Back in February of this year, Discord launched their initial attempt at rolling out age verification across their platform. As one would expect, it wasn’t smooth. So much so that they pulled it back and planned to release it at a later time. Well, that time is now. The second rollout has begun, according to Kotaku. As you can guess, it isn’t going smoothly either. The attitude Discord initially had wasn’t helping matters much.
This time, it isn’t as much that it’s rolling out. But more in the way that it’s contrary to what they claimed. According to the site, they claim that 90 percent of the users wouldn’t have to enroll in it. Their AI estimates a user’s age based on several factors: how old the account is, what communities and servers they are a part of, and what games are connected to the account. They, also, claim it doesn’t look at messages or calls as part of its age estimation system. Which is good, because that is all I use it for. Adam and I use it to record the podcast, and text each other.
“Discord has confirmed some users are being sorted into the wrong age group or weren’t being sorted at all, which also limited their access to Discord features,” Kotaku reports. “Other issues include people being verified as an adult on one platform, but their age status being unconfirmed on another platform, like mobile. For some people, it was a real mess they suddenly had to deal with after likely using Discord for years with no issue.”
Discord Second Age Verification Attempt Rolls Out
However, when people started reporting issues, Discord dropped a tweet. It appeared that they had a bit of a sarcastic tone to it. Obviously, this didn’t go over well with users:
Some others noticed that the ads had changed, once verification was complete. I’ll be honest, I am not at all surprised. Given how much they want younger people to start betting:
“I am legit probably going to close my servers and delete my account after all this,” replied popular Fallout content creator TKs-Mantis. “The fact that you all seem to try to make childish jokes about every little thing doesn’t help either. I know that if I am thinking this way, many more are too. Absolutely tone-deaf company.”
While many people will threaten to leave, based on the comments made by the company, this isn’t going away anytime soon.
“In February, the only methods we’d planned for to confirm your age were facial age estimation or an ID scan. Based on your feedback, we committed to giving you more options that meet our high privacy standards,” said Discord CTO and co-founder Stanislav Vishnevskiy in a blog post announcing the age system changes.
“Age assurance draws strong opinions and skepticism, especially when it involves sharing biometric information or a form of ID,” he said.
“At the same time, age assurance laws are expanding, and since my last post we’ve had to launch age assurance in other regions, including in Brazil and in Texas. We’re hearing from policymakers in countless states and countries who want stronger teen protections, from the European Union to Indonesia. To me, that makes it more important than ever to show that this can be done in a privacy-preserving way: one where more than 90% of you won’t have to confirm your age.”
So, what now?
People can bitch and moan all they want. The problem is that this is a political problem. As long as conservative politicians are running this course, there is no choice. Democrats will follow because they have no ideas of their own. No one wants to look like their soft on child predators. Even though our own federal government is all about protecting them.
Like with data centers, if the politicians (especially Democrats) start seeing pushback, they get scared. Once that anger turns into votes, they will backpaddle so fast we’d go back in time. The problem is that this doesn’t affect a majority of people’s lives. This could’ve ended with a backlash against porn. You know why that didn’t happen?
Most people are too prudish to say they openly watch porn. Let’s be honest real quick, the loudest voices against porn have probably watched more porn that I. And that’s saying something. If those same people that believe in personal freedoms come out against it, the better way you can stop this.
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