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.

  • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.worldEnglish
    191·
    10 days 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·
      10 days 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.

        • AgentBoom@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          10 days ago

          Roblox is asking for the same thing to use chat in-game, but they split people in age groups (9-12, 18-20…), and you can only talk to players in your age group.

        • Baaron87@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          10 days ago

          Oof. That’s news to me. I’m seeing some stuff about Stoat pop up. Guess that’s what I’ll look into next

          • AtHeartEngineer@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            10 days ago

            Let me know if you get it working with voice channels, tried tonight, no luck, couldn’t make voice channels at all. For text it’s fine I guess but that’s not enough.

            • Baaron87@lemmy.worldEnglish
              2·
              9 days ago

              Will do. I need to set aside some time to see about it working with most, if not all my devices and go from there.

              I did see someone else mention elsewhere that it is possible, but I don’t remember the source.

              There’s also Matrix if you don’t mind tinkering around a bit too as another option.

              • AtHeartEngineer@lemmy.worldEnglish
                2·
                9 days ago

                ya I’m setting up matrix with cloudflare tunnels now, first time using cloudflare tunnels, pretty cool. I’m not thrilled at having to depend on a third party service to connect to my own stuff, but it’s better than my home IP being public.