Social Media Age Restriction Discussion

[obtuse vault]

To add to my message (The one Speckled Linked) I think it's really important to clarify a few things.

• To the best of my knowledge, verification is almost always done either via Heuristic (Where allowed by law) or by non-ID first (Like a short video of yourself)
• In fact, in Australia a company can be fined up to $50M AUD if they force an ID check as the only option.
• The only time I have encountered an age-gate in Discord so far is for NSFW channels or funnily enough report messages that involve nsfw content. So far I've not age verified myself and I live in Australia with a social media ban for under 16's so I'm pretty confident in saying Discord is perfectly usable without giving them any ID.

And re-iterating said message, any platform we were to conceivable move to, that complies with social media related laws would have exactly the same issue. While I am not sure of the specifics of laws outside of Australia (Besides the under 13's from California) the only way you would get around the law in Australia to the best of my knowledge is by not requiring accounts to participate, which would mean a fundamentally very different and potentially more toxic community compared to this one as the realities of moderating a platform that does not require accounts would almost certainly change the dynamics. (Just look at 4chan for a great example)

If, by some chance we were in a position where everyone required to provide ID to participate on Discord that does not live up to our expectations (Since there are a couple of described mechanisms to do this that significantly reduce risk) and there was some platform that did not have these same issues (and complied with the law) then we might consider something.

In the end, like it or not, more countries are enacting laws around restricting social media usage for younger audiences, by the nature of wanting to communicate socially on the internet in a larger group setting like this one we are not going to avoid these laws by changing platform.
And more to the point, creating and building a community is really, really hard. I've been helping run this community and the subreddit for 10 years this April, while I'm not planning on leaving, I've been around a little too long to have the desire to help build a factorio community on another platform by splitting this one.

I suggest taking a deep breath and waiting to see what happens. This is not a nsfw community and we don't have any intention of changing that. As far as I can see most countries whispering about introducing bans are looking to follow the Australian Model that does not require ID. If that changes, then we can consider what to do.

To make life easier because I can see people want to talk about it I have created this thread.

[agile roost]

Just for clarification...

Talking IN THIS Thread does not count to a misuse of mod desk correrct?

Because I have something to say regarding this topic, I just want to make sure I'm not misusing anything before I do so.

[obtuse vault]

The intention of creating a thread is so people can discuss the topic

[agile roost]

Thank you

with that said

I've heard about this only recently resurfacing, given that roblox did it, i doubt discord would do it, otherwise they would've done it a long time ago. I know of a few servers that DO VERIFICATION via ACTUAL ID... I won't say as that is not important. What is important is that if Discord does go through with this It will be interesting to see what tactic they use whether that be actual HUMAN verification or an AI that does it. Given how diverse discord has become over the time, with the influx in well to keep it PG rather unfortunate situations for teens, I would like if Discord did do human verification instead of an AI going over EVERY single verification...

[upbeat kernel]

My guess is that discord is at a scale where human verification is impractical

thank you olivia for probably the first thing i've read all day on this that is fully thought through and informed on what will realistically happen rather than a gut reaction

[agile roost]

I've been taking a break from this discord for personal reasons, but I'm reading her response and actually trying to formulate a response

because this is something i genuinly wanna talk about

[upbeat kernel]

not a dig at anyone in particular just that i've seen this talked about so much in extreme terms with missing context and information today

[obtuse vault]

I would rather leave the community before being put in charge of handling other peoples PII.
As perfect a developer as I am (obviously) I do not want to be put in a position of trust when it comes to others IDs.

I already feel on the fence about the Factorio Account Linking bot since it technically exposes your IP to me, I just don't log or do anything with it. Even the Database doesn't store anything human readable about who you are. Just your OAuth tokens so I can refresh account info.

[agile roost]

wait

you know my IP?

[obtuse vault]

You've not linked your factorio account so no I don't

[agile roost]

good

Cause its wrong if you do

[obtuse vault]

And even if you did, again, I don't log it so still no

[agile roost]

well if you see it its wrong

the location itll give you is way off

I know games do the whole please enter your age thing but that doesn't really justify a verification...

On a unrelated note... I don't wanna go TOO Deep into NSFW turf but i will say for reference, I know tinder does require you to actually prove you are 18 and if they catch otherwise, you are banned on the spot. I got myself banned at a young age from the platform, because well in short fuck dating apps and just so i would have a reason not to use it in the future when I became of age...

VRChat also implemented age verification via ID, but in order to do so, you need to subscribe to their membership (VRChat +) and even then it still can get bypassed by children cause like i said ai... over human verification

[obtuse vault]

It's the reality of things that if you use the Factorio Linking Service to link your factorio account to your Discord account. That happens through a website I have written and host. By using that website you will reveal your IP to me. It is just the nature of how the internet works.
You could do it through a VPN

[agile roost]

again my ip location will always be wrong

it changes every day

[obtuse vault]

Your IP gives info away more than your location. Someone sufficiently determined could use it to corrolate with outher accounts to build a picture of who you are.
This is a very complicated topic, more complicated than I really have time right nowe to go into here on Discord.

[agile roost]

(Unrelated note but to prove this) someone recently attempted to leak my info, and they showed me the full diagnoistic they got... the IP location was WAY OFF from where I actually am...

Literally all the info they had was wrong the only thing it got right was my Specs and device name

and just so its clear its not a VPN its how my wifi is

[obtuse vault]

Look at this site (And educational one) to see how unique your browser is. It's probably very unique https://creepjs.org/

[agile roost]

id rather not...

that link looks sketchy

wait what am i looking for in here?

[obtuse vault]

If you don't want to click the site that is understandable. Google "Browser fingerprinting" to see why simply opening a website can reveal more than your IP

[agile roost]

woah

wait

[obtuse vault]

Like I said, this is a very large and complex field. Just know I have no desire to know or track peoples personal information or even desire to have access to it.

[agile roost]

im not revealing that / because its the name of something close to me well somewhat

okay now i see what you mean...

[obtuse vault]

No, don't reveal the information on that site here lol

[agile roost]

I'm not going to, but now i see what i mean it just hit me... I was having a bit of a meltdown a few moments ago, my head just snapped to reality

it grabbed my graphics card 2

[obtuse vault]

Your browser reveals a lot of information about you

[agile roost]

I see that now...

So then could a VPN technically BYPASS those restrictions on age?

[upbeat kernel]

https://gwern.net/death-note-anonymity maybe a bit more storytelling than needed to get the point across but this is a great article on the principles behind how anonymous you really aren't; "mistake 2" section especially has some scary things you might not think of

presume there are spoilers if you haven't seen/read death note

[agile roost]

noted

[obtuse vault]

No because the age restriction is tied to your discord account

[agile roost]

I know tiktok or something like that is banned in places like the UK, but I don't think that falls under age restriction...

