Seeing more and more of 'This message is unavailable' - 'Discord requires ID in order to see certain messages'

Pretty much an AI detecting vulgarity and blocking it, although actual racist, vulgarity gets through things like 'here with my gock' to 'troll it' are what I've seen.

So, yes it is a requirement, and yes, they are censoring people and things, and requiring others to have an ID to see the messages as well.

So 'Not mandatory for all accounts' is technically true, but I mean.. you get it, hopefully.

> You will be able to join a Discord with your friends, chat, and do voice without age verification.

No, building a community is a goal for many; this just isn't acceptable.

> So the claim that Discord is making ID verification "mandatory" or that you need it for gaming chats is untrue.

Again, not mandatory but creates more issues than it solves.

Discord says they'll use some AI garbage tool. Those are prone to mistakes over a large enough userbase. It will not be a rare occurrence for an adult to be labelled a child until they debase themselves with a scan of their face or a copy of their government ID.

For children - this mandate also still makes the decision on behalf of the parents that a child must submit a scan of their face to a third party. Moving to Persona for age verification involves verification data being sent outside of the user's phone - in direct contradiction to Discord's initial promise of keeping facial scan data solely on the phone. Third parties that we've been given no reason to trust will delete the data without using it for an improper purpose such as creating derivative info from the ID or facial scan itself unrelated to the sole purpose of verifying that an individual is an adult.

While we're at it - is there any legitimate reason why Discord is associating a person's actual or estimated age with their account as opposed to storing a value that states if they are or are not an adult? That sort of granularity seems unrelated to the stated purpose.

I don't love what discord is doing, but where are you getting the idea that discord is going to estimate the user's age using "some AI garbage tool"? The article says everyone is on "child" mode by default, and verification is only required if you need to use the features / access content marked as adult only.

> but where are you getting the idea that discord is going to estimate the user's age using "some AI garbage tool"

"Additionally, Discord will implement its age inference model, a new system that runs in the background to help determine whether an account belongs to an adult, without always requiring users to verify their age"[0]

0: https://discord.com/press-releases/discord-launches-teen-by-...

Interesting, since they specifically say they do not use message content in the age inference I wonder if “AI” is smoke and mirrors here and the real way this works might be good old fashioned data buying.

Since they have my email, they could infer my age based on purchase history, credit cards, etc all which is available to buy through the usual ad data brokers

That does seem to be the sort of heuristics they are implying.

What I read explicitly stated use of AI would be involved in their guesswork of determining if a user is or is not an adult.

Also - the outcry here isn't from people who think they will no longer be able to use Discord in any way, shape, or form without going through an age verification process. That's a bizarre strawman that doesn't represent the main grievances being aired.

I know of at least one person who's child was flagged as 17 when they were 14. That seems like a mistake that should never, ever, ever happen if your goal is safety. The software sucks. The methodology sucks. The reason is flimsy at best.

never, ever is quite strong wording when you're in an arms race with 14 year olds who want to gain illicit access to something digital. I know everyone's a digital native these days and real life isn't a 90s hacker movie, but 'rarely' already seems like a pretty high bar given how ingenious a 14 year old deprived of their preferred entertainment can get.

if your goal and reasoning is child safety this is a big issue that it can even happen. my point is these tools are unreliable. It is using a problem that cannot be fixed as justification for a big privacy invasion.

I was 14 once too, that’s how I got into what I do now.

Then, out of respect for your view that children’s safety must be the absolute top priority and that false positives must never, ever be tolerated, let’s require people to personally visit Discord’s office in the United States with a government-issued ID, have it inspected, and formally swear an oath. Of course, Discord will retain the ID and the person’s facial photograph for a semi-permanent period. Naturally, that’s perfectly acceptable—after all, it’s for the safety of the children, right?

Not to mention it introduces different threats to safety when additional personal information of yours is made available to an entity you cannot audit in an industry famous for redefining privacy to mean "your data or derivatives of your data can be infinitely shared and sold and resold with little-to-no consequence".

