The CEO of Discord Humam Sakhnini, is a former partner at McKinsey. I think that tells you everything you need to know.
if that doesnt tell me everything I need to know, what is everything I need to know
Discord just killed anonymity
141–150 of 157 posts
Re: Discord just killed anonymity
#142Technofeudal empires are never on your side. Building anything on them is building sandcastles in the surf.
Re: Discord just killed anonymity
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
You poor summer child. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEXINT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexpionage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Vassall https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/how-no... https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/nsa-tracking-online-po... https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/echoing-dirty-pa... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/27/nsa-files-live... It's such a successf…
> It's such a successful strategy, even Bitcoin scammers use it: For years, email spammers have claimed to have tracked victims' porn habits to try to extort them. That's a far cry from actually doing so. (And no, they aren't actually doing it.)
Right? I have a spam folder full of automated "we saw what you did and recorded it and we're gonna send it to everyone unless you give us bitcoin".
Re: Discord just killed anonymity
#144> If you're staying on Discord, enjoy the surveillance. For the rest of us: it's time to learn how to self-host. Hmmm. I feel like self-hosting is the FASTEST way to lose your anonymity. Your self hosted service is MUCH more easily tied to your identity than some third party like discord. Just imagine you set up a self-hosted forum where you want to discuss something you want to keep private, but the government is ve…
Control over your data is part of anonymity. Sure, everyone will know the service belongs to you, but you'll be in total control over who knows what exactly. To most people not in the eye of the law, that is most of the anonymity they require. Also, services like TOR exist. Both on the hosting and user side.
If you think TOR is anonymous then I have a bridge to sell you. It's far more likely a fed is going to record your activity on TOR than on a standard open web connection.
Re: Discord just killed anonymity
#145> Discord dropped the hammer: mandatory age verification for all users is rolling out next month. The era of anonymous gaming chats is officially over. This isn't really accurate. Age verification is not mandatory for all accounts. You will be able to join a Discord with your friends, chat, and do voice without age verification. Here's the exact list of what's restricted if you don't verify: > Content Filters: Discor…
Discord says they'll use some AI garbage tool. Those are prone to mistakes over a large enough userbase. It will not be a rare occurrence for an adult to be labelled a child until they debase themselves with a scan of their face or a copy of their government ID. For children - this mandate also still makes the decision on behalf of the parents that a child must submit a scan of their face to a third party. Moving to…
Discord has been using a third-party vendor in the UK for months now, and presumed to be using the same approach/vendor in the worldwide rollout. [0]
The vendor is called k-ID: https://www.k-id.com/
Their website includes a lot of technical details about their system. Including that their granularity they typically return in their API is just "ADULT" or not (per jurisdiction). [1]
They also document all their international compliance standings including their assurances that data really doesn't leave user devices.
At a glance, it seems a much better option than Persona, as k-ID's competition. Though arguably, yes, most of their options are still "AI garbage" under the hood. But that's what countries want right now.
[0] https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/30326565624343...
[1] https://docs.k-id.com/get-started/quickstart-guides/age-veri...
Re: Discord just killed anonymity
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but where are you getting the idea that discord is going to estimate the user's age using "some AI garbage tool" "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"[0] 0: https://discord.com/press-releases/discord-launches-teen-by-...
Interesting, since they specifically say they do not use message content in the age inference I wonder if “AI” is smoke and mirrors here and the real way this works might be good old fashioned data buying. Since they have my email, they could infer my age based on purchase history, credit cards, etc all which is available to buy through the usual ad data brokers
That does seem to be the sort of heuristics they are implying.
Re: Discord just killed anonymity
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
What gets deemed “adult” is incredibly random as far as I can tell, some of our servers/messages have triggered it, but no porn or anything is shared in them.
This is great post about this from Soatok back when visa and Mastercard pulled support from itch and steam in July. https://soatok.blog/2025/07/24/against-the-censorship-of-adu...
Year at the time X was OPENLY posting and later selling (feature hid behind paid subscription) CSAM(1) and non consensual nudity payment processors were still okay with it.
