Discord faces backlash over age checks after data breach exposed 70k IDs

15 days ago (arstechnica.com)

This will be Twitter VS Bluesky once more. It does not matter if the power user moves over to another platform or not. It does not matter if the average user moves or not.

Its content creators that move masses. And if those do not move nobody will. I've had Bluesky for about a year now and pretty much abandoned it some months ago because only like 5% of the people I follow post/crosspost to Bluesky.

In Discord's case its mainly project wikis, forums and video game focused servers + their admins that should move. If they remain on Discord everyone will keep on Discord.

I myself am within multiple servers (that are strictly non-pornographic mind you) that due to the main content/game/media they focus in and the social behavior they cultivate, will most likely be rated non-teen safe.

Most shooter games are Rated R/PEGI-18 f.e. and they have tons of big Discord servers.

  • Considering Discord is building a "teen council" to groom and shape the future of Discord, I've got some bad feelings as to the floodgates of crap that's going to open up.

    Kids are going to be too impressionable to free crap and pandering to advertisers to fall for literally anything Discord will dangle in front of them. They already do it for Orbs and Quests, so...

    • I know this isn't what you meant, but "groom and shape" is a hell of a phrase to use in this context.

Not keeping peoples data safe is one thing

However, as I have seen in my country Australia under the new social media ban, our Government has mandated social media companies to use age verification technology. As part of this they have mandated that Government ID verification cannot be the only method. As such the social media giants have implemented age verification technology through the type of information you have posted on your account and potentially facial scans.

I struggle to know what else these companies can do if they are mandated to implement age verification. However, they should not be storing Government ID, there should be a broker.

Is discord the new Digg? How many people will leave the platform?

  • Probably not many, I wouldn’t say there’s a super compelling alternative.

    Reddit only absorbed Digg because it was more customizable (subreddits) than Digg, didn’t have any real limitations, and catered towards the same “power web user” profile with the OG design (now old Reddit).

    Additionally, the co-founders had strong free speech stances, even to the point of /r/jailbait.

    What realistic alternative is there to Discord that’s easy to use and not a downgrade?

    • Reddit became popular largely because Digg alienated its user base with a 2010 redesign (Digg v4) that prioritised publisher-driven and sponsored content over organic, community-curated submissions, driving a mass exodus of users to Reddit practically overnight. So let's stick to facts.

      Why do people make claims about stuff they clearly know nothing about.

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Discord is so cooked. It's Reddit all over again. And that place is utter trash now. Mods and Admins not even following their own rules, zero accountability.

  • Sadly Reddit hasn’t been meaningfully replaced yet. It’s a place filled with of censorship, power hungry mods, arbitrary rules, and groupthink to the extreme. I long for an alternative. Something civil like HN and community like Reddit.

    • We'll see how the future unfolds. Until then, I have plenty of other things to do. And I bet you do too :P

    • Such as it is I can’t think of any other forum even close to Reddit. HN is civil because of solid moderation and “censorship”.

  • On Discord Mods and Admins are just other users. They're not Discord staff or employees. (Reddit is different, admins are Reddit employees).

    • I was giving a similar, but tangibly different, example of enshitification. It doesn't have to be a 1:1 translation to be a relevant example.