Discord Will Require a Face Scan or ID for Full Access Next Month (theverge.com) 166
Discord said today 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. From a report: 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.
[...] A government ID might still be required for age verification in its global rollout. According to Discord, to remove the new "teen-by-default" changes and limitations, "users can choose to use facial age estimation or submit a form of identification to [Discord's] vendor partners, with more options coming in the future." The first option uses AI to analyze a user's video selfie, which Discord says never leaves the user's device. If the age group estimate (teen or adult) from the selfie is incorrect, users can appeal it or verify with a photo of an identity document instead. That document will be verified by a third party vendor, but Discord says the images of those documents "are deleted quickly -- in most cases, immediately after age confirmation."
[...] A government ID might still be required for age verification in its global rollout. According to Discord, to remove the new "teen-by-default" changes and limitations, "users can choose to use facial age estimation or submit a form of identification to [Discord's] vendor partners, with more options coming in the future." The first option uses AI to analyze a user's video selfie, which Discord says never leaves the user's device. If the age group estimate (teen or adult) from the selfie is incorrect, users can appeal it or verify with a photo of an identity document instead. That document will be verified by a third party vendor, but Discord says the images of those documents "are deleted quickly -- in most cases, immediately after age confirmation."
Why do they do this (Score:2)
Re: Why do they do this (Score:4, Insightful)
to have better targeted ads
"Why do people wash their asses..." (Score:2, Insightful)
- You, probably.
Re: "Why do people wash their asses..." (Score:2)
Simp harder for the corporations spying on you
Re:Why do they do this (Score:5, Insightful)
To mitigate tort liability and preserve financial partnerships.
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Because they want to collect all your ID data.
Re:Why do they do this (Score:5, Insightful)
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Most probably you are correct. I just killed my discord profiles.
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Wanna use my new AI-generated Face Generator?
Tired of the same old face, and need a new one? We can help.
We can overlay it on your favorite license motif, all ready to go! The barcode will match!
None of that tawdry barrier stuff for you! Discord needs you NOW!
Because Discord is too discordant? (Score:2)
My answer (even in the form of a question) doesn't seem to be addressed in the existing replies, so I decided to tack it directly on the FP question (with the belief that it will appear near the bottom of the FP threads). However I am in partial agreement with the legal liability, targeted advertising, and abuse of privacy answers.
However my answer is more atmospheric. I think the tone of Discord has always been too contentious and discordant, and I'm being perhaps too polite to think that they have done th
Re: Because Discord is too discordant? (Score:3)
Lots of clubs set up discord servers, makes a sort of NetNews/groups.io replacement...
Re: Why do they do this (Score:3)
Because some significant countries, like UK and Australia, have started requiring age verification z it's probably easier to do it globally, since there are more countries in line to enable age checks soon.
Re:Why do they do this (Score:5, Interesting)
Because in numerous states (and nations in the case of Europe) there is a legal requirement to heavily restrict what people under 18 can see on social networks (if indeed under 18s are allowed to participate.) These laws have been extensively covered on Slashdot.
Right now there's no easy way to detect ages online, so Roblox, Discord, et al, are rolling out age verification systems that rely upon associating real world IDs with accounts. This is a terrible thing for privacy - which may even be the intent behind the laws in the first place.
What might be better would be having HTTP headers that mark content as child-safe (with child safe content losing some S.230 protections), and letting parents install web browsers that can use the flag. People who want S.230 protections need do nothing, parents who want to have some control over content without literally sitting next to their kid whenever they visit Wikipedia can set the flag appropriately on a supporting browser with password protection to prevent the kids from reverting it.
That'd ensure the checking is anonymous and would deal with the concerns of most parents about dubious content on the Internet.
But... what they want is actually to get rid of anonyminity.