(1) https://9to5mac.com/2026/01/26/eu-also-investigating-as-grok...
> "Put another way, Grok generated an estimated 190 sexualized images per minute during that 11-day period. Among those, it made a sexualized image of children once every 41 seconds."
Re: Discord just killed anonymity
#148> Discord dropped the hammer: mandatory age verification for all users is rolling out next month. The era of anonymous gaming chats is officially over. This isn't really accurate. Age verification is not mandatory for all accounts. You will be able to join a Discord with your friends, chat, and do voice without age verification. Here's the exact list of what's restricted if you don't verify: > Content Filters: Discor…
1. Given the bad press, they may reverse their decision to do this. 2. If they don't about-face, there's a lot about the implementation that remains to be seen. Personally, I use discord for things that should be completely unaffected by this. I will not verify my age if there are surprises. I'll leave. If the communities I'm a part of decide to move, I'll support them and move even if I don't run into surprises. The…
They've done this because AU, NZ, and the UK all require this today. At least 5 EU countries are voting on it [0] with several led by Denmark encouraging it to be an EU-wide law. Most US states have a law in some part of the process as well, with at least a handful with laws on the books [1].
At some point every social media service is going to have to do this. Discord got a ton of bad press by being the first to say it out loud (and ask for feedback about it!) and give a timeline for worldwide roll out (early May). Discord isn't going to be the last to announce it. I think we all expect Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) to roll out whatever their solution will be under the cover of darkness (and dark patterns), just shows up one day with no easy opt-out and worse than what Discord is currently planning.
> There is absolutely no way we should support giving identifying information to a U.S. company given what's going on right now.
For what little it is worth, so far Discord has been using a third-party vendor for handling this information called k-ID [2]. k-ID looks like it is fully remote and has a globally distributed workforce including many in the US, but its press kit and job posting imply it is a company registered and based out of the Republic of Singapore.
[0] https://europeannewsroom.com/to-ban-or-not-to-ban-eu-countri...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_age_verification_...
Re: Discord just killed anonymity
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
For the United Kingdom specifically, I've suffered the misfortune of reading the Online Safety Act, and this kind of age estimation is both mentioned and permitted by the Act. (Not a lawyer blah blah blah) Part 3, Chapter 2, Section 12(4) specifies that user-to-user service providers are required to use either age verification or age estimation (or both!) to prevent children from accessing content that is harmful to…
Part of me is wondering if we are all collectively misreading Discord's intent. They have devised a system so lackluster and unverifyable that they can claim they are following the letter without having to turn over anything remotely useful to actually verify or track people's identities.
I get the impression that is part of Discord's intent they are signalling here and a lot of the response has been maybe a bit overly vitriolic in the face of that seeming message of "we are complying with the laws because we have to, but we are doing a bare minimum to do that". Especially relating those parts of the press release to the call for a Council of Teens and increased feedback.
It feels like a modern iteration of the game of way most bars check IDs: it's a bit of an honor system most nights and for most people. On days or events of increased scrutiny they put a bouncer out front. They make a show of doing it, but at the end of the day they want to sell product and not do paperwork, so it will be the bare minimum to keep the (international) law of of Discord's back. Discord seems to want just enough CYA much more than strict "we know the age of every user". This is the "we're going to put a bouncer out front" stage of the game, not the "police are at the back door and about to raid the bar" stage. It is interesting to me how many have read this PR and jumped to believing it to be the bar raid scenario.
Re: Discord just killed anonymity
#150https://discord.com/press-releases/discord-launches-teen-by-... > For the majority of adult users, we will be able to confirm your age group using information we already have. We use age prediction to determine, with high confidence, when a user is an adult. This allows many adults to access age-appropriate features without completing an explicit age check. > Facial scans never leave your device. Discord and our vend…
Even wilder - they're claiming to look at a user's activity on the platform - like what servers they're on, what games they play, and what hours they're active - and infer adulthood from that. No way that'd pass legal muster.
Account age and credit card history can tell a lot. If Discord can assume you were at least 7 when you first signed up for Nitro and you've been a Nitro member off and on since Discord started 11 years ago, you are at least 18.