61–70 of 138 posts
We see this with Internet and telecoms service where municipal broadband dominates national ISPs at a fraction of the cost. We see the sell-off of utilities and water, which just leads to massive price hikes, so much so that private equity is getting in on utilities because it's a captive market [1]. All these privatization schemes (including so-called public-private "partnerships") are simply schemes to transfer wealth from the government to the wealthy. And the real problem is a huge number of people who will never benefit from any of this think this is a good idea.
The only entity who can be trusted for identity and age verification is the government. This is how it works in China [2]. I can already hear the cries of "we can't trust the government with that". We already do. Who do you think issues drivers licenses and SSNs?
Another like objection: "the government can monitor your activity". Um, they already do [3][4]. In some cases they're doing this voluntarily. An administrative subpoena is not enforceable. That requires a court order. Yet Google, as just one example, complied anyway.
A government, unlike private corporations, is accountable to its citizenry.
Let me give you a concrete example of how disturbing this all is. Leon Black was the CEO of Apollo Global Management, a private equity firm that owned Shutterfly. Shutterly owns Lifetouch, which is a company that manages school photos for children for a huge number of schools in the US. Leon Black has links to Jeffrey Epstein [5].
As of now, there's no concrete accusation of wrongdoing here or of information (such as stored photos) being passed to Epstein or affiliates. But do you want an unaccountable private company owned an Epstein affiliate having the names, school, age and photos of your children? Yeah, me neither, which is why now a bunch of schools are distancing themselves from Lifetouch. Investigations are ongoing.
As for Discord even doing age verification, there are two angles. The legal one is easy to dispense with. Countries like the UK require it. I'm surprised Discord escaped the Australia under 16 social media ban. I expect that to change. There's going to be more of this. And I understand why. Predators inhabit these spaces and Discord, unlike "public" social media platforms, seem to have way less monitoring and scrutiny of what goes on there.
The second angle is should you be able to remain anonymous online? Call it the ethical angle. Reasonable people can disagree here. I just don't think it matters because there will be increasing pressure for Discord and others toc omply with legislation.
[1]: https://jacobin.com/2025/08/private-equity-minnesota-power-t...
[2]: https://appinchina.co/blog/the-complete-guide-to-chinas-age-...
[3]: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/technology/dhs-anti-ice-s...
[4]: https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/10/google-sent-personal-and-f...
[5]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2026/02/13/lifeto...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As Argento Dragone said in the Kotaku comments: "Face scanning is used to do ID verification on your device and then deleted immediately." "By immediately I mean we send it to k-ID who said that's what they do." "By that I mean they partnered with Persona to do the actual verification." "Persona clarified that by 'immediately' they mean 'after seven days.'" "And given their ties to Palantir, it's probably fine. You t…
> "By immediately I mean we send it to k-ID who said that's what they do." People have already validated this fyi. When k-ID was first added you could send a bogus age result to discord from your local device, which probably still works. There's no evidence your facial scans leave the device. > "By that I mean they partnered with Persona to do the actual verification." Which isn't true, it was a UK-only experiment be…
"oh sorry, we said it's local but forgot to tell you about the experiment that sends you data to Thiel"
Can't we just do this age verification locally on-device? Just some WASM to run a small AI model, which scans face+ID. I know it'll be easier to bypass, but that does not matter. We're trying to stop children, not adults with technical skill.
Is a face scan accurate enough to do that with 100% accuracy?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right, but if you are using Thiel as a point of reference, you’re going to find a midpoint between sanity and insanity, which isn’t the truth. Say what you will about Thunberg, but she is not insane in the way that Thiel is.
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We don't need to find some kind of mythical middle ground between people who are too worried about the antichrist and people who aren't sufficiently worried about the antichrist. Rather, we should just set eschatological eccentrics aside when it comes to orienting our political outlook.
Who cares where they outsource the age verification to? They have no business keeping my ID scan or face in any case. Because there's an 120% chance they'll end up on a public S3 bucket.
They already ended up there: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8jmzd972leo
Who cares where they outsource the age verification to? They have no business keeping my ID scan or face in any case. Because there's an 120% chance they'll end up on a public S3 bucket.
The risk in effect is that every message sent on Discord will make its way to Palantir with copy of your ID. This is not a risk that any user should accept. Discord fooled its users once, and it should not be trusted to not fool them again.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Again, you're suggesting an equivalence between someone who has strong views and someone who's simply disconnected from reality. Thunberg is right to be concerned about the environment. You could argue that she's too concerned (maybe). Thiel is not right to be worried about the antichrist and Armageddon. We don't need to find some kind of mythical middle ground between people who are too worried about the antichrist…
It’s the deep dive into geopolitics which is now being used to discredit her that is the problem. There’s things you don’t touch with a pole and she’s been all over them. That’s why the media have shut up about her. There isn’t universal support or consensus there. She did a lot of damage to the environmental cause getting involved.
That makes her a pariah on all causes.
The mid ground is a rational scientific approach and consistent pressure and staying within the rails that are your primary cause.