Discord announced on Monday that it’s rolling out age verification on its platform globally starting next month, when it will automatically set all users’ accounts to a “teen-appropriate” experience unless they demonstrate that they’re adults.

Users who aren’t verified as adults will not be able to access age-restricted servers and channels, won’t be able to speak in Discord’s livestream-like “stage” channels, and will see content filters for any content Discord detects as graphic or sensitive. They will also get warning prompts for friend requests from potentially unfamiliar users, and DMs from unfamiliar users will be automatically filtered into a separate inbox.

Direct messages and servers that are not age-restricted will continue to function normally, but users won’t be able to send messages or view content in an age-restricted server until they complete the age check process, even if it’s a server they were part of before age verification rolled out. Savannah Badalich, Discord’s global head of product policy, said in an interview with The Verge that those servers will be “obfuscated” with a black screen until the user verifies they’re an adult. Users also won’t be able to join any new age-restricted servers without verifying their age.

  • uniquethrowagay@feddit.org
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    22 hours ago

    Our (privatized) mail service offers an identification process to third parties where you either walk into a post office with your physical ID card or you make a video call with a call center and show it to them. I don’t think they transmit any more data than “over 18 yes/no”. So while data hording might often be the reason, I don’t think it’s the only one ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    • General_Effort@lemmy.world
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      18 hours ago

      I heard that the reason why no one uses the ID card option is that the privatized post office lobbied the government to make it so expensive as not to compete with their service.