[obtuse vault]

I spend a lot of time repeatedly hitting my head against the proverbial wall trying to educate people on just how vulnerable their software, development process or machine is.
I am a Consulting Lead Software Developer so very familiar with the realities of all of this.
It does not surprise me that people are going off the deep end worrying about it though haha.

[obtuse vault]

I like to think you are as anonymous as the care someone has in finding out who you are.
Even people who have spent their lives hiding from the law with all the best data hygiene they can think of have slipped up and leaked their location or information about themselves an been caught.

[upbeat kernel]

Exactly. And it still does take a certain degree of skill to properly use all these anonymity breaking strategies that exist. I basically start from the point of conceding that “true anonymity” is basically nonexistent and from there thinking about what level of pseudonymity I care about maintaining. If my threat model were L or the NSA I would just become a hermit but this way of thinking is still useful when it’s not perfect. Something I do try to do as a matter of hygiene is to be always aware of how many bits I’m giving away in a given time/setting. For example, people are talking about the weather and I want to share a screenshot from my weather app cropped to the high/low/current temperature. That narrows down where I am a lot. If I also divulge my time zone there go more bits. In practice I still do these things but it’s a calculated risk.

[bold osprey]

Thanks for the link.
I hate it.

[dreamy lintel]

The problem with the verification for me is that while it may not be a security risk by itself, the sloppy implementation of it into law is a security risk by itself - phishing scams exploiting the verification laws already did damage
As long as this isn't addressed at a legal level I'm not planning on verifying my age anywhere, especially when it's not required by law where I live

[obtuse vault]

I mean, if you read what I wrote you'll see that Australia did recognise this at least in regards to ID by making it illegal to have ID as the only valid form of verification. There must be some non-id way of verifying who you are.

Which lets be real, in the scheme of how governments work that's practically a miracle. Sure, there are some more cryptographically secure ways of perhaps truly verifying someone is of age without exposing who you. personally are, but I think realistically in the context of most laws you are asking a lot for that to be codified into law (And then you better hope the codified solution is watertight, and that service providers like Discord are willing to implement every permutation each government comes up with)

I think allowing companies to find their own way of verifying while making sure that the law says it can't just be ID verification is a reasonable medium. Most of the time the implementation of this I have seen is you are asked to take a short video of yourself making a couple of faces and perhaps saying something, and then they use ✨ AI ✨ to figure out from that what your age is. Other than your visage and vocal eloquence you have not exposed any significant personally identifiable info like name/location/ID etc...

[obtuse vault]

I certainly appreciate there are valid reasons for not wanting to use your ID to verify on platforms.
I don't really have a desire to use my ID either though not for such important reasons.

[median musk]

That sounds like a paid advertisement.

[median musk]

My concern is primarily is not anonymity, but that my face is what I use to authenticate with my bank for example.

[bold osprey]

I was about to write that I don't use my face to authenticate anything, and would like it to stay that way.
Realised while typing that it's my face that authenticates me when I walk into my banks office. Well, I'd like it to stay that way.

btw, I realised I don't have the ability to emoji react in here. I suppose it's inherited from #moderation-desk.
no big deal, merely wanted to mention it in case it's not intended behaviour

[upbeat kernel]

Yeah; my point on anonymity was basically unrelated to the discord ID verification discussion

I can’t think of anything I use a photo of my face to authenticate but I certainly use some on-device cryptographic magic with a 3d scan of my face to authenticate a lot of stuff

[upbeat kernel]

And keep in mind that discord at least claims face photos/videos used for verification won’t leave your device although IDs are another story. Olivia’s point that they won’t/can’t require ID as the only option seems reassuring in this regard.

There’s also a middle ground; if verification is enough of a safety concern that it’s unfeasible for some people, which is totally understandable, that still doesn’t create a reason to take a server like this to another platform. My assumption would be that SFW servers like this will remain usable even when your account automatically turns into teen-mode. If you use your discord account for NSFW/age-restricted content and are unwilling/unable to verify your age then obviously those NSFW use cases will have to find another platform but the fact that your ability to interact with this server will be unaffected makes the case that any sort of migration for this community should happen too weak to outweigh the downsides.

[upbeat kernel]

Yeah, or something of a split since some people will just verify. Servers where a critical mass of people don’t want to use discord can set up bridges but they are buggy

[haughty hedge]

If its anything like the tumblr exodus, then its basically going to splinter the community. Many diehards will stick with Discord no matter what, some will migrate, and some are just going to not bother continung and either occasionally pop back in via Reddit or the forum. If we look at the way Twitter became what it is today, giving rise to BlueSky and other such twitter-esque platforms, all its ended up doing is the same thing that Premium Services across the board have done:

Split your time, effort and focus (either as a consumer or creator) between a million smaller platforms, at a paid premium or not, instead of having a nice single central unified spot where everyone can gather.

Its nice that RootChat exists and the transition can be made as seamless as possible, but the experience won't be the same, simply because now there's YetAnotherSameThing in the pool competing for users/interaction.

[upbeat kernel]

Solution: there are now 15 competing group messaging platforms

[haughty hedge]

👆

[upbeat kernel]

The “solution” for SFW servers is really just business as usual; if there are a critical mass of people who leave the platform just for ideological opposition to the new policy or whatever then maybe that’s the time to consider matrix-bridging (or whatever platform)options to bring them back into the fold but those options aren’t without drawbacks and thus wouldn’t be good unless a clear need for them arises

[bold osprey]

The EU mandates that chat apps like WhatsApp allow integration of other chat services. And vice versa.
So I should be able to use WhatsApp with Signal (and the other way around).
I can see the same legislation apply to Discord in the future.

I expect any bugs to go away in such a scenario, albeit slowly.

[haughty hedge]

I've been trying to imagine ways to assume someone's age, or more accurately their maturity without seeing what they look like, and I realize we do this all the time. Subtle cues like how "immaturely / maturely" someone writes/types out sentences, vocabularly, grammar, syntax, how they ask questions, takes advice, acts and reacts in conversation are all pointers. This can also be done by observing how that person reacts to media-reference cues.

Effectively, your age is directly correlated to the kind of media you've been exposed to in your life-time. If all you know and understand and positively react to is Minecraft, run-jump mobile-apps and that number between 5 and 8, then there's a good chance you aren't "of age." Corollary, if you know the relationship between a cassette tape and pencil, or can identify Wilhelm Scream, there's a good chance you are.

