Like many companies, Discord recently announced that it would be rolling out age verification checks on a global scale. This upset a large number of people and now the company has taken action in response.
And the action that the company is taking is – while not a reversal of the original announcement – a significant delay. Discord concedes that the age checks are controversial and says that it made a mistake with how it approached things.
The change of plans finds Discord now saying that the vast majority of people will not have to verify their age. The reason given is that: “Most users never access age-restricted content or change their default safety settings. For those who do, we have an internal system that works to accurately determine your age”.
In the blog post conceding that mistakes had been made, Discord’s Stanislav Vishnevskiy says:
Let me be upfront: we knew this rollout was going to be controversial. Any time you introduce something that touches identity and verification, people are going to have strong feelings. Rightfully so. In hindsight, we should have provided more detail about our intentions and how the process works.
The way this landed, many of you walked away thinking we’re requiring face scans and ID uploads from everyone just to use Discord. That’s not what’s happening, but the fact that so many people believe it tells us we failed at our most basic job: clearly explaining what we’re doing and why. That’s on us.
On top of that, many of you are worried that this is just another big tech company finding new ways to collect your personal data. That we’re creating a problem to justify invasive solutions. I get that skepticism. It’s earned, not just toward us, but toward the entire tech industry. But that’s not what we’re doing.
Asking you to take our word for it isn’t realistic, and we know that. So let me try again, plainly, to explain what we’re actually trying to accomplish.
The post goes on to try to offer some reassurances:
If you’re among the less than 10% of users who do need to verify, we’ll give you options, designed to tell us only your age and never your identity. And if you choose not to verify, here’s exactly what happens: you keep your account, your servers, your friends list, your DMs, and voice chat. The only thing that changes is you won’t be able to access age-restricted content or change certain default safety settings designed to protect teens. Nothing else about your Discord experience changes.
There are, of course, some places that require age checks. Referring to this, Discord says:
In countries that have already passed age verification laws, like the UK, Australia, and Brazil, the law may require platforms to use approved methods like facial age estimation or ID checks. These laws do not yet allow us to rely on our own non-identifying systems. We’ve already rolled out age assurance in the UK and Australia, with a similar Brazilian law going into effect soon. In these regions, any adult who tries to access age-restricted content will need to verify their age through a vendor like k-ID to get access. We’re not the only platform navigating this.
For the rest of the world, over 90% of people will continue to use Discord without ever seeing an age verification prompt. For some adults who try to access age-restricted content, if we cannot automatically verify that they are adults, they will be asked to verify their age, but we will provide several verification options so users can choose the one they are most comfortable with. This is the model we hope the rest of the world will adopt as countries pass age verification laws.
You can read the full blog post here.