Discord is about to require age verification for everyone

Discord have announced that beginning in March, they're starting a global rollout of forced age verification to access all features of the platform.

Announced in an official blog post today, the Discord team noted that all accounts will end up as teens by default, with various restrictions in place, unless you go through manual age verification processes. It will be a phased global rollout, meaning it will be done in stages, so not everyone will be affected right away but it will begin in "early March".

How will you access all features? You'll need to submit to facial age estimation tech that scans you, or submit an official form of accepted ID with "more options coming in the future" and Discord will also be running an "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". You may end up being asked to use multiple methods to prove your age.

The Discord team highlighted their privacy protections for all this as:

• 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.

You'll be able to see your assigned age group in your "My Account" settings, and also have an option here to appeal by retrying the entire process.

When this all begins in March the new defaults will be in place for both new and old users that include:

• Content Filters: Discord users will need to be age-assured as adults in order to unblur sensitive content or turn off the setting.
• Age-gated Spaces – Only users who are age-assured as adults will be able to access age-restricted channels, servers, and app commands.
• Message Request Inbox: Direct messages from people a user may not know are routed to a separate inbox by default, and access to modify this setting is limited to age-assured adult users.
• Friend Request Alerts: People will receive warning prompts for friend requests from users they may not know.
• Stage Restrictions: Only age-assured adults may speak on stage in servers.

This was already launched last year for the UK and Australia, and now it's going global.

Why? Lots of different countries have begun pushing hard for strict age limits on various different forms of social media, all in the name of protecting children. No platform will be safe from all these laws and we've seen similar implemented elsewhere. The internet is just gradually becoming more locked down, as all these countries want more control over it.