An interesting approach would be an audio-visual version of Google's weird "select all the X in this grid", where instead of it being individual things, its a sequence of visual/audial media cues that you as the user must try to link up as best as possible. Sort of like a "pick the odd one out" game. The magic of this approach is to assume your age from playing many rounds of this, using a pseudonymous account online so it gets a morphing footprint of you over time, and thus more accurate.

tl;dr, Pseudonymous Trivial Pursuit Captcha.

[upbeat kernel]

Hey discord user try this fun new 67 Italian brainrot quiz (if you pass you get set to underage mode)

[median musk]

I mean, Discord internally could switch to a standard messaging format like XMPP and have easy integration handled.

[bold osprey]

Subtle cues like how "immaturely / maturely" someone writes/types out sentences, vocabularly, grammar, syntax, how they ask questions, takes advice, acts and reacts in conversation are all pointers.
I suppose that's how Discord infers our age when "processing text messages".
How that can be a substitute for an ID check is beyond me. I don't think the law says "platforms must ensure their users estimated age is above xy years."

[median musk]

That might only be a thing in jurisdictions that don't need strict age verification.

[bold osprey]

Then it's the lawmakers fault for passing an ambiguous law. The concept of non-strict age verification doesn't make any sense to me.
"Must be above 120 cm - 150 cm tall to ride." - which height applies? Anything inbetween the range can be contested.

[median musk]

That conundrum has already been solved via the "are you over 18?" dialogue boxes.

[bold osprey]

That's a different problem imho.

[median musk]

But those are exactly what soft age checks are.

[obtuse vault]

And rootapp will also have to comply with the exact same laws lol

Reddit will also have to comply, so will blue sky and what ever other platform you are thinking of. Any platform or site that provides the ability to generally chat together will require you to verify your age.
The only escape is through sites small enough to avoid the governments eye when they’re not complying with the law.
I live in Australia lol, you are not going to see me advocate for breaking the law of a country I live in.

[haughty hedge]

you are not going to see me advocate for breaking the law of a country I live in.
Is the corollary true? jk, jk

[obtuse vault]

Well yeah, my very existence is proof of that for some countries lol.

[raven comet]

Could migrate to good ole' IRC (actually not the worst idea lmao)

[obtuse vault]

As I've said a few times here, IRC when you look at the laws in Australia which trigger the requirement to verify age would also require age verification as unless the space is specific and targeted (Think a bug report chat where only reporting or discussing bugs and nothing else is allowed) then it will still need to comply with age verification laws.

At least from the bits I have read, Australia specifically has no size limit on a community and its requirement to comply with Age Verification Laws. I don't believe California does either.

Every suggestion people come up with here are really "Lets move to a platform that either does not yet comply with the applicable laws that has made Discord do what they've done or host a platform of our own where we can choose not to comply with the applicable laws"

Realistically, I think we all just need to take a deep breath, relax and see what happens. Discord have not said that photo/id age verification will be a requirement to access the platform at all and that for existing accounts heuristics will be used to ensure compliance with existing laws and that photo/id is only requiremed for nsfw content which this server does not and will not contain.

[median musk]

The problem here isn't Australian law, it's global rollout in places that don't have such laws.

[obtuse vault]

Australia is not the only place with age laws. It’s just the example in most familiar with.

Do you really think discord would do something like this globally just for the fun of it? I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to figure out that a lot of people would be upset by the move.

In 2027 it is my understanding an even more strict policy for apps will come into effect

https://ondato.com/blog/california-age-verification-law/

I suspect that give it a year or two and like suggested in the article above there will be ideally better and more anonymous ways of verifying age. They just don’t exist in practice right now, just in theory. At least to the best of my knowledge.

[bold osprey]

Age restrictions to social media is currently a hot topic in several european countries.

[obtuse vault]

It's only if you want to see nsfw. As long as you don't want to do that you do not have to comply.
You also don't have to provide your id, if you trust what discord say then if you use your face then that never even leaves your device

Like it or not, governments around the world are getting more serious and consistent about how they view nsfw and younger audiences on social media.
Now if these views are realistic or appropriate or effective is one thing. But Discord as a platform is not a policy maker and they have to comply with the law if they want to operate.

[bold osprey]

👆

[upbeat kernel]

Trust, but verify

[obtuse vault]

Well then you're cooked dude. We live ✨ In a society ✨
There has been evidence before of governments hijacking supply chains to add malicious components into hardware and the like.
As linked earlier your privacy on an internet connected device is basically a myth.
Just think about how much information about yourself you have given up on discord here. Do you use Discord in a browser? If you do then there is also a decent chance your browser could have been fingerprinted and then your fingerprint here along with other sites you use can be further used to de-anoify you.

Unless you intend to live as a hermit and air gap yourself from life you are going to have to accept somethings sometimes.
Just using Discord already shows that you do at least to some extent trust the powers that be.

When you say "purge" they can keep backups of their data, you know that right?

[bold osprey]

decided to comply with the turkish law
that's one hell of a sentence

[upbeat kernel]

Is discord in compliance with Turkish law? Sources I'm finding seem to imply discord is officially banned there still while turkey is pushing for censorship on the platforms the officially do allow

[obtuse vault]

So let me get this right, you are on Discord, talking about Erdogan, mentioning that you ran several prominent communities that could put you at risk and you have also said quite a lot here that could easily narrow you down to what I imagine would be a fairly small cohort of people.

Do you not see how this is terrible infosec hygine?

[upbeat kernel]

Western social media have some degree of incompatibility with dictatorships; unless they really are dedicated to keeping a market open there they do not bother with compliance and focus on their core markets. It becomes more of an opsec problem for users than a platform problem at the point when the whole platform is officially off limits to netizens of a country and the platform isn't taking steps to kowtow to the local regime to change that

If discord is officially censored in a country I don't see how them complying with the legal mandates of another country substantially changes the situation for netizens of the first country

But for the sake of opsec refusing discord's id verification seems sensible in that case; it just means that the platform becomes limited if you are not lucky enough to be flagged by their ai as old enough. Discord is not trying or reasonably expected to be a platform for evading censorship in such situations

[obtuse vault]

I don't know what more to tell you. I doubt even the proposal from California in which you tell your device your age which then can send an "age signal" to the requesting app without giving away any info about you would be sufficient to quell your concerns.

I think that with what is available to them Discord have been fairly reasonable and progressive about this.
If the facial scan truly does never leave your device then that really is the safest answer you are going to get out of something a company that is being required to implement this more. and more is capable of doing by themselves.

