Starting in early March, the platform will place every account into a default “teen-appropriate” experience unless it has proof that users are adults.

The move has brought widespread criticism from Discord users, who are citing privacy and security concerns following a recent breach of a third-party vendor that ended up exposing around 70,000 government ID images used to verify the age of Discord users.

    • Lembot_0006@programming.dev
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      4 days ago

      Discord thinks that it is important. Good news that it isn’t. And even if there is no good substitute, then it is possible to abandon Discord by just quitting and not looking for any alternatives. Like if your local market stopped having aubergines then you can just stop even wanting them. Not a big deal.

      • Taldan@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        Not a big deal to you

        There are other people in the world that live different lives than you. Some of us use it as a primary messaging platform. It’s how I talk to most friends and family

      • thedirtyknapkin@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        hmm it’s more like if the supermarket closed… you still need food (social interaction). so where do you get it now. like you ate out sometimes before, you let others cook for you every so often. but for many, discord is their primary means of keeping in touch. you need to find something to replace it. so we’re all debating if we grow our own food or drive 4 hours to the next closest which already has going out of business signs up.

        not wanting to use a platform that someone prefers is the easiest way to lose touch with someone these days. like i struggle to socialize with tiktok people these days just because i don’t get their references and they can’t send me their memes. if they’re also an imessage diehard we probably just haven’t talked in a while.

      • 14th_cylon@lemmy.zip
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        4 days ago

        then it is possible to abandon Discord by just quitting and not looking for any alternatives.

        it is really not. not without significantly crippling your life.

        luckily, there are alternatives, so we will just see if people are willing to put money where their mouth is.

        • U7826391786239@lemmy.zip
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          3 days ago

          it’s insane to me that people have been so hoodwinked by these shitty predatory vulture corporations that they actually believe they just can’t live without these 100% unnecessary products they’re willfully roping themselves into.

          it’s not just discord. people are still on fucking twitter ffs. if the premise is “i need [insert social media],” then the only, the final, the indisputable, response is always going to be “no. you fucking don’t”

          • cannedtuna@piefed.world
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            3 days ago

            Well Discord has become more than just Vent server alternative, people use it for more than just game chat. There’s a lot of local communities that have discord servers and use them to organize events and chat, and so you end up knowing a bunch of people through discord. Alternatives can be difficult in that circumstance. Like sure you can get their phone numbers or whatever if you know them well enough, maybe start a group text, but it doesn’t necessarily equate. If you run a server I can see it being wildly difficult to move a whole community off of Discord and getting people to use an alternative platform. Personally I’m all for moving to Matrix if I can convince my D&D group, but those local communities, the only option is to basically to drop out of them and lose connections.

            • voracitude@lemmy.world
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              3 days ago

              The more reason to abandon them, IMO, when they try to hold those communities hostage. Discord needs us, not the other way around. Without them, we find other ways to talk to our people. Without us, they don’t have a business.

            • Optional@lemmy.world
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              3 days ago

              That’s true. And the reason is most people - still, in 2026 - can’t figure out how computers work. Not that they try to. It’s a low-level social madness that causes catastrophic global changes.

          • 14th_cylon@lemmy.zip
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            3 days ago

            if you are some asocial hermit living in a basement, who cares about neither real life nor digital connections, that may be true for you.

            most people live in a society and engage in some communities, these have some means of communication and since it’s 21st century, they are usually digital. and these communities are not centered around you and few dozens/hundreds/thousands people are not going to leave the tool they all know and switch to another tool just because you told them to.

            if i lose access to my school’s discord, my ability to communicate with my classmates and ask for a help or information on anything school related is going to be significantly crippled, to the point where i am not going to do that.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect

            • U7826391786239@lemmy.zip
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              3 days ago

              lol

              if you leave a communication platform, and no one can be assed to communicate with you through different channels, then all that means is that you don’t matter enough. maybe never really did. if your school doesn’t provide any other means for communication other than discord, then your school sucks.

              i never told you what to do with your life, only observing how ridiculous it all is. enjoy your age verification/data breach/stolen identities/etc.

              • 14th_cylon@lemmy.zip
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                3 days ago

                then all that means is that you don’t matter enough

                yeah, i am not so important that few thousand people would change their habits to accommodate me. when you outgrow kindergarten, you will find out that neither are you.

                • U7826391786239@lemmy.zip
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                  3 days ago

                  when you outgrow kindergarten,

                  lol ok. i’m not the one bellyaching over not being able to leave a thoroughly enshittified and exploitative platform which is only going to get worse and worse

                  nice talking to you, and again: enjoy your age verifications lol

        • forrgott@lemmy.sdf.org
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          3 days ago

          So called “social” media exists to isolate you. The illusion if your life being “crippled” only affects you if you choose to let that happen

          • 14th_cylon@lemmy.zip
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            3 days ago

            cool soundbite for your edgelords’ meeting.

            in real life, most people live in a society and engage in some communities, these have some means of communication and since it’s 21st century, they are usually digital. and these communities are not centered around you and few dozens/hundreds/thousands people are not going to leave the tool they all know and switch to another tool just because you told them to.

            if i lose access to my school’s discord, my ability to communicate with my schoolmates and ask for a help or information on anything school related is going to be significantly crippled, to the point where i am not going to do that.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect