Discord has announced that it's rolling out age verification checks globally from March – and the decision has sparked fury from many privacy-conscious users.
The real problem is, that the majority of users won’t change, and it’s the users that make Discord. There could be a much better alternative but if users are too lazy to change, it is worth nothing.
This is the case with Facebook messenger too. There are great alternatives, but it’s messenger that has the userbase
And compounding the issue is that there isn’t a better alternative to discord in terms of feature set and accessibility. Matrix is the closest, but its just… not there yet. There’s no option for people who care about privacy that isn’t a steep downgrade, and that just sucks.
For people that don’t like Discord, this change does probably nothing. I only start it when I need it. I do basic communication,I don’t buy anything and I don’t follow 18+ content.
For all purposes this change just decreases the likelihood of accidentally seeing pr0n.
It’s a sliding slope though. The initial reasoning is fair. But it will eventually spread to other features like (potentially) creating and owning servers or holding administrative and moderation roles
It’s the same with the chat control currently looking over EU. Nobody can say that they are against efforts to stop CSAM. The issue is that the efforts don’t limit themselves to fighting that. Likewise the age verification on Discord does not seem to be targeted or limited to certain content. They are leaving the door open to use it any way they want
The real problem is, that the majority of users won’t change, and it’s the users that make Discord. There could be a much better alternative but if users are too lazy to change, it is worth nothing.
This is the case with Facebook messenger too. There are great alternatives, but it’s messenger that has the userbase
And compounding the issue is that there isn’t a better alternative to discord in terms of feature set and accessibility. Matrix is the closest, but its just… not there yet. There’s no option for people who care about privacy that isn’t a steep downgrade, and that just sucks.
For people that don’t like Discord, this change does probably nothing. I only start it when I need it. I do basic communication,I don’t buy anything and I don’t follow 18+ content.
For all purposes this change just decreases the likelihood of accidentally seeing pr0n.
It’s a sliding slope though. The initial reasoning is fair. But it will eventually spread to other features like (potentially) creating and owning servers or holding administrative and moderation roles
It’s the same with the chat control currently looking over EU. Nobody can say that they are against efforts to stop CSAM. The issue is that the efforts don’t limit themselves to fighting that. Likewise the age verification on Discord does not seem to be targeted or limited to certain content. They are leaving the door open to use it any way they want