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.

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[–] 245 points 7 months ago* (12 children)

Discord age restrictions prevent an underage user from viewing - but not sending - nude pictures.

This isn't to protect kids. It's to enforce increasingly authoritarian control over the web.

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    [–] 132 points 7 months ago (21 children)

    Discord probably did the math and are willing to take a hit to the user counts (much like reddit did when they closed the apis), as the vast majority will stay and keep "threatening" to leave. There's at least the hope that the ones who quit now will establish communities elsewhere, on a (hopefully) better server platform.

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  • [–] 101 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Enshittification is not single step. It's more a "boiling a frog"-kinda process.

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  • [–] 58 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Discord itself was a big step of enshittification from the very start when communities moved from individual platforms to Discord servers.

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  • [–] 17 points 7 months ago

    Sometimes I like to remember when Nitro was like 5 bucks and gave a bunch of stuff, and now it is 10 bucks gives less AND they still try to sell me fucking cosmetics...

    I dropped my Nitro when they announced a possible buyout/IPO

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    [–] 87 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    Here's hoping this gets more software off the discord support teat. No, you do not need real time chat, you need searchable, permanent presence. Discord support is such a red flag I immediately move on even if it's OSS. If you can't do real doco and you can't stand up a forum (Discourse is nice I hear) then what chance do you have of being competent.

    Also, IPO incoming, expect it to get worse.

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    [–] 58 points 7 months ago

    Account deleted. Fuck em. Was already pissed with their restrictions with nitro.

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  • [–] 51 points 7 months ago (9 children)

    Maybe people will finally realize discord isn't the place for your projects documentation to exist

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    [–] 51 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Why do adults have to suffer because parents don’t know how to control their kids?

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  • [–] 49 points 7 months ago (21 children)

    Good! locking away potentially helpful Q&A, discussions, and guides on Discord is fucking stupid.

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  • [–] 15 points 7 months ago (20 children)

    I hope this means people will slowly start going back to forums. Highly doubt it though.

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  • [–] 43 points 7 months ago* (16 children)

    Worried about the children while protecting thousands of paedophiles that raped children. (The governments, not discord)

    Regardless, fuck discord and instead of "threatening" an exodus, why doesn't everybody register with xmpp or mumble and figure it out from there. Crazy staying on discord from here on.

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  • [–] 35 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    The problem is finding a good alternative immediately. I don't mind to hop and check out multiple services, but some of my friends wants to just install one thing and be done.

    My checklist is not too much either, but for some reason video calling is not something included with the lot of them.

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    [–] 41 points 7 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 36 points 7 months ago (5 children)

    TIL people actually pay for nitro lol.

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    [–] 35 points 7 months ago (18 children)

    Sadly, but another good platform has rotten.

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  • [–] 21 points 7 months ago (17 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 34 points 7 months ago (8 children)
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    [–] 34 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    Sadly I think the end result of this won't be people leaving discord, but people giving up liberties because it's easier than fighting it

    And they're banking on that, it's part of why they intentionally gave zero warning...1 month is nothing.

    With more time a dedicated set of people could pull the alternatives up into solid real options

    Or kick up such a huge ruckus that discord back down and undo it.

    This was a very intentional and malicious choice to go "oh, yeah we're doing this next month, kthnxbye"

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    [+] 33 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (19 children)
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    [–] 32 points 7 months ago

    Do it, pussies. I remember when sites would actually topple when they made poor decisions.

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  • [–] 24 points 7 months ago (6 children)

    I could just be me being a doomer, but I doubt any significant exodus will happen. People really about to drop discord? Right…

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    [–] 23 points 7 months ago (6 children)

    Someone on Reddit claims reddit will do the same soon. I wonder if it's govt pressure.

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  • [–] 31 points 7 months ago

    I assume it's UK/EU's expanding social media laws that are driving this, in addition to Discord's imminent Initial Public Offering coming in March. They're trying to clean house to show how profitable they can be, the same way Reddit created their walled garden by restricting third-party connections prior to their IPO.

    It's bog-standard enshittification to please the shareholders.

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    [–] 23 points 7 months ago

    I deleted my Discord account last night. Good riddance.

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  • [+] 22 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)
    [–] 17 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (7 children)

    I'm not threatening, I'm gonna do it. We'll see how my game jams go after this. I doubt my entire community will follow me.

    Edit: I downloaded Element X for Matrix, and it seems to only be capable of creating a single chat similar to WhatsApp. Tried to download Revolt, and I cant get that one to even send me a verification code to my email. Starting of strong here...

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    [–] 17 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Yet again XMPP is ignored in the comments🥲

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    [+] 16 points 7 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (23 children)
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    [–] 16 points 7 months ago (5 children)

    sure they're leaving but...where? what's a viable alternative?

    I mean if I had it my way everyone would just go back to IRC, I still use IRC. it's great, nothings changed, it's perfect. combine that with like mumble or teamspeak and you're good to go.

    I checked out Stoat lastnight and it's very slow. took well over an hour to get a verification email (I assume because many others were signing up) and the current server offerings are minimal. Also a good majority of the themes listed simply don't work. it's growing and I'd say it's the best alternative right now but it's not there yet and I worry it or the various instances of it could hold up if there was a massive Discord exodus.

    Matrix is a no and xmpp ain't much better.

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