And exactly as morzenmebs says, if even the promise that your facial scan will not be uploaded is too high a risk for you then not verifying your age and losing access to nsfw is perfectly reasonable.

If you are viewing ID verification as a form of censorship or gatekeeping then imho there are many situations more significant than Discord where you have to provide things like your credit card or id to participate, and in the circumstance you are describing these are also high risk situations.

[upbeat kernel]

On discord's hierarchy of priorities, being in compliance to stay legal in their largest markets is up here 👆 and retaining users in markets where they are already out of compliance and officially illegal is down here 👇

[obtuse vault]

Also at some point the cost of making compliance options unqiue to every contries specific rules becomes more costly than simply providing a consistent service across all markets. As frustrating as that can be for those who do not live in a country with these restrictions yet.

I assume you use Tor? Because if not and you use Discord (or anything else where you mention your misdeeds) in your browser someone with sufficient access and knowledge could tie that credit card back to you through browser fingerprinting

In the future is already too late lol

[upbeat kernel]

It really is an unfortunate situation; I've heard criticism against the TOR project for this sort of 'giving up on their users in censored markets' from some Chinese activists but there's a qualitative difference in expectations between a platform that's designed to maximize profits from a predominantly western user base and one whose stated goal is evasion of censorship and maximum privacy

[obtuse vault]

Your paranoia about A face scan that is not supposed to leave your device is orders of magnitudes higher than the way you act every day here about your personal info security imho.
I'm not trying to be mean, just trying to be very honest and realistic with you about just how exposed you are on the internet unless you are taking every precaution every day. consistently for a long time.
The difference between you being caught and not is how much the government cares about hunting you as an individual.

[upbeat kernel]

And never full screen your browser; always keep it in the default windowed size

So either prioritize opsec a lot more or never become popular

But western social platforms are not marketed as or known for being the most opsec-preserving places to communicate

Was

That was always a tenuous social contract from my view but I do understand what you mean

[obtuse vault]

The part where I am confused is you are mentioning all this on a public discord?

Like, if I was that worried I would not be mentioning that here at all

[upbeat kernel]

Discord lent itself well to not-truly-private-but-private-enough communication (and I have second hand knowledge of really awful things that were able to flourish thanks to this)

But I would see that in the past tense even before the current row
From an opsec standpoint not to say that people aren't still getting away with things

[obtuse vault]

In any case. I think we've sufficiently exhausted this topic of infosec, at least for me.
You're welcome to keep chatting but I'm going to enjoy some YouTube

[upbeat kernel]

Probably not helpful to the erdo-censorship question but there have been some good blogs that get at what I think was discord's relatively unique position in 2015-2022(numbers very very fuzzy) that get at that particular charm

I can find

https://contraptions.venkateshrao.com/p/the-extended-internet-universe
https://www.ystrickler.com/the-dark-forest-theory-of-the-internet/
I guess both these authors and the other bloggers I read on this topic have published a book on this?

There's another better article that I can't remember well enough to find; I need to ask friend who knows the authors in that circle

Found it completely illegible web design but oh well that's what you get when you let artists make websites https://opensecret.kw-berlin.de/essays/losing-yourself-in-the-dark/

Also not very interesting text; this was years ago and I honestly have no idea what I read that I thought was interesting in this regard because on second look none of these posts actually flesh out what I had cited them for

[upbeat kernel]

Yes probably the greatest

I think the main thing I took away from these posts was rao's quadrants

[glossy veldt]

i'm only going to add - i'm never giving discord my photo. i say enough political shit that i dont need a <redacted> deciding to deport me when discord decides to sell my data (which they likely already do). as for "image wont leave your device" that opens a hell of a lot of wiggle room legally because they can't put the entire verification system on the device, they have to send things, otherwise someone would find out the magic packet to send noting verification passed, so convert imageto something and sent it. how much change is something, is up to them, and still sending

[rose rose]

i created my account in 2015

and Discord wants to know if I'm over 13?

https://klipy.com/gifs/baby-typing-1

me creating the account in 2015

[rose rose]

sad.. at least Discord said that most adults won't need to do the verification thanks to "existing account heuristics"

[glossy veldt]

probably people who linked discord to their phone, identity data already gathered

[median musk]

Is it? It was already struck down in the EU once.

[bold osprey]

Yes. I didn't say EU though. ;)

[median musk]

My point is that individual countries are less likely to pass it if the EU hasn't.

[bold osprey]

Political parties publicly discussing something doesn't mean it's resulting in laws. But it is being discussed.

[bold osprey]

I guess that is on the users who publicly shared how to bypass the age verification. What did they expect? That Discord ignores this?
Australian courts will not accept a measure that isn't effective. (I'm not familiar with Australian law, but it's what Olivia refered to, so I went with that)

[wind falcon]

Zamn, the person who lied in another server of mine got proven right

[glossy veldt]

in the end its always about data collection not "think of the children"

[obtuse vault]

Go and read Discords site. They’ve not lied about anything. In fact they’re telling users in the uk that the process for them may be different. Though I am not sure why in this case.

It is your responsibility as a user to understand what you are doing with your data

https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/30326565624343-How-to-Complete-Age-Assurance-on-Discord

My age assurance is still all on device. It seems maybe the uk has different laws that require persona?

Like I get this is not a fun reality we’re walking into but can we at the very least do even some basic research into the topic, like starting with what discord has to say on their site.

Hell even in that screenshot discords app in that case is informing the user that their data is transmitted.

I’m not saying I know why they’ve required this in the uk for some, or that I like it. But it is hard to have rational conversations when we’re not looking into serious things deeper than the surface level

[agile roost]

I'm genuinly concerned that social media has finally reached an all time low now that we are going to lengths such as age verification for shit... discord has been will always be what age limit it was... i dont see why its needed on here...

THANKFULLY according to the website

so heres hoping thats true

[obtuse vault]

I suspect that things will change a lot over the next couple of years as Age Verification is a rapidly changing issue that's being rolled out in many different ways across states, territories and countries.
As we can already see in the document I linked Discord already has a number of disclaimers for the UK and Australia. I imagine the complexity could well grow depending on how other countries decide to implement laws around this.

[glossy veldt]

first step is just getting a system in that won't blow up, even if it isn't perfectly what they want. after that the system can be twisted as a tool for further oppression. it'll definitely change in time

[obtuse vault]

Every system ever can be twisted for oppession.

If that is the starting point of your discussion then imho the only viable way for you to win is not to play.
Being realistic is also a very important part in interacting in a society.

An example: Police can and have been used for oppression, but to have no police at all either would not bring about a utopia and would likely make things worse.