Re:Why do they do this (Score:5, Insightful)
Those laws are fundamentally contrary to freedom. They are effectively not just restricting the rights of the speaker and the listener, but also, in the case of minors, restricting the parental rights of their parents or legal guardians, putting those parental rights into the hands of the state. And that's a bad thing:
Different people want different things for their kids on each of those spectra. Some people want their kids to see basically no skin. Some parents just don't want their kids ogling pictures of girls twerking in swimsuits. And some don't mind if their kids see porn. Some parents don't want their kids exposed to graphic violence without them knowing about it. Some want to shelter their kids from everything even a little violent. Some want their kids to only know their own political views and not contrary viewpoints. Some want their kids to be exposed to a breadth of ideas and cultures so they will grow up to be well-rounded adults. And every one of those viewpoints is entirely reasonable.
You can't serve everyone's interests at once by passing laws about what things minors can see. Such laws will always be either too strict for some and too lax for others, too lax for everyone, or too strict for everyone. Whatever you choose, you're violating the parental rights of some or all parents by doing so. More to the point, time and time again, it has been shown that you cannot protect children by the government trying to take the place of their parents. It doesn't work. It never has. It never will.
Government should provide the tools that parents need to make good decisions. This means requiring browsers to make age verification available in a secure way (per account or device) that guarantees the following privacies:
This also means requiring browsers to provide tools for parents to grant their kids control over content that they find objectionable, either on a per-item, per-category, or global basis, and requiring that governments respect the parents' decision.
Doing this well is hard, but doing it badly is unacceptable.
Re: Why do they do this (Score:3)
What might be better would be having HTTP headers that mark content as child-safe (with child safe content losing some S.230 protections), and letting parents install web browsers that can use the flag.
I see people are back to proposing the "Evil Bit" solution.
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Blackmail (Score:2)
They know what you typed, they know what you look like, and now they know where you live.
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They know what you typed, they know what you look like, and now they know where you live.
...so be good for goodness sake...?
Re: Blackmail (Score:2)
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Don't worry... the internet will route around this damage. Discord will become dust.
Re: Blackmail (Score:2)
You don't have do anything, just let Discord assume you are a teen and prevent you from accessing areas marked 'adult' or 'NSFW'.
This is ONLY a requirement to access content marked 'adult' - that's it.
IPO (Score:3)
Because they're looking to go public and they want to manage issues that their auditors flagged potentially limiting.
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When there is no legal requirement to do so?
The better question is why they are doing this where there are legal requirements not to do so.
In California, it is illegal for a business to deny you any right that other consumers would have for refusing to provide biometric data unless the business is prohibited from providing that product or service. Because there are no laws requiring biometric age verification in California, this almost certainly violates California law.
In Illinois, it is illegal for a business to collect biometric data without prior
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I doubt this take would hold up in court. No consumers will have the right to "adult" status without providing the aforementioned biometric information, so the California logic is out, as nobody is being singled out. In Illinois they can simply put a EULA clickwrap agreement before the camera part, which they'll probably already do to cover their asses.
Re: Why do they do this (Score:2)
Why? Because people new to access adult content on discord and refuse to prove they are 18+? Really?
Can a California store refuse to sell porn to someone that can't prove they are over 18?
That is EXACTLY what discord is doing, how is that illegal?
Re:Why do they do this (Score:4, Insightful)
The actual answer is that Discord has a serious problem with teenagers producing and selling explicit images of themselves, and the company is well aware that a single well-timed news article about this fact will obliterate their stock price—unless they have something to point to as proof they've made efforts to address the issue.
It's cute... (Score:2)
It's cute that they are saying this is for age verification.
It's nothing more than a tracking mechanism. Discord, Telegram, Whatsapp... all the so-called independents, are governments' back doors into tracking who you are, where you are, and what you are doing at any particular moment in time. Why do you think they all require cell phone numbers? But requiring cell phone numbers has created a black market in numbers that can pass verification methods and this leaves them without any real way to track who
Re: It's cute... (Score:2)
Just don't give them your facial image or ID info and go elsewhere to access 18+/NSFW content... this only required to access adult content on discord, not just any access on discord.
Re: Why do they do this (Score:2)
I don't see the issue - if you use Discord for NSFW purposes, they need to know you are an adult. If you don't visit NSFW parts of Discord, just let them think you're a teen and just go about your life.
