Discord Launches Teen-by-Default Settings Globally
discord.com
Discord is announcing enhanced teen safety features rolling out globally that reinforce its long-standing commitment to creating a safer and more inclusive experience for users over the age of 13.
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Beginning with a phased global rollout to new and existing users in early March, users may be required to engage in an age-verification process to change certain settings or access sensitive content. This includes age-restricted channels, servers, or commands and select message requests.

  • veee@lemmy.caEnglish
    38·
    3 days ago

    Age assurance is the foundation of this new experience and is designed to respect Discord users’ privacy and choice. Discord users can choose to use facial age estimation or submit a form of identification to its vendor partners, with more options coming in the future. 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. Some users may be asked to use multiple methods if more information is needed to assign an age group.

    Key privacy protections of Discord’s age-assurance approach include:

    • On-device processing: Video selfies for facial age estimation never leave a user’s device.
    • Quick deletion: Identity documents submitted to our vendor partners are deleted quickly— in most cases, immediately after age confirmation.
    • Straightforward verification: In most cases, users complete the process once and their Discord experience adapts to their verified age group. Users may be asked to use multiple methods only when more information is needed to assign an age group.
    • Private status: A user’s age verification status cannot be seen by other users.

    After completing a chosen method, users will receive confirmation via a direct message from Discord’s official account. A user’s assigned age group can also be viewed at any time in “My Account” settings. Users can always go to “My Account” settings to appeal their assigned age group by retrying the process. Discord prompts users to age-assure only within Discord and currently does not send emails or text messages about its age assurance process or results.

    Not happy with the face-scanning either way. Gonna have a chat with some of my personal groups about how we might move forward.

    • towerful@programming.devEnglish
      10·
      3 days ago

      Discord is going to be the age-verification-service for gaming, if they can get laws to follow fast enough.
      They have the gaming community, they have chats/friends/DMs/VoIP.
      If they release a dev toolkit that implements in-game chat, in-game VoIP, friends list and age verification… All while not being tied to steam? Imagine if they offered a system for in-game purchases and gifting purchases to friends (oh yeh https://gam3s.gg/news/discord-adds-in-app-purchases-for-in-game-items/ )
      They are positioning themselves to offer a huge range of features, easy navigation of legal minefields, and no distribution-platform tie-in - while also offering out-of-game functionality of all of that (likely leading to player retention for games that leverage it properly).

      They are positioning themselves to be a market-leader/industry-standard for game social networks. Everyone that has ever used discord is the product they are selling, and they are now releasing the features and tools for companies to leverage that.

    • zewm@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      3 days ago

      Let me know what you come up with. I have a server of about 600 that I’m about to just shut down if this process is invasive or privacy disrespectful.

      • veee@lemmy.caEnglish
        4·
        3 days ago

        We have a small group of 5-10 adults, so going back to Slack could be an option for us. Thing is some of the Discord integration with our server has helped solve issues in the past, so we might be putting ourselves at somewhat of a disadvantage by switching. It’s still early days, but it’s worth having the open discussion with your team and explore your alternatives.