It shouldn't be up to discord or any other internet entity to verify the age of its users.
Parents. Parents should be monitoring their child's Internet usage.
this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2026
590 points (99.3% liked)
Technology
88606 readers
1878 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
The internet will become ID verified to protect the kids or terrorism or what ever other reason they feel like. It won't solve the problems it is claimed to help. But if you have unauthorized opinions against government backed genocides then you are marked as a terrorist.
National security.
Say it one more time for the dumbasses in the back row!
Listen we can't have people thinking they can have some sort of responsibility to function in the world. That might give them the bright idea that they can start judging for themselves the state of the world and to demand some kind of accountability. They might even clue in to the problems that the tech monopolies are purposely causing, along with the social ills that come with it.
We can't have that at all.
They should, but they’re exhausted and they can’t even be bothered to read or help with homework so this will go badly. The only ones winning are the predators.
they’re exhausted and they can’t even be bothered to read or help with homework
The only ones winning are the predators
Have you ever thought that maybe these two things are linked somehow?
Eh?
And who's fault is that they're so tired?
Btw, has discord ever done anything to help a minor asking for help?
And how about known predators actually getting jailed?
For those interested you can find alternatives to Discord and any other software on AlternativeTo.net But here are some of the standouts I have found:
- Armada https://armada.buzz/: End to End Encrypted Messaging with Discord Import and similar UI, comms for gaming, Voice and Video Calling, and App and Desktop Streaming at full capability. No Phone # or Email required. Can be self hosted and is Open Source. Win/Linux/Mobile versions Ready to go now.
- Fluxer https://fluxer.app/: As the webpage states "Free and open source chat for friends, groups, and communities, with text, voice, video, screen sharing, and self-hosting." and while functional, they have ramped up development to add guides for self hosting and mobile clients that aren't released yet, and have an ambitious roadmap on their blog. You have to use 3rd party bridging apps for importing Discord Servers.
- Stoat (Formally Revolt) https://stoat.chat/: Another Open Source alternative that you can host your own, but at this time servers aren't connected and they want to do it through Federation, or in other words like email servers, so users can browse public servers. They are early days on the desktop and video sharing as well but they users like it so much and development team is so reachable that donations more than pay for the community service and development. Uses an open web app so anywhere you can get a modern browser to work has access.
- VoltChat https://voltagechat.app/: A platform similar to the previously mentioned Armada, but using its own decentralized federated platform.
I don't want to sound like a downer, but I'm skeptical about Armada: never heard of it before, repo created last June, tons of features implemented in that short span and already "ready to go"... Seems like it has been heavily vibe-coded.
Or it could be a dedicated team of coders using AI to generate code for them to review based on already existing encryption and platform packages. At this point only time will tell. I just put it out as an example... I can no more defend its security or the codebase of it or any other of the alternatives I listed. These just stood out to me from the others on AlternativeTo.net.
Going to add one more: Steam.
Steam has a built-in voice chat and chat channels for your friends.
It depends on what you are using Discord for and replacing. While Steam has Video Sharing and voice and text chat, that is only part of what I use Discord for and it would be lacking for me, not to mention it isn't all available in one place in the UI. For others all they did with discord was make a text channel and a voice channel and used it and then Steam would be a drop in replacement that they already have.
And how exactly were we expecting it to go? 'Kind of bad'? 🤣
I've been using Fluxer and self hosting Fluxcord to sync my discord server with Fluxer, it's going great.
Goddamm…all these services just to replace “a phone” (in an oversimplistic sense).
What's Fluxcord?
It's an open source D*scord alternative. It looks very very similar, and I much prefer it.
The same day I saw Discord's age verifying message, I uninstalled the app and moved to Matrix (to be fair, I was already on Matrix)
XMPP is still alive peeps, movim even works on the browser
Part of me thinks is this just performative nonsense that will always have enormous holes in it, like Prohibition.
Scanning "your" face to prove your age is really just scanning a face.
But I also worry about successive noose tightening.
Nah. They want to be an essential service for games.
Verified users of appropriate age.
Integrated game chat.
Integrated game VoIP.
All appropriate-for-age.
Can't develop your own moderation? Just pay discord.
So many companies will pay massive sums to outsource chat/VoIP/age-verification/moderation to discord.
And discord is already the "goto" gaming community provider.
Oh, and shop stuff.
Gift (buy) a friend a cool cosmetic through discord. Already has the community connections. Just needs the reason for games to tightly integrate it (moderation, chat, VoIP, age verification).
It is absolutely a positioning move
Forums were also outsourced to reddit. Riot did it with league of legends. Why moderate a forum when you have unpaid reddit mods doing it for you?
load more comments
(8 replies)
Shout out to Fluxer.
Still don't think its quite ready but its chugging along and its been fun following the progress. I know they have some big updates inbound. Hopefully people actually give it a shot and flip over to Fluxer.
I'd also add that the "Proton" subscrition equivalent - "Plutonium", is a better value proposition. But I will admit, they still need to clear a few hurdles before even I feel completely comfortable ditching Discord.
But its Open Source and it has a self-hosting option, along with the Quality of Life you expect from Discord in terms of the app layout, screen sharing, etc.
Open source is the way. It always amuses me when people move from one proprietary system to a different one, since the new one always ends up having the same issues.
That's why I think we should start teaching FOSS Linux as the first operating systems Kids are exposed to. It's neutral ground in the sense that no one company owns and controls it, and the things they learn will help them understand why things are the way they are, not just what the latest marketing-hype "feature" is.
Someone I know went to a university that ran off Linux and I'm jealous of the comprehensive Linux 101 they got. It took me years to learn some of that stuff.
load more comments
(3 replies)
load more comments
(35 replies)
The way age verification is being pushed feels more like wanting to setting up checkpoints on the edge of a city versus just checking Id's before going into a specific establishment.
I just don't see how this isn't a national login system trying to masquerade itself in a poorly fitting "think of the children!" sheep's skin.
Those people might be unhappy, but most of them will still refuse to move from the platform.
I'm not moving because there's too many people I regularly talk to on it
That’s what I said about facebook, then Zuck fucked it with his algorithms until I only saw ads and crap, then I left — after giving away some level of information to dipshit.
Yep, I opted for different alternatives like Stoat or matrix but without results. Only one friends switched to Stoat.
because if most people aren't significantly inconvenienced they won't join a different platform, and if there aren't your friends on a different platform it's really hard to leave.
view more: next ›