A couple clubs/groups I'm involved with have discord servers we use, we don't post NSFW content, so it means nothing to us if Discord assumes we are all teens...
If you are accessing adult content on a Discord server, I think it's OK for them to want to know my age...
Discord data breach October 2020 (Score:5, Informative)
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Hell, no. Discord is dead now.
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I agree. People seem to think Fluxer is a good alternative. Anyone else have any suggestions?
So...... (Score:3)
2. Staple it to your forehead ala Deadpool
3. Get Verified
4. Profit????
Re: So...... (Score:2)
That seems a lot of effort to access porn on discord - is it really that hard to find porn on the Internet?
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Yeah, those damn kids and their giant UIDs.
I know, right?
*shakes fist at the sky* Get off my internets!
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For a while there the UIDs were literally counting down. I was wondering if we were going to get user #10 in the thread or something.
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To the contrary: they have demonstrated they're not teenagers. Kids don't use old memes as those are "uncool", and underpants gnomes are something that came out 28 years ago.
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To the contrary: they have demonstrated they're not teenagers. Kids don't use old memes as those are "uncool", and underpants gnomes are something that came out 28 years ago.
I asked ChatGPT once how old it thought I was. It correctly guessed "mid 40s". Sure, kids could probably gripe a bunch about the political state of the world, unaffordable housing, and look up some old memes to get a pass, but technically it is possible to determine someone probably isn't underage by what they tend to talk about.
Now, if Twitter/X ever decides to pull this shit, I'll be royally pissed. My account there is over 16 years old.
Farewell discord (Score:2)
Some service have found funny to impose a phone number verification to register. I did not make an account there. That is not negotiable. This why i don't use chat GPT.
If Discord becomes too annoying to use without an ID i will get out of it. Helen Lovejoys be damned.
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Burner phones work great for this....
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Also internet phones like google voice and if you are willing to spend small payments a site I have used in the past textverified.com to great success.
Re: Farewell discord (Score:3)
Using a phone number linked to your Google account probably gives them more info than your normal phone number.
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I am more willing to give up anonymity for some service than others. If it is personal communication via the phone (e.g. Whatsapp), all authorities know who is using the phone anyway, so the phone number attachment to an app on the phone is more acceptable to me.
But for pure internet social platform, sorry. We don't need permanent record for people who buy beer or porn in a physical shop. Same for online activities. Those people who claim they want to "protect children" can create an anonymous age certif
No thanks (Score:5, Funny)
I guess it's back to IRC
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Don't forget eMule/aMule and Gnutella. If the censorship becomes too obnoxious, then the Dark Web.
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Session or WireMin.
I'm fine with this (Score:4, Insightful)
They can censor my Discord experience. All I do on it do tabletop RPGs, as long as I can voice chat I don't think I'll care.
For people that do care. There are alternatives to Discord and they're going to go there. Hopefully Discord has a good idea of how many users they will have to give up for this, and have hopefully crunched the numbers before deciding if it was worth adding these restrictions.
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Re: I'm fine with this (Score:2)
You are making the assumptions that companies are rational entities, that they use reliable and significant data to support decisions, that these decisions exploit said data in an intelligent way, and that such data can exist. In fairness, these assumptions are commonly made by many people. I don't think they're correct. The reasons why companies fail or succeed, the reasons why decisions are good or bad, are often only clear in hindsight. At the time when decisions are made, it's also a lot of risk and luc
My church youth group is moving off Discord... (Score:2)
For the last couple years, the male subset of my children's church youth group used Discord for coordinating activities, and I learned about my daughter's activity plans via email. As of last month, both subsets are moving to WhatsApp. I'm not sure if this particular change is "too little, too late" to have kept them, or if indeed it drives some of the youth and their parents away faster.
Re:My church youth group is moving off Discord... (Score:4, Insightful)
What's your church group posting about that it's likely to be flagged as an age-restricted community??
In all seriousness, my guess would be that this makes Discord more appealing to groups like you describe. If Discord ends up with the reputation of a place where kids can get access all sorts of inappropriate content, I imagine parents being skeptical of letting their kids make an account at all. With age restrictions/verification in place some of those fears may be mitigated (even with all the typical caveats that it may turn out to be ineffective security theater).