Now that's not to say that I think no Age Verificaiton will bring doom or anything, but therei s a growing evidence that Social Media has been left unchecked in a lot of ways, and like it or not this is how government see trying to rein that in.

[bold osprey]

Something I have learned in the past years, the people and intentions that implement something at first, and the ones that adapt if for a different purpose, are rarely the same.

[obtuse vault]

What you want, is meaningful laws, constitutions that protect your rights and are enforced.
In most modern democracies that is the way you have available to protecting these things.

[glossy veldt]

systems already exist on the internet for age verification though. this is essentially reinventing the wheel in ways that gather data and ID, rather than use existing systems, or adding systems strictly limited to age. i don't entirely blame discord, laws and politicians pushing them are after the goal to deanonymize the internet rather than "think of the children"

[obtuse vault]

I am interested to know what Age Verification System you think Discord should have used?
I do think there will be better ways in the future that involve you verifying with your hardware and then your hardware giving an age signal. But these are not yet fully mature to meet legal requirements in my understanding.

[glossy veldt]

phone can already be used to verify age, credit cards, other, without ID access. have discord ask a bank api, bank asks for my cc#, replies to discord with age only. same can work for id asking government. the important thing is to limit the communication between. discord should only ask "hey this person with token dj3ir6c is asking for age verification, you have them registered, let me know", person logs in with them, then discord gets reply "yep they are", without any identity changing hands. this could even be expanded by systems like google login having verified already, get linked to discord (obviously not everyone is a fan but its one road of many) and share their verification results but not other id info google has (it lets you pick what is shared)

[obtuse vault]

The problem with that is you are communicating off device.
Credit Cards are a form of ID in reality.

Also you still have to involve a thrid party vendor which does not quell the concerns people have from their previous data breach

[glossy veldt]

in us its mostly the right / conservatives, but left / progressives do a bit as well. along same lines as the driving forces to ban tiktok in the us. those in power can't control it or those using it, and tiktok was a major organizing / broadcast tool that helped word spread about BLM protests, live streaming everything constantly. worst thing in the world to those in power is an information that isnt under their thumb.

[upbeat kernel]

"The vast majority of users will not have to do any additional verification" point seems to imply they are planning on using all these sensible heuristics one can think of to verify most users; something like ID or photo covers those cases where this doesn't work. when countries put specific regulatory mandates on discord they will simply comply which may mean stricter verification steps in those countries than whatever heuristic approach (for countries where they operate legally/officially which afaik doesnt include turkey)

[glossy veldt]

credit card is ID yes, and i wouldnt give 2 shits if the bank only sent discord my age, though i would prefer only said "yes they are 18+". hense laws should limit the communication. discord claims it only wants age, that should be enough for them if that is truely their goal.

the issue with data breaches is companies store mass amounts of data they have no business in doing, which is not needed for function of the system, then "leaks" happen. when the data is limited to required, such as "yes they are 18+", a lot of concerns can go away

[upbeat kernel]

I am >18 and don't have a credit card. there isn't a system in place to verify this with debit cards and it seems like it would be rather complicated to create one and get every bank into compliance. not something that can be done overnight in response to laws. "have discord ask a bank api" is this something that exists as a standard across banks?

laws should prevent storage of anything but a token or proof marking a user as verified but that wouldn't make the sort of verification schemes they are working towards impossible

having a credit card (not debit, that isn't 18+) is a fine proxy for age but it doesn't work for everyone. there are a bunch of proxies that are part of "the vast majority of users won't have to ..." logic but they don't work for everyone hence why something more is needed

[glossy veldt]

credit card was only one option, and not the point. there are trusted systems with your data (bank: cc#, government: driver license) that can verify you, without the need to share that data with discord in reply, just verify and tell discord okay.

[dreamy lintel]

eu is trying out this https://ageverification.dev/
seems like a sane approach

[upbeat kernel]

government's don't consistently offer ID verification as a service. financial institutions typically use credit history+ssn to verify ID but sometimes there aren't enough data and photo ID is needed(this happens to me every time i need to KYC for something because I have no credit history). this already-existing ID verification scheme that exists for the sake of KYC laws is more complex and higher friction than what the social media companies want hence why they are trying new things

[obtuse vault]

Honest question, why do you prefer Discord having an integration into your bank provider over an on device (never transmitted over the internet) Facial scan to determine age?
Like, even if Discord will not have my bank details, my bank will now have my discord details. That can still be used as a form of governmental opression if the government tried to get access to that data of the banks.

[glossy veldt]

missing the point though. you are already verified somewhere, that somewhere should be the one sharing the verification without any further data

[upbeat kernel]

governments do provide a very consistent way of proving age that they back; it's called a photo ID but this is apparently not OK and what everyone is pushing back on

[upbeat kernel]

yes but where is the infrastructure for this? this is kinda an is/ought issue; we ought to have a consistent standard for this that allows this sort of shortcutting but we don't (besides photo ID)

[dreamy lintel]

as they should, sharing ur id is the last thing u want to do

[obtuse vault]

This still transmits data over the internet no?

[glossy veldt]

discord should only be sending a temp token, not my discord details
bank should only be sending "yes <token> is 18+" to discord
there is no link of identity

[dreamy lintel]

it does but only as much as is needed which I assume to be a yes/no

unless the app is on the phone and only locally does stuff

I didn't read the technical details

[obtuse vault]

That token still even temporarily is tied to your account. And ties these two things together.

I much prefer the idea of an on Device platform provided way of proving your age that then can give age signals to apps requesting it.

See this but expanded to have some level of proof rather than just be declarative
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/declaredagerange

[glossy veldt]

the push back is discord having access to the id
the government knows who i am, they dont know my discord, and discord doesnt know my id
there wouldnt be pushback as long as that wall stays intact while verifying

[upbeat kernel]

but there is no system in place for verifying this with banks/governments

[dreamy lintel]

depends on where u are and in a sane world only countries which already have ways to verify it would push for age verification laws

in poland for example there is a trusted profile which I can use to verify legal stuff

[upbeat kernel]

I don't disagree but discord is between a rock and a hard place then since we don't live in such a sane world

users can do the exitocratic thing and leave discord as a result of this but that doesn't change anything about the underlying regulatory issues

[dreamy lintel]

yeah

it's not discord that's the root of the problem

just a symptom

[glossy veldt]

given credit card companies already have a system, why not add a zero balance, no id (other than bank because system), age verification card? 🤔 discord & co wouldnt get any data

[upbeat kernel]

these are all sensible ideas that do not help with the pressing issue facing discord in the short term

[dreamy lintel]

the one solution to all this is delaying worldwide rollout of this

[obtuse vault]

k-id which is what Discord is using I think was a very reasonable approach for Discord to take as they provide the tooling to support all the legal requirements across many countries. (According to their site)

Yes I do think we should eventually end up with systems where the App has not direct access to anything other than an age signal, never being directly exposed or even in the user flow of handling ID or PII.

