this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2026
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Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month (www.theverge.com)
submitted 2 days ago by tonytins@pawb.social to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Discord announced on Monday that it’s rolling out age verification on its platform globally starting next month, when it will automatically set all users’ accounts to a “teen-appropriate” experience unless they demonstrate that they’re adults.

Users who aren’t verified as adults will not be able to access age-restricted servers and channels, won’t be able to speak in Discord’s livestream-like “stage” channels, and will see content filters for any content Discord detects as graphic or sensitive. They will also get warning prompts for friend requests from potentially unfamiliar users, and DMs from unfamiliar users will be automatically filtered into a separate inbox.

Direct messages and servers that are not age-restricted will continue to function normally, but users won’t be able to send messages or view content in an age-restricted server until they complete the age check process, even if it’s a server they were part of before age verification rolled out. Savannah Badalich, Discord’s global head of product policy, said in an interview with The Verge that those servers will be “obfuscated” with a black screen until the user verifies they’re an adult. Users also won’t be able to join any new age-restricted servers without verifying their age.

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[–] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Any kind of required age verification has significant privacy and security implications. Honestly I think the best approach is the pinky promise we've generally had until now, where by default the platform will not display explicit content until the user actively consents and asserts that they are of legal age.

Why exactly do we need to be verifying age? Any kind of legal/government documents and agreements are already covered by purjory laws, physical deliveries and purchases are already handled by photo ID checks, and porn is of course harmful to teens/preteens but they've always been finding ways to access porn even before the home computer era (and honestly this would be better handled through education by schools and parents than forceful legislation)

[–] TheNamlessGuy@lemmy.world 1 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

It should probably be a thing, for things that are age restricted by law (and are harmful, not whatever the UK is doing with VPNs).

Saying "they'll find it anyway" is a bad excuse for "we should make it easy for them". The horniness and curiosity of a teen is unstoppable, but it's better for everyone if they have limited access.

[–] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Is preventing teens' access to pornography worth sacrificing the ability for every adult to have privacy online?

This is a society level value judgement that has to be made, I'm not necessarily looking for hard answers

[–] TheNamlessGuy@lemmy.world 2 points 13 hours ago

In the proposed solution, the government would ideally not get to know who asked if you're an adult as well. I think that'd be the best of both worlds.