It introduces the threat of being personally unmasked to anyone and everyone is introduced in the event the verification system (or a component thereof containing your personal info) is hacked and data dumped to the public.

It introduces the threat of your data being sold around with the "ground truth" of your identity and photo associated with it.

And even if these threats aren't realized....it happens often enough with related companies that the uncertainty will forever be there.

The threat of public humiliation.

The threat of losing your job.

The threat of losing your social connections.

The threat of personal assault.

All of these come to mind as concrete threats that have played out when someone has been doxed by a malicious person.

And now the risk and consequence of doxing is made so much worse when your government ID is associated with chats that are ostensibly private.

I’ve mentioned before publicly I got randomly shadowbanned before on linkedin with these invasive “security” checks for no reason. It ended up costing me money because I mostly at that time used that network to actually network and looked for consulting opportunities. and to this day i have no real way to know what they know about me or how they’re using the facial data i did provide. There was nothing from my pov that should have been flagged, but due to the unreliable way they flag users and the invasive id verification checks (that dont work) involved, I had to self opt out of the platform, which is really stupid to me given the fact i was a pro paying user for 10+ years. and all these platforms have the capability to easily do that. whether its triggered by something benign or malicious is irrelevant - the tech simply doesnt work. the people that control how it works have questionable motives. So i must then ask the question, why? you are getting at the reason I think.

One aspect is already implemented, you open your webcame and it uses an AI tool to figure out if you are of age.

This is obviously ineffective but I must admit it's a bit of a boon for privacy enthusiasts as you can pretty easily fake the webcam using a game engine. Presumably someone will make a purpose built tool.

As well, if you aren't going to subvert it, and are willing to tie your identity to the discord account, it is still better than submitting government IDs.

You don’t have to submit a picture of a face to prove you are child, because all accounts are “teen” accounts by default.

If they were age-gating children to make a safe space, that would be one thing, but they are instead making an adults only area where sexual content and flirting is allowed. For many people this is a bonus, because now like in a bar, you always know the person you’re taking to is an adult.

Discord has been using a third-party vendor in the UK for months now, and presumed to be using the same approach/vendor in the worldwide rollout. [0]

The vendor is called k-ID: https://www.k-id.com/

Their website includes a lot of technical details about their system. Including that their granularity they typically return in their API is just "ADULT" or not (per jurisdiction). [1]

They also document all their international compliance standings including their assurances that data really doesn't leave user devices.

At a glance, it seems a much better option than Persona, as k-ID's competition. Though arguably, yes, most of their options are still "AI garbage" under the hood. But that's what countries want right now.

[0] https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/30326565624343...

[1] https://docs.k-id.com/get-started/quickstart-guides/age-veri...

1. Given the bad press, they may reverse their decision to do this.

2. If they don't about-face, there's a lot about the implementation that remains to be seen.

Personally, I use discord for things that should be completely unaffected by this. I will not verify my age if there are surprises. I'll leave. If the communities I'm a part of decide to move, I'll support them and move even if I don't run into surprises.

There is absolutely no way we should support giving identifying information to a U.S. company given what's going on right now. The trust is no longer there. If you verify your identity, anything you say on Discord could be used against you if you ever pass through American borders.

They've done this because AU, NZ, and the UK all require this today. At least 5 EU countries are voting on it [0] with several led by Denmark encouraging it to be an EU-wide law. Most US states have a law in some part of the process as well, with at least a handful with laws on the books [1].

At some point every social media service is going to have to do this. Discord got a ton of bad press by being the first to say it out loud (and ask for feedback about it!) and give a timeline for worldwide roll out (early May). Discord isn't going to be the last to announce it. I think we all expect Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) to roll out whatever their solution will be under the cover of darkness (and dark patterns), just shows up one day with no easy opt-out and worse than what Discord is currently planning.

> There is absolutely no way we should support giving identifying information to a U.S. company given what's going on right now.

For what little it is worth, so far Discord has been using a third-party vendor for handling this information called k-ID [2]. k-ID looks like it is fully remote and has a globally distributed workforce including many in the US, but its press kit and job posting imply it is a company registered and based out of the Republic of Singapore.