But, with what the landscape is out there today, I think we have to accept that Discord had to do something and this something was generally reasonable. (Though regarding the Persona thing in the UK I'm not fully sure why they felt they needed to do that)

[obtuse vault]

There can be costs in doing that and you don't know if there are legal reasons in some jurisdictions that make this infeasible.
Which is my personal suspicion since I don't think Discord was blind to the uproar this rollout would have.

[upbeat kernel]

which requires countries with markets discord cares about serving to delay their regulations willingly

[dreamy lintel]

probably but I also would chalk it up to discord preparing for the enshittification which will inevitably come with becoming publicly traded

[glossy veldt]

which wont happen because "age verification" is really about id verification

[obtuse vault]

I really ,really don't see how Age Verification helps an IPO

[dreamy lintel]

why would they delay anything, discord will just comply with existing laws

[upbeat kernel]

that's getting into conspiracy theory territory

[dreamy lintel]

I don't either but investors are weird

[glossy veldt]

data collection. social media has very little value as a company, the value is in the data farming

[obtuse vault]

I feel like you are extrapolating what is currently legal compliance.
Sure that could possibly eventually happen in some capacity.
But somehow I doubt it is in their minds at the moment, especially when their initial implementation besides the UK Persona one is all (as they claim) on device.

Like at some point we have to be realistic about what is actually happening contextually.
Your suggestion implies that Discord would have done this even if there were not a single law around Age Verification/Gating and I just do not believe that to be true, or at least I have seen no evidence of it.

[glossy veldt]

ID gathering is one of the bigger / more controversial data gather points, when easier (such as phone #) exists. discord and many companies have already gone for the easier fruit. i've already said i don't entirely blame discord in this case, yes there are laws which is absolutely part of the problem. would it happen without the laws? IMO yes, eventually at worst. law making them gather data is suddenly a convenient excuse to gather though and i wouldn't be the least bit surprised at companies helpingto lobby for said laws. and nothing is going to prevent selling data, or giving it to government when demanded, or "leaks" happening

on-device only is in theory a nice plus, but i doubt everything stays there, since that either gets bypassed by a magic packet making it useless get change, or you have to send the data to them in some form and they're just claiming the image stays and downplay some encoding is sent. and yes i've seen the script, which is interesting, and curious how long it'll last

[median musk]

In the EU there's a standard bank authentication system but that's all I know of.

[bold osprey]

Austria has the "ID Austria", which is required to authenticate yourself when digitally going to its agencies. That sentence sounds like's been written by a 12yo, but I didn't find a proper translation for "Behördenwege".
It can legally sign documents, and the app variant can be used to carry your ID, driving license, etc. on your phone.

[median musk]

A bunch of countries have one of those but I don't think it can be used as age verification.

At least the Hungarian version certainly can't be.

Plus it'd take a lot of resources to implement even if they did.

[bold osprey]

Yeah, I think the ID Austria cannot be used for anything else, but iirc every now and then there's something in the news about opening it to the private sector.
Those rumours materialising is obv not guaranteed.

[errant bough]

Can't speak for places I don't live, but no amount of elevated ID is something I will give to a service like discord under any circumstance anymore and it's often now a dealbreaker when a company decides to demand or ask for it. All of us who use it probably know about the September/October event last year, and it's just a growing thing for me personally to just not hand out anything of that level without an actually good reason.

I believe the information WILL be stolen at some point and then sold, to me what verification ACTUALLY does is ensure the parties they 'claim' to wish to protect will just be more exposed this way to the parties and events that created the desire for this 'protection' and I don't understand how we would fail to arrive at this consensus with the 2 TB breach in recent memory, not to mention all the other major breaches across other major databases in other major companies that predate this event.

I agree in that something 'should' be done, but I find this solution inadequate, reckless, and even more damaging than the current way of things.

[bold osprey]

Oh, I certainly won't give Discord or any other company my actual ID, neither as photo of my driving license or by using ID Austria.

[raven comet]

https://www.pcgamer.com/software/platforms/oh-good-discords-age-verification-rollout-has-ties-to-palantir-co-founder-and-panopticon-architect-peter-thiel/

womp womp.

[upbeat kernel]

Kinda beside the point raised but a post this opinion-heavy should not be labeled as “news”

This is written with way too much catty blog/opinion/longform tweet style

[raven comet]

Huh? Are we reading the same post? Or maybe highlight some of these opinions you're talking about?

[upbeat kernel]

It’s just written with zero regard for journalistic style

[raven comet]

I dunno what you're talking about lol it follows a pretty standard blog format?

[upbeat kernel]

Yes an opinion blog not “news”

[raven comet]

I don't see any opinions in here, and I just re-read it.

They make statements, conveying information*, and they're backing up their statements with cited sources?

[upbeat kernel]

That are all framed to fearmonger that persona has anything to do with the palantopticon

This isn’t “thiel appearing on the ID verification scene in 2 days” it’s a company that thiel’s fund was involved in funding and that has been on the ID verification scene already having its product potentially used

[raven comet]

I don't think there is any fearmongering going on in the post - if anything, the author is bringing to light a quite subtle and sneaky attempt at some bad faith actors trying to get their hands on sensitive data. Look how under-the-radar the whole Ring + Flock cooperation went, for months.

[upbeat kernel]

Without anything to corroborate that such an attempt is happening, just fears that it could happen based on who is involved and adjacent

Where is the evidence that bad faith actors are trying to get their hands on sensitive data through persona specifically?

All I see is hypothetical concerns

[raven comet]

I'm confused why I'm defending this article

[upbeat kernel]

Idk either I just think it’s badly-written which is probably more a matter of taste than anything

[raven comet]

and I guess I should have said, "bringing to light some shady shenanigans that could very easily develop into bad faith actors having hands on sensitive data"

I mean do you really find it farfetched that Palentir would be trying to get its hands on this kind of data? They already have what would appear to be justifiable means to be in the age verification space, to begin with.

[upbeat kernel]

I also just think the moral panics and endless what-ifs around this topic are clouding what is happening in practice now

[raven comet]

Endless what-ifs? I don't feel like we live in 'endless what-ifs' - rather, "when?"

Look around, all the shit that's happening is right out of the sci fi and dystopian future books.

But agian, this article didn't strike me as sensationalist or anything. Not even close lol. But with all the shit that has happened and is happening daily, I don't think anyone is sitting around on 'what-ifs' anymore lol.

[upbeat kernel]

It’s not like PT can snap his fingers and all these companies will join the Palantopticon fold (one of them can obviously ). there’s a thesis that ties them together but it’s not a proof that membership in this list means scary palantir future for X company https://foundersfund.com/portfolio/

[raven comet]

Nothing happens in the snap of fingers. Nothing happens overnight.

[upbeat kernel]

And non-Thiel-backed companies could become involved in palantir too; maybe founders fund backing is a nonzero signal in this regard but it’s still not a direct path to this happening

Thiel likes government contracts and regulatory capture; that’s where I see this fitting regardless of spooky data stuff

Spooky data stuff is not the only thing palantir does; they certainly act as a middleman to get around regulatory issues with spying but they also just provide a mountain of services for more mundane government contracts

Palantir is honestly such a perfect name because it captures both the government communication and eye-of-Sauron aspects of the company

[glossy veldt]

......are we defending palantir and big surveillance

[upbeat kernel]

No. perhaps my tone was too neutral on that 😅

Just trying to say that information presented in article in question isn’t enough to say “this persona thing is part of thiel’s big surveillance op” with any certainty

And that “news” should have a more professional tone (IMO)

The latter is my biggest gripe and is probably a fight that has long been lost with the rise of internet news

[glossy veldt]

even if one believes the companies are not tied together in a way of single ownership, he lobbies for policies that aid the companies, and several of the companies do work together. so at minimum the companies are colluding for the same endgoal. i'd count that as close enough

[upbeat kernel]

I also think a lot of information is lost (not saying you are doing this just a general trend I’ve noticed) by framing thiel’s goals/motivations as “be as evil/creepy as possible”. It’s more useful to look at his actual convoluted antodemocratic belief system to have a theory of mind that predicts what he does even if the result will still look like the actions of someone pure-evil-motivated.

[glossy veldt]

i never said he's evil, a surveillance state has a lot of benefits, downside is when people are involved, people make it so we cant have nice things

[glossy veldt]

i'm going to toss this here, from #more-offtopic because i feel related to the negatives of this new verification system
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/technology/dhs-anti-ice-social-media.html
this sort of government overreach, and the big tech companies already handing over account info of users, is exactly the reason to not give discord your ID info. in the us we have freedom of speech, and with anonymity of the internet people voice their opinions against things. this massive overreach of making lists of people who disagree with you, and breaking through the anonymity, is a detriment to freedom. and yes discord is on the list

[obsidian stone]

i understand the difficulty in moving a whole community but "it is what it is" is such a pathetic milquetoast response

[upbeat kernel]

What about “it isn’t what it isn’t”?

[obsidian stone]

"let me line up to lick boots, EVERYONE's doing it"

also "i couldn't abandon all the work ive put into this community!" you actually totally can, and you'll get over it. signed, everyone who abandoned reddit

[upbeat kernel]

your message is the first in this thread that says "it is what it is"

it is not a fair summary of what was said

[obsidian stone]

In the end, like it or not, more countries are enacting laws around restricting social media usage for younger audiences, by the nature of wanting to communicate socially on the internet in a larger group setting like this one we are not going to avoid these laws by changing platform.

which part was an unfair summary?

[upbeat kernel]

the fact that that addresses not simply the difficulty in moving a whole community but rather the fact that moving a whole community is not a solution to what you perceive as the problem with remaining on discord

[obsidian stone]

everyone left myspace. everyone left facebook. everyone left twitter

it's really not that hard

[upbeat kernel]

I was never on facebook or myspace and i still use twitter 🤷‍♂️

and the current problem with twitter is fairly unique to twitter. it's not the result of new regulation that can be expected to be enforced against every alternative

[obsidian stone]

great, im glad we both have real-world lived experiences negating the idea that "everyone's on facebook discord, we can't go somewhere else" is a non-starter

[glossy veldt]

everyone didnt leave facebook?

[upbeat kernel]

everyone here is on discord

the point made by olivia as I read it is not that a platform move is impossible it's that the costs of doing so outweigh the benefits at present

[upbeat kernel]

or reddit

[obsidian stone]

i mean, all the quality contributors did

but sure, if you're counting the flood of normies..

[upbeat kernel]

that seems a bit myopic and hard to substantiate

"everyone cool left the party when I did" is easy to say about anything but not very meaningful when the party is still going on

I'm sure it's true for some subset of the communities you were a part of on those platforms but it's in no way valid as a universal statement about those platforms

also there are two sides to the platform-switch cost-benefit equation. regardless of the feasibility of such a switch, it is easy to say any downside is acceptable if the upside of leaving is large enough. I think a lot of the fearmongering/moral panic about the ID verification issue has blown that upside so far out of proportion it is barely connected to reality.

[obsidian stone]

ok, well when discord loses a massive tranche of IDs, i;ll accept your apology

oh wait https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/10/discord-says-hackers-stole-government-ids-of-70000-users/

but sure, i bet they pinky promise it wont happen again

[upbeat kernel]

I doubt discord will ever have my ID. I don't view NSFW content here and have probably been online long enough that they can figure out I am over 18 without it even if I did

[glossy veldt]

since supposedly it defaults to 'teen mode' and id isn't required there shouldn't be a mass exodus

[obsidian stone]

"i dont think this will be a problem" versus actual examples of this happening tell me again who's barely connected to reality

but lets agree to disagree there because if youre going to start with the personal attacks i won't be able to hold back from someone who admits they still use the pedofile website lol

[glossy veldt]

🤨 what, i see no personal attacks, confused

[upbeat kernel]

where did I start with the personal attacks lmao

[round flax]

you can discuss this without insulting people

that goes for everyone

[upbeat kernel]

rereading I think what was meant was that "this argument is at that point where it will, as arguments inevitably do, move into pure ad hominem" (which I hope one could assume isn't inevitable) and they were warning they had some really good personal attacks locked and loaded for that eventuality

[obsidian stone]

dismissing anyone who thinks this is a bad idea as "fearmongering" and "barely connected to reality" is in no way valid as a universal statement

when, i have actual evidence of the exact scenario i'm concerned about

and the rebuttal is "in my opinion it's overblown"

[upbeat kernel]

I meant "there is a lot of fearmongering going on around this issue" not "any criticism of discord in this regard is fearmongering". these are very different statements

basically I mean that platform switch is practically infinite upside if you buy into the most extreme things that have been said in the fearmongering around this issue, but the upside in the real world is less than that extreme and is, in my view, not enough to outweigh the downside for this specific server

[obsidian stone]

how many times has your ID been compromised?

