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Comment by abxyz

9 days ago

Discord’s own articles about this change explain that the fundamentals (content filtering) are applied to all accounts owned by teenagers worldwide. The only U.K. specific aspect of all of this is that if you tell Discord you are over 18 you must prove it. That’s a very small difference and not something most people in most countries care about. I’d go as far as to say, I think the majority of people in the majority of the world would be in favour of requiring people to prove they’re over 18 online if they want to claim to be over 18 online.

https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/33362401287959...

> The only U.K. specific aspect of all of this is that if you tell Discord you are over 18 you must prove it. That’s a very small difference

Requiring ID verification in one country is not a small difference.

The rest of the world checks a box. People in the U.K. must submit to ID verification.

It’s so strange to see things like this claimed to be small differences.

  • Again, this is a radical internet-libertarian-freedom-at-all-costs view. Normal people do not think that proving you are 18 is notable. We’ve been doing it for decades with credit cards. The system is more mature now but it is not fundamentally different.

    • Uploading your government-issued ID to random sites to prove your age is insanity.

      We have daily reporting about database breaches where people were duped into uploading their picture/ID, and then it gets posted on 4chan. This is true for the latest "Tea" app this past week, but also ID verification services for big companies like TikTok and Uber. I draw a hard line: I will not upload my ID for some private business to review, because they will never delete it.

    • > Again, this is a radical internet-libertarian-freedom-at-all-costs view

      The current global status quo is “radical” and the U.K. is the only country doing it right?

      You were accusing others of being U.S. centric a few posts back, but now you’re pushing the U.K.’s unique laws as the only valid solution.

      > We’ve been doing it for decades with credit cards

      Age checks for credit cards are required because minors legally couldn’t be forced to pay their debts.

      If companies issued credit cards to minors then the minors could spend as much as they want and the bank would have no recourse to collect.

      I don’t think you understand these issues if you’re using this as a comparison. Either that or you’re not even trying to have an honest conversation.

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