GoKawiilYesterday Discord announced that users would soon be required to have their age verified or be restricted to teen-level access on the service. Today, there’s a follow-up post from Discord that backtracks some on the expected impact of its new policy.
Discord’s new statement clarifies policy on age verification for users
Discord received a lot of negative feedback to its age verification announcement yesterday. As a result, the company today has issued a new statement offering clarification on key details.
For one, Discord now says that the “vast majority” of Discord users will be able to continue using the service as they do today, without ever going through age verification.
It sounds like a big policy reversal from yesterday. However, reading between the lines, the company is simply emphasizing two things it didn’t in the original announcement:
Most users don’t access adult-restricted areas and settings, and thus they won’t need to verify their age Some adults will get a pass on age verification thanks to Discord’s “age prediction” method
From the company’s new statement on X:
You must be a confirmed adult to access age-restricted content and experiences such as age-restricted servers and channels or to modify certain safety settings. The majority of Discord users don’t access age restricted content and will never go through a facial age estimation flow or ID verification. In the minority of cases where we cannot confirm you as an adult and you need to access age-restricted areas and settings, then you will be asked to go through additional steps.
Essentially, despite the policy applying to all users, it won’t actually impact too many. Discord wants to assure the average user that they most likely won’t need to submit a face scan or government ID, since most users don’