[upbeat kernel]

I don't think ever

[obsidian stone]

cool then you won't mind sending me a copy, i'll keep it safe in my filing cabinet

nobody* could ever access it

i promise!!!!

[upbeat kernel]

I don't think "trust me bro" is enough assurance for such a thing. I also never said that I did.

[obsidian stone]

??? every single ID checking platform relies on "trust me bro"??. how would this work if people saying no are fearmongering, but people who comply are "trusting you bro"

[upbeat kernel]

but as of this current move by discord there is no indication that ID verification will be required for participation in servers like this one. That cost-benefit equation would be different for an NSFW-focused server

and that cost-benefit could change if discord tightens verification policy while remaining careless about ID handling in the future

[obsidian stone]

i'm glad that you've decided that "next time" is where you draw the line

myself and many other people with knowledge and experience about data safety can already see the result

but sometimes you just gotta let kids burn their fingers on the stove to learn a lesson

[obtuse vault]

Where is this conversation going?

[upbeat kernel]

if the system is on-device age verification with no storage by discord that can be robust enough for me to not take issue with it. I've done riskier KYC with financial platforms

not sure

[obsidian stone]

i've expressed my opinion that ID verification is a hard-no from me and many other people. if others are fine with their personal information being up for grabs, great for them

[upbeat kernel]

I just don't see the line from that to such a strong reaction against the plan for what this server should do

[glossy veldt]

where is this claim of "next time"? we've both said id is not a requirement for basic use, and yes i am fine with it as long as id stays not required. i dont need nsfw servers 🤷

[upbeat kernel]

especially given that ID verification will not be mandatory for non-NSFW use

[obsidian stone]

you guys really never heard this one hey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_They_Came

[upbeat kernel]

that is rather insensitive

[obsidian stone]

it's literally the topic at hand. "i don't need nsfw servers" ie "it doesn't affect me"

[upbeat kernel]

this issue is in no way comparable to the subject of that poem and it is not ok to suggest that it is

[obsidian stone]

i'm not comparing ww2 to discord, i'm saying the idea that "why should i care if it doesn't affect me" is a narrow minded view

i don't use discord for nswf content either, for what it's worth

[obtuse vault]

I don't think anyone who uses platforms wants to do ID verification. The point is that it isn't up to Discord. They're simply following laws.
Technically everyone wanting to use teamspeak instead of Discord would still be violating Australian law for example.

This channel from my point of view is really a conversation around what people want from this community about this issue.
And from that perspective I see people talking about jumping platform as an incomplete perspective about the legal reality that has put Discord in this position.

Also, you are not even required to upload your ID into Discord. As an example it's actually illegal in Australia for ID to be the only way for you to verify your age on Discord.

I'm not saying you can't be upset or that people shouldn't push back on these things, especially stuff like Persona. But that there are realities we have to deal with as a community.

[glossy veldt]

i at no point am being "i dont care because it doesn't effect me". i am against ID gathering, as its a form of censorship and leads to power grabs. but i am not ranting against discord because it would be the wrong target.

i feel like i should point out discord and other platforms are adding age verification because of laws. now while businesses mightve helped lobby for that or not, that's a different matter, fact is age verification comes because law. you're arguing against discord having ID etc because <list the bad>, when discord has little choice, and the alternative is do what pornhub did and leave those states/countries

[obsidian stone]

you're forgetting that discord voluntarily decided to bend the knee and rush into this, with no force from the government at all

individuals can "vote with their wallets" by choosing who to do business with

it's uncommon, but sometimes businesses take a principled stance, even if it may cost them business

there was once a small game studio who put a "political" message on their homepage, and caught flak for it

but despite the risk, they were on the right side of history

do i think "the factorio voters are gonna push me out of office unless we repeal the esafety law" is a likely outcome? no, but it's better than giving up entirely

[glossy veldt]

they put that because the devs are in ukraine, and less about politics, and ukraine is the victim of an unprovoked war. you'll notice no such post over other wars

[upbeat kernel]

Moving this server off-platform doesn’t directly translate to votes agains discord age-restriction-supporting candidates. I think a much better argument for your point would be exodus spurring discord to lobby against such restrictions.

(I still would be inclined to not agree that it’s worth the downside but it’s at least less convoluted)

[obsidian stone]

I think a much better argument for your point would be exodus spurring discord to lobby against such restrictions.
and large communities preemptively moving to other platforms, losing discord users and turning the pressure for them to change course, is exactly how that's achieved. i'm glad you finally see my point.

[upbeat kernel]

I do I just don’t agree with it

[obsidian stone]

then what's your suggestion for action?

[upbeat kernel]

Wait for it to get bad enough (or not, the bad future isn’t guaranteed) then move. Until then keep the status quo

[obsidian stone]

ah the boiling frog in a pot method. i see

(which for the record, i know was a flawed experiment)

[upbeat kernel]

Those who care about it more than I do can leave now

[upbeat kernel]

The bad future of this does not remove the option to leave the platform. The internet is an exitocracy as long as some freedom-respecting platforms and protocols exist somewhere

[obsidian stone]

"everyone cool left the party when I did" is easy to say about anything but not very meaningful when the party is still going on

well, some people are still hanging on the next day, long after the original party left

[upbeat kernel]

Time will tell. No one I care about talking to on discord has expressed any plan to leave because of this in the near-term

[obsidian stone]

I'm sure it's true for some subset of the communities you were a part of on those platforms but it's in no way valid as a universal statement about those platforms

[upbeat kernel]

Maybe that makes me a lame hanger-on but I don’t really care

[upbeat kernel]

Yeah but notice I didn’t say “everyone” unqualified I specifically said this in regard to my social circle

[obtuse vault]

Right now Discord does not require ID to interact with this community. And I suspect many options being explored will end up with exactly the same issues you are complaining that Discord has right now. At least for me as someone who does live in Australia and has to comply to Australian Laws.

If things change in a more clear way that shows that Discord is moving further than required in an unreasonable manner and will not go back then I might personally consider changing.

But like... I don't own the Factorio Community lol. You personally can start your own community if you want. All I suspect you will do right now in these early days is simply fracture the community.

People all talked about jumping ship from reddit years ago multiple times and the world didn't end and Reddit is still a perfectly usable platform.

[glossy veldt]

frankly i'm amazed the world didn't end when PH straight up left states like florida. that's like the universal, riot causing, do-not-touch stuff