[0] https://europeannewsroom.com/to-ban-or-not-to-ban-eu-countri...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_age_verification_...

[2] https://www.k-id.com/

> Here's the exact list of what's restricted if you don't verify:

> >Content Filters:

Sound like something people might not want tied to real-world identities.

> >Age-gated Spaces:

So, #politics in my local instance.

A ton of very niche communities are age-restricted and there's no way users in them would doxx themselves, so this is the end of those communities.

Hmm what I talk about with my friends contains a LOT of nsfw so really without it any platform is useless to me.

I know not everyone is so open but in the lgbt space most people are.

Especially when the a big subset of adults misunderstand of the actual scope of what "nsfw" actually consists of, and unfortunately the lgbt space isn't immune to such harmful perspectives.

I've been noticing people in this space react to these news in a very worrisome manner, either by downplaying the need of nsfw in their lives (ironically, hours after discussing a clearly-nsfw matter!), or even worse: by equating all nsfw to "porn"; giving them carte blanche to judge others who want the option for nsfw talk as "being in it just for sex".

It's been shocking for me to see this phenomenon unveil in real time. This overwhelming "sanitizing" force that bulldozes through any nuance regarding the nature of being an adult in shared online adult spaces. It's especially rough for marginalized or minority communities, who oftentimes don't even have IRL spaces to talk about adult subject matters.

This. We've gotten really bad at headline bangin.

So? I'm an adult. I do adult things sometimes. In fact, that's when I'd value anonymity the most!

The government would like to know.

1. So they can use it against you later if they want to (eg. blackmail, spying, etc.)

2. So they can start shutting off access to content that those in power don't like

Calling it now: Reddit is next.

Reddit is already like this in my country.

or just imprisoning/killing you, if the people you want to "adult" to are of the same gender as you

I wonder if the people who write these articles realize that they are doing more damage to their cause than good? At best, their lies come off as hysteria. As worse, their lies come off as conspiratorial paranoia. Either way, they are outright ignoring that these polices are put into place to address a very real problem with the status quo while failing to communicate what the very real issues with these policies are (nevermind proposing better ways to address the problem).

> This is false. Age verification is not mandatory for all accounts. You will be able to join a Discord with your friends, chat, and do voice without age verification.

You are correct. For now. But why would they stop there?

Supposedly this is to protect teens. If that's true, why would they continue letting teens chat with anonymous users? What if they get tricked into sharing sensitive images or video of themselves? Surely we need to know everyone's ID to ensure teens aren't unwittingly chatting with a known predator. It's for their safety. But for now that's a bridge too far. For now.

And why should we believe this even has anything to do with protecting teens? That's valuable data. Discord says they're not holding onto it... for now. But Discord is offering quite a lot to users for free. Why let such an obvious revenue source go unmonetized? They're doing this now because they're going public soon. Investors want an ROI and this action is sure to invite some competition. The people leaving want an alternative, so a competitor could get a foothold. Discord needs to stay ahead. And the users Discord keeps after this stunt are going to be the most resilient to leaving - the most exploitable. Surely they wouldn't care if the policy changes in the future.

The sky isn't falling. But the frog is boiling.

Indeed, I've been saying this for decades now. Hacker News needs usernames to post. How long before they require real names? And then how long before they require IDs for those real names? And then how long before they need you to show up in person with your IDs for those real names? And then how long before they need you to bring notarized documents in person with your IDs for those real names?

All so that we can post online about how Google is invading our privacy?

I gave reasons for why Discord would escalate things. Your mocking example did not. That's the difference between a slippery slope fallacy and a legitimate argument.

Let's call this what it is:

1. A way for politicians and the state to track porn habits to US citizens and use that information against them in the future. Blackmail for the future politicians, business leaders, and wealthy to coerce them into doing what those in power want.

