Discord admits it made a mistake, postpones age verification
Abstract created by Good Solutions AI
In abstract:
- Discord admits errors in its age verification method and is suspending the rollout till the second half of 2026 after person backlash.
- PCWorld stories that Discord is chopping ties with controversial accomplice Persona and guarantees over 90% of customers gained’t want verification.
- The corporate plans to introduce extra verification choices and transparency stories whereas emphasizing a privacy-focused method shifting ahead.
The storm of criticism in opposition to Discord’s choice to start out requiring “age verification” appears to be placing the corporate in a sweat—sufficient to alter course, a minimum of quickly.
For starters, Discord just lately introduced that it’s chopping ties and distancing itself from Persona, the controversial age verification accomplice service that caught numerous flak from customers over its privateness insurance policies and dealing with of facial and ID information. Discord is now evaluating a number of different suppliers and emphasizing privateness as a high precedence.
Discord’s authentic plan was to start age verification as early as March, however in gentle of the controversy, the corporate is now suspending the rollout of age verification to the second half of 2026, per a weblog publish that tells customers how they misunderstood the purpose, that age verification is definitely a superb factor regardless of all of the privateness issues.
In that weblog publish, Discord co-founder Stanislav Vishnevskiy writes that “over 90% of customers won’t ever have to confirm their age to proceed utilizing Discord precisely as they do in the present day.” In a while, he additionally explains: “In the event you’re among the many lower than 10% of customers who do have to confirm, we’ll provide you with choices, designed to inform us solely your age and by no means your identification.”
Discord actually needs you to consider that the corporate gained’t acquire your private info: “We don’t need to know who you’re. We simply have to know whether or not you’re an grownup. And it really works each methods: a vendor has no technique to affiliate your identification again to your Discord account both. That’s by design.” (A vendor is a third-party intermediary that handles the age verification course of between you and Discord.)
Whereas delaying the rollout of age verification, Discord can be working so as to add extra verification choices, higher vendor transparency, in addition to transparency stories that embody “what number of customers had been requested to confirm, what strategies they used, and the way usually our automated techniques dealt with it with none person motion.”
“We’ve made errors,” the weblog publish concludes. “We’re listening. We’ll get this proper.” Solely time will inform how true that’s.
This text initially appeared on our sister publication M3 and was translated and localized from Swedish.
