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Discord Servers asking for Phone Numbers and 'Verification Levels' (lemmy.world)

submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

76 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/10799766

(Edit: Cross-posted OP (link above) was mod removed by the Discord forum 'admin' on 2024-01-19 as being "False claim, false interpreted", so the above link will no longer work.)

Recently read this on a Steam game's reviews section ...

User Comment...

The game's Discord REQUIRES your personal phone number to get access at all. This is a very intrusive, and 100% unnecessary requirement, in order to just be able to interact with others about the game, it's content, player experiences, and many other things. It's also intrusive in regards to being able to contribute any input to help other players in any way at all.

Dev Response...

It's Discord that's asking you for verification of the account. We're not getting your phone number. This is standard practice on bigger servers that allows for a better user experience, filtering bots/ spam accounts, trolls, etc.

Could companies please STOP lying about it being Discord's choice, its not, is the Discord server's choice to ask for it.

Its a "Verification Levels" setting that the server op sets, and they have multiple options that they can choose from, its not an on/off switch. They can dial it back one notch and still have spam/bot protections.

The only difference between "High" and "Highest" verification levels is the addition of asking for a phone number, all other features of "High" is in "Highest", and "Highest" has no other extra features besides asking for the phone number.

Makes it really hard to have an pseudonym account on the Internet, for gaming purposes, and then be asked for your real phone number. I don't need to be tracked 24/7.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

The times I have run into this verification stuff, it's for servers that want to be for adults only. And so would much rather just give Discord my phone number than a copy of my ID to the server owner, like most of them want to verify I am over 18.

It's not hard to get a toss away phone number you can use for these things or for 2FA stuff. Like a throwaway email.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

How does one go about doing that? Because Google Voice doesn't seem to cut it.

I could stop trying to use Discord and drive to Best Buy and buy a cell phone and pay for a month of service. Then I could add the number to the account. Then if I stop paying for the monthly service, there's a good chance that Discord or whoever won't believe I'm me at some future login and will demand I give them a code they sent to the phone number on file.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I just searched for it and got into some shady free service that didn't even need an account, the only caveat is that you are sharing that temporary phone number with several people, and it will probably stop existing in some days, just enough to create an account.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Which means when they ask to verify your number again in 6 months, or after a computer upgrade, you are SOL without that specific phone number.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago

I could stop trying to use Discord and drive to Best Buy and buy a cell phone and pay for a month of service. Then I could add the number to the account. Then if I stop paying for the monthly service, there’s a good chance that Discord or whoever won’t believe I’m me at some future login and will demand I give them a code they sent to the phone number on file.

That's a lot of effort/cost that the user of a website/server has to do, just to access that website/service, when email validation already works (not as well, but still works).

The onus of the effort/difficulty of dealing with bots/etc. has been shifted from the website/server owner, to the user base.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago

The times I have run into this verification stuff, it’s for servers that want to be for adults only.

I'm an avid gamer, and most Discord servers that have to do with a certain game, like WoW private servers, etc., require them.

It’s not hard to get a toss away phone number you can use for these things or for 2FA stuff.

I've attempted that a couple of times, and Discord has detected them and rejected them every time. There's some kind of identifier associated with a phone number that allows Discord to determine if it comes from a third party source.

There's many articles and Reddit style conversations about the issue, if you want to read up on it further.