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.

    • Trainguyrom@reddthat.comEnglish
      1·
      3 days ago

      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)

    • paraphrand@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      3 days ago

      I don’t disagree. We need better tools for this.

      The problem is making sure these tools are not used as tools of the state for tracking.