and modding. Sure over the years i joined a few other channels. But most foss adjacent channels have matrix bridges. idgaf. if servers required my phone number i always just left the server. discord wont get shit.
Gobbel2000@programming.dev 7 hours ago
The restrictions don’t seem very limiting. Why would I ever do this?
NatakuNox@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
Whelp. US based tech is going to shit. Bail now before your data becomes state property.
Glide@lemmy.ca 9 hours ago
The only way to get around this would be to verify your age, which Discord says can be accomplished in one of two ways. The first is to “submit a form of identification” to Discord vendors (i.e. scan your physical ID), or to use “facial age estimation.” Discord says that the latter process happens fully on-device, as “video selfies for facial age estimation never leave a user’s device.” For ID scans, Discord says that documents “are deleted quickly.”
Between the features that are limiting being almost entirely things I don’t want anyway (random friend invites are literally just fucking scams and ads to begin with), and the entire process being completed on-device… What is this, some slow news day? Everyone is losing their minds about this being some insane overstep like Discord is asking for a blood dample, or even a photo of your driver’s license.
Don’t get me wrong, fuck this age verification nonsense, but it’s pretty clear this is some very specific government regulatory appeasement where Discord is attempting to avoid culpability for holding data at basically every joint possible. They already have the useful, farmable data, like geolocation, age/gender demographics and interests. They don’t want our government ID. They only want a “yes” or “no” from their app.
Must be a slow news day. Everyone’s blowing this up in headlines for cheap clicks.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
Don’t get me wrong, fuck this age verification nonsense, but it’s pretty clear this is some very specific government regulatory appeasement where Discord is attempting to avoid culpability for holding data at basically every joint possible.
That’s 100% what it is. It also sincerely makes me not want to use Discord, because even if this is what governments want, it’s extremely bad for users.
Pika@sh.itjust.works 8 hours ago
I’m waiting for some government to outlaw collecting the information in general outside of official government agencies. I would love to see big tech squirm as they try to figure out a valid way to harvest the data in one country, but prevent it in another.
cecilkorik@piefed.ca 7 hours ago
That’s fine if that’s your personal response. This still feels like a misdirected and ultimately useless response though.
This is a government-created problem. Are we expecting widespread boycotts of Discord to change the government’s mind? Of course not.
If it’s extremely bad for users, then users need to change their government. Yeah, yeah, I know the excuses for not doing that, they don’t listen, we are all powerless, it is the way it is, yadda yadda. It’s a lie. We are powerful, they want us feeling powerless so we can’t challenge them. Fuck that, challenge them. Government exists to represent us, it can exist in perpetuity only with our active and ongoing consent and participation. If people in totalitarian countries can overthrow their governments, so can we, we don’t have to do it overnight, we don’t have to do it over this one single isolated issue, but we can at least start working against them, eroding the structures that support them. Fuck governments like these, figure out ways to twist their arm, make things more difficult for them, and eventually, if we keep at it, we’ll get what we want. We hold the power here, not them. We decide what kind of society we want to live in. We need to stop abdicating our responsibilities as citizens and actively fight against this shit.
Katana314@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
I might consider the facial verification thing if someone fulfills a security audit that both verifies the photo is never sent, encrypted or not, and it does not stay on the device’s drive.
But yeah, part of me hopes some number of privacy focused companies will just abandon business in these locations and claim “It’s only a matter of time before they reverse course for security failures, we will just wait until then.”
RestrictedAccount@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Already deleted!
cheesybuddha@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
I’m actually pretty happy that Discord is killing itself. Far too many people use it as an official platform for stuff like help forums.
Maybe lets go back to basic message boards that are actually searchable, etc.
nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca 27 minutes ago
Self-hosted options like Mumble also exist.
Self-hosted is a pain to get started with but as everything enshittifies if will only get more important.
dev_null@lemmy.ml 9 minutes ago
As someone who doesn’t use the voice chat feature of Discord, I am always confused when people suggest things like Mumble as an alternative.
billwashere@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
I am of the opinion that any project that uses Discord for support, I just immediately ignore.
Peffse@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
I’m still salty about The Cutting Room Floor requiring you to log into their Discord to create an account for their website.