Age verification for all.

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.

  • Baaron87@lemmy.worldEnglish
    631·
    3 months ago

    To quote general Grevious:

    “Time to abandon ship”

    There’s plenty of other options out there. Discord has been enshitifying for a while now, so I don’t mind dropping it

      • Nighed@feddit.ukEnglish
        21·
        3 months ago

        I’m going to try self hosting https://stoat.chat/ not sure it has screen sharing yet, but apparently they just re-wrote all their voice/video stuff, so it should be available soon.

        • timestatic@feddit.orgEnglish
          5·
          3 months ago

          I like element honestly, it has everything I need. Element call as a recent implementation is nice for that sort of thing. It also supports screen sharing

          • Nighed@feddit.ukEnglish
            3·
            3 months ago

            I’m in the UK though, so they imply they may (already or in teh future) need to verify my age anyway.

            They don’t seem to have a great out of box experience currently, will require some more poking around.

      • Baaron87@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        3 months ago

        For a potential 1:1 Discord alternative? The one that has stood out to me is Guilded. I started looking at alternatives last year when talk about this was starting to float around and forgot about it.

        Here’s a recent article with alternatives that I found in a quick search. Don’t agree with all of them personally, but I’m not the target audience for some of them.

      • Vespair@lemmy.zipEnglish
        2·
        3 months ago

        Honestly, what was wrong with Ventrillo for voice and literally any forum software for everything else?

    • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.worldEnglish
      191·
      3 months ago

      The problem is there isn’t plenty of other options.

      Discord is one of those services independent web folk have been after a replacement for for years.

      • Baaron87@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        3 months ago

        For an exact 1:1 replacement? Yeah, I do agree about that. If anyone looking for options doesn’t mind making some compromises it opens the doors quite a bit.

        I shared in another reply a link to some alternatives. Guilded seems to be the closest to a 1:1 replacement for now.

        My personal concern is having to repeat this again if the next proprietary platform becomes too big. My friend group has gone through google hangouts (it was a different time lol), the curse client, which became a Twitch product eventually and then Discord.

        I’m at the point where I’m considering going back to web forums and things like teamspeak/ventrillo.

    • dev_null@lemmy.mlEnglish
      2·
      3 months ago

      Yeah, except it’s not like you get to choose. If you are on the Discord server for rock climbing in your country, you can leave the community, but you don’t have “other options”.

      It’s not like the question is “what platform do I want to use for X?”. The question is “The X community uses Discord, do I want to be in it or not?” And of course you can choose to not join, but you don’t have an option to choose another app.

      • Baaron87@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        3 months ago

        I definitely get what you’re saying on that. Leaving behind communities that you’re a part of, potentially for years or longer, is not appealing.

        The sad reality is that is where each individual person will have to weigh their options and beliefs.

        For me personally, I’m already down to just a few personal communities on Discord and for the one that I run, I will be migrating to either something like Stoat, Matrix or even a good old fashioned web forum. This all stems from not trusting Discord with my personal information, which works for me. Obviously not a one size fits all situation.

        It would be nice to see Discord realize that they’re making a huge mistake and backtrack the decision, but I don’t see that happening.

        Perhaps this will lead to communities migrating to web forums down the road? Only time will tell.