2. A way for conservatives to tighten the noose around non-chaste materials and begin to purge them from the internet. And if that works, that's hardly the last thing that will go. Next will be LGBT content, women's rights content, atheist content, pro-labor content, and more. (Or if you're on the other side of the political spectrum, consider that the powers could be used to remove Christian content, 2nd Amendment content, etc. It doesn't really matter what is being removed, just that the mechanisms are in place and that powers can put a lid on the populace.)

We aren't screaming loudly enough.

Do not try to sugar coat this with a pedantic mistake.

This is far worse.

It's a first step down a path the Big Brother state wants.

Yell.

Scream.

Protest.

> 2. [escalating content purge]

Consider for example what might have happened if there was no anonymity available back when the official party line was that covid couldn't possibly have come from a lab accident and that Hunter Biden's laptop was a plant. People could have been prevented from sharing links to articles that disagreed with the official truth!

> 1. A way for politicians and the state to track porn habits to US citizens and use that information against them in the future.

This topic really brings out the crazy conspiracy theories.

No, politicians are not using Discord age verification to track constituents' porn habits and blackmail them with it later.

It's as crazy of a conspiracy as the NSA listening to your phone calls or ICE will arrest American citizens.

It's a few years too late to call it just a theory when it's already happening. There have loads of "hacks" where nudes and dating profiles with photos are somehow leaked. There's a zero percent chance they somehow decide Discord or specific porn sites are safe, don't worry, just upload those full face and ID scans bro.

~~arrest~~ execute, in broad daylight

You poor summer child.

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

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

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

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/how-no...

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/nsa-tracking-online-po...

https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/echoing-dirty-pa...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/27/nsa-files-live...

It's such a successful strategy, even Bitcoin scammers use it:

https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/extortion-spam/25070/

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/27/asia/south-korea-telegram...

> It's such a successful strategy, even Bitcoin scammers use it:

For years, email spammers have claimed to have tracked victims' porn habits to try to extort them. That's a far cry from actually doing so. (And no, they aren't actually doing it.)

Right? I have a spam folder full of automated "we saw what you did and recorded it and we're gonna send it to everyone unless you give us bitcoin".

> You poor summer child.

Being condescending doesn't help your case.

Link-bombing me with stories about Bitcoin scammers and South Korean telegram scams has nothing to do with your claim that politicians are using Discord to blackmail people about their porn habits.

If state-level spy agencies wanted to spy on someone's porn habits, they do not need to kindly ask Discord to collect that person's ID.

> If state-level spy agencies wanted to spy on someone's porn habits, they do not need to kindly ask Discord to collect that person's ID.

The first time I ever had a conversation about privacy concerns with anyone was around 1999. I've been hearing this kind of argument ever since then. Meanwhile, the erosion of privacy since back then has been nothing short of staggering.

We're at the point where we have government using Palantir to target the people, yet somehow privacy concerns keep falling on deaf ears and keep producing the same old "government doesn't need this latest privacy-eroding change" knee-jerk non-argument.

No, they might not need it, strictly speaking, but it sure as hell comes in handy, not to mention that it shifts the Overton window and serves as a stepping stone for the next invasion of privacy.

The best thing against this is to promote sex-positive values. You can't be blackmailed about some sex habits if you're not going to be ashamed of them :) it will also really tick conservatives off which isn't a bad side-effect.

The only sexual habits people should be ashamed of are non-consensual sex and anything underage of course.

But the conservative values are the very reason many people can be blackmailed in the first place.

As someone who was actually hurt by being exposed to pornography as a child (though this was on the wild internet before Discord), I think you're being both histrionic and downplaying the dangers posed to children online.

That does not mean everybody systematically is "hurt" like you were. That is a very dangerous extrapolation.

Of course not everybody is systematically hurt nor did I claim that. About 11% of porn users are addicts. Porn addiction is real and incredibly difficult. But even when you are not addicted, regular porn usage has negative effects on mental health (lower impulse control, higher rates of depression and anxiety). It stands to reason that this effect would be exaggerated in children and teenagers.

At best, pornography is akin to alcohol and cigarettes. We regulate the ability of minors to access these things for obvious reasons. I see no reason why internet pornography is different.