this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2025

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141

Discord is verifying some users’ age with ID and facial scans (support.discord.com)

submitted 3 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 58 points 3 days ago

Some things to note.

"flagged by our sensitive media filter" They're scanning the content of your chat.
If you don't want to verify your age, you can still use Discord. Sensitive media will just remain blurred.
Discord and its vendor don't store verification data and claim the face scan happens entirely on-device. (totally real and not subject to change)
Verification is a one-time thing per account.
This is currently only in the UK and Australia to comply with local laws.
- Australia restricts access to social media while certain US states restrict access to pornography. Toss-up on whether Discord rolls this out for US users.
Enshittification is inevitable.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 3 days ago (2 children)

The moment this is attempted is the moment I'm no longer on discord.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago

It's being done now. It's not an attempt, it's reality.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 days ago

Same.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Oh and that biometric data? The US government can just ask for any and all of it any time it wants to and Discord has to legally give it up.

Do you really want to be handing this info to the Trump admin?

Get the fuck off Discord, now.

I don't give one flying fuck how easy it is to use, they're betraying you with every word you type into it. They keep all that data, and thus all that data is up for grabs by the US government because it's a US company.

This is fascism we're dealing with here. You can piss and moan about "user interface" and "it's hard to understand Matrix" when you don't live under fascist authoritarianism you fucking fools.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

age verification for social media is usually handled by a 3rd party.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 days ago

Ewwwww this is gross. Fuck discord

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 days ago

Also don't forget they're planning an IPO this year to massively accelerate the enshittification. Surely their investors wouldn't demand that this biometric data be monetized.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Get yourself and your friends on Matrix with Element or any other GUI program for Matrix. You're on Lemmy, try out Matrix

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago

if only people bothered, even Linux oriented discords don't want to move to Matrix even though the experience was nearly identical

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

I love Matrix but it really isnt a good discord replacement. It's much closer to Telegram or Lemmy. It doesnt even have voice channels, the main reason everyone I know uses Discord. I hope we do get a proper decentralized discord alternative at some point.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Element does have voice/video channels.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Channels that function similar to discords? You can start a voice call in a room or create voice calls, but those function pretty differently from Discord voice channels.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I remember setting up persistent rooms with jitsi that function like discord rooms, I guess not native, but it was from a plugin that was near native. There was also a feature I remember them mentioning for drop in video calls, but I haven't tried those.

I won't argue it's a full replacement, I think you still can't do push to talk or toggle mute, which is pretty disqualifying for me. But it's definitely closer than Telegram or Lemmy.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Neat, I haven't tried the Jitsi integration so I wasn't aware it had persistent rooms. That's the main thing I need to exist, I'll have to give it a try. Although, I do still greatly prefer the format of servers and channels, rather than spaces and rooms.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

That's fair, I know there is like communities or something, but they seem a bit janky. It's definitely not "there", but it's better than some of it's reputation suggests.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

If only it was that simple…

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 days ago (2 children)

What's a good FOSS discord alternative? Is matrix the replacement?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Kind of. Matrix is the most supported, and works very well. However, it doesn’t have feature parity with Discord. Voice/video chat can be added via integrations, but it takes quite a few modifications to the server’s infrastructure.

It’s also a bit more complicated to navigate,

Revolt is being created as a proper FOSS Discord replacement (similar UI even), but it’s pretty early in development. It also lacks federation, which is a huge caveat imo.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Federation is a moderator's nightmare. I don't blame them.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

Haven’t heard of Revolt before, looks nice! Shame about the lack of federation and no e2e encryption yet, but other than that I’m quite impressed tbh.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

Revolt