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Have you ever read the bible? Plenty of material in there that is pretty naughty. Torture, rape, incest, mass murder, slaughter of children and bizarre executions are all described - to name a just few things.
Church groups might also want to discuss things related to adulthood such as sexual trauma in people's past, deaths of loved ones, harrowing experiances etc.
Re: My church youth group is moving off Discord... (Score:2)
Did you read the OPs statement? Of course not.
For the last couple years, the male subset of my children's church youth group used Discord for coordinating activities, and I learned about my daughter's activity plans via email.
"Youth group" and "coordinating activities" - not historical sexual trauma.
For the OP, what Discord is doing is BLOCKING the members of your church's youth group from accessing porn on the Discord service, what content protection does WhatsApp offer?
I think your church group both doesn't understand what's happening on Discord and doesn't know what's going on in WhatsApp...
A tradeoff I'd accept (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's tradeoff I would accept, although may would understandably find it unacceptable:
I pay a notary public the usual fee - way under $10 where I live - to sign a statement saying that Discord user [my username] was born on or before a specified date [18 years ago, 21 years ago, whatever].
Yes, the notary will have records that are accessible by court order, but it's unlikely that those records will be online/hackable.
Discord won't have anything more than the notary's name and licensing information.
If you are outside of the USA, substitute whatever the equivalent is for a Notary Public in the United States.
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My financial institution, a credit unit, does notary services for free. Just sayin ;) Something worth looking into!
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Now multiply this process by every site on the internet that wants you to prove that you're an adult. Seems like a pain in the ass.
Ideally, I'd have preferred if parents would've just set up appropriate device-level parental controls rather than giving kids unrestricted access to the internet, so we wouldn't need age checks in the first place. Failing that, I'd be somewhat okay with Apple/Google/Microsoft being the ones doing the age checking, since at least for most of us, at least one of those companies
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Based on a very quick gloss of the California Notary Handbook [ca.gov], it doesn't look like Notaries can do this. All they can do is attest to the identity of the signer(s) of documents, and that said identity was verified via "satisfactory evidence," which is one of a variety of forms of ID, and then record that ID along with their fingerprint in their journal.
Point being: The identity being verified is disclosed (their full name) as part of the Notary's attestation. I don't think attestations without such a d
Re: A tradeoff I'd accept (Score:2)
WTF? You'd get a notarized document to send to Discord to access adult content on Discord? Really? Why? There are lots of places to find porn that don't require proof of age...
In a fantasy world... (Score:2)
...this kind of scheme would work
There are so many workarounds for those who refuse to comply
There are so many potential bugs and failure modes for those who try to follow the procedure and get rejected
Re:In a fantasy world... (Score:4, Insightful)
...this kind of scheme would work
You think the goal of the scheme to keep kids safe? Ah, sweet summer child...
The goal is to 1) collect data and 2) generally de-anonymize people on the internet. This scheme will achieve both goals (with remaining Discord users, anyway).
There are so many workarounds for those who refuse to comply
Most people will not bother. Children will probably use their parent's info as bypass -- which will not prevent children from going on Discord, but it will de-anonymize these children.
There are so many potential bugs and failure modes for those who try to follow the procedure and get rejected
Right. So these people will also be de-anonymized because they tried following the procedure and provided their id.
They'll probably get access to Discord eventually through customer support, but that's secondary.
Re: In a fantasy world... (Score:2)
You only have to ID/prove age so you can access porn on Discord, you understand that, right?
Too bad (Score:3)
The cops in America are keeping social scores (Score:3)
A lot of this technology is being built into new cars too. They did the classic think of the children thing and tied it in with DUI legislation.
Oh and we found out that a hacker was able to log into Tesla and order a random car to go wherever they want.
I have not seen a single pip from the "cold dead hands" crowd about any of this. A YouTube lawyer talked about the cops using social scores and a random left-wing journalist outlet talked about self-driving cars taking control away from you.
I did get a shitload of posts from the freedom crowd about how walkable cities are a conspiracy theory to control us...
We are actively implementing 1984 style techno feudalism and fascism and we're all just kind of letting it happen.
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Oh Christ this is why America is doomed (Score:2)
I guess I have to explain it so I'll do my best.
So there are a lot of people trying to get a hold of all of your information and put it in a giant single database so that it can be used against you. The discord thing is part of that. Your face will go into a database that law enforcement can access at will just by paying some mo
Re: Oh Christ this is why America is doomed (Score:2)
So don't give discord your facial picture or ID info, and you can still access non-adult content on discord... what's the problem? Seriously, do you really go on discord to view porn?
Being presumed a teen isn't really an issue for non-NSFW content on Discord...
Goodbye Discord (Score:3, Interesting)
You were never that great to begin with.
Discord just made itself a much bigger target (Score:3)
That last one is the kicker, because defending against insider attack is notoriously difficult and expensive. Defending against multiple insiders collaborating, if they're well-placed, is nearly impossible. And there will be so much money available to bribe people that there will be multiple insiders willing to take a shot at earning it.
This will happen, and Discord will try to cover it up, and they'll try to deny it, and they'll try to minimize it -- just like they did a few months ago: ID photos of 70,000 users may have been leaked, Discord says [bbc.com]. And then it'll happen again, and again, and again, because who's going to stop them?
Everyone's free to make their own choices of course, but I recommend getting the hell out of there as quickly as possible.
Re: (Score:2)
The goal of the leaks is to encourage people to demand the government issue them with a Digital ID instead.
Re:Discord just made itself a much bigger target (Score:4, Interesting)
Discord won't be. Some random vendor they use will be.
They're outsourcing the verification process to third party vendors. In fact, they already do:
This will happen, and Discord will try to cover it up, and they'll try to deny it, and they'll try to minimize it -- just like they did a few months ago: ID photos of 70,000 users may have been leaked, Discord says [bbc.com]. And then it'll happen again, and again, and again, because who's going to stop them?
That happened with a vendor they contracted customer support to. Discord is happy to point out that none of their systems were compromised. (This is, sadly, very common: a lot of companies "don't store personal data" but instead contract with third parties to do it for them. And, you should also note, no one seems to know who this "third party vendor" is. Likely a small company that can safely shield their clients from legal liability and fold and reincorporate as a "new company" as needed.)
As these third party vendors specialize in "age verification service" via storing face scans and IDs, you can be sure that they're already a huge target for nation-state attackers. But Discord can truthfully claim that their systems were never breached. Just the third party vendors that they chose and that they'll require you to use if you want to access everything Discord offers.
'verified by a third party vendor', no thanks. (Score:2)
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a simplified system whereby no one but the government has your actual data
No, a proper age verification system for online platform shall let no one, not even the government has your actual data.
Print age verification cards similar to how companies print Apple app store gift cards or Google play gift cards. Request cashiers to check one's age upon purchase of these age verification cards. Check one's age in a face to face manner, perhaps some additional eyeball checking of one's ID card. No physical nor digital record of who bought the card will be created, similar to how no re
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A govenment could still do that. The site gives you a token, the government website signs it (after e.g. your digital ID card authenticated you). Then you send the site the signed token. The token does not need to contain any information about the site requesting the signature. The only thing not solved by that is someone else signing it for you. But who says that the person doing the face verification is the account owner? There are no good options to verify who is actually using the account after verifica
GOVERNMENT! but you have to help! (Score:2)
I've talked with officials in the USA for almost 20 years now and their eyes glaze over. They don't understand any of it and won't put in the mental effort unless YOU complain to them! They need to be motivated; even if they like the sound of your ideas it's too much effort to bother. It's complex sounding computer junk and math to them.
Government can easily give you a free online digital ID.
They must also provide a 2nd ID that only verifies your age without your identity. I always suggested a photo of y
tumblr 2.0 (Score:2)
Discord was nice while it lasted. (Score:2)
Well, Discord was nice while it lasted.
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Well, Discord was nice while it lasted.
No, it was always shit. Closed source, terrible UI, poor searching. I have no idea how it gained so much traction, especially for collaborative projects that really should have just used a simple forum.
So much for freedumbs (Score:2)
To bad you're not smart enough to self host.
Papers, please.
<clicks heels>
Wild west (Score:2)
We have a youth team (teenagers) where we use Discord for coordination. Managing the server has lots of good options, and it has excellent features for sharing the content we need to share (it's a robotics team) but like most of these services it supports private messages, and that's a major problem. We have policies in place that bans one-on-one messaging between adults and youth on the team. That's the best we can do.
But I don't think 95% of parents have any idea what other servers their kids might hav
Not a chance in hell (Score:2)
Never using Discord again (Score:2)
Just one more 'we need your personal data because "think of the children"' ploy that all the sheep will mindlessly comply with.
Discord can go f*** itself.
What about the service companies ?? (Score:3)
I personally hate discord for other reasons, but there are all kinds of places that refer you to their discord server for help or support. The need for an ID always pissed me off, but now needing a REALID is goning to impact that even more...
I avoid dealing with entities via Discord, that includes buying or supporting.
We will guarantee our security (Score:2)
Because photos do not exist (Score:2)
I am not saying that holding a photo of a 40 year old woman in front of your camera will 'hack' their ID system.
But I am saying that it is fundamentally stupid to think this system cannot be hacked by a computer savvy 11 year old
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They said they want video selfies. Now the question is what you need to do on the selfie. If they want an upload, AI is good enough to fake it. If they want you to show some id into the camera it may become complicated. If they require a live stream (e.g. by giving instructions what to do that you cannot anticipate) it also gets harder to get an AI to be fast enough for that.
On-ramp Level Age Verification (Score:2)
Time to do some homework, but might be interesting to see how an ISP level or SSO level age verification could work versus any direct integration to a platform (aside prior ones mentioned here).
EFF on Age Verification (Score:2)
EFF resources on age verification [eff.org]
I thought I understood the issues and options and trade-offs, but after reading this I realize there is much more to it than I considered. This is a really good resource, and some of the articles under it are bite-sized so you can send to non-techies and make them go "oh yeaah.... I hadn't thought about it that way.... maybe this isn't such a good idea....?!"
Is DNA evidence acceptable? (Score:2)
For some reason I have the sudden urge to mail them my white beard clippings.
Everybody did something (Score:2)
Before, people weren't complaining about the nudity. Even the reports on child endangerment saw the biggest danger being corporate behaviour and enabling bullying. But banning the truth allows everybody to s
Didn't learn from Tumblr did we? (Score:2)
Re: lol no. (Score:2)
Your kids donâ(TM)t need to do the verification if they arenâ(TM)t adults. Kids can continue to use at the appropriate teen and below level without verification.
Any other non problems to solve?
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Re: lol no. (Score:2)
Also no way am I letting my kids scan their faces or upload IP to random companies just to use their services.
The only reason to submit face image or upload IP to Discord is to access porn - why is it important to you that your kids access porn on Discord? To join the Minecraft group his friends are in there's no need to try and prove your kids are over 18.
You didn't really read the summary, did you?
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Americans with Disabilities Act may apply (Score:2)
You may have a good ADA case.
The "official" way would be to get your lawyer involved.
The better way may be to get your local newspaper or TV station who wants to do a human-interest story to go to bat for you. The credible threat of bad PR can do wonders.
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What alternative method does Discord offer?
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Just one more reason to have nothing to do with Discord.
Discord is like me being in a room with 50 teenagers all screaming at each other an me not listening to anything in particular.
I've given up using a come of FOSS apps because their means of support is Discord.
This has been my experience too.
don't advertise your ignorance (Score:2)
The definition of "constitutional" is not "stuff I like" and "unconstitutional" does NOT mean "stuff I don't like". I suspect people raised in the era of "everybody gets a trophy" have this severe disconnect from reality.
The Constitution of The United States says NOTHING about a private business checking to see if a customer has reached the age of majority. The Constitution lays out the structure of the FEDERAL government, explains how people become members of the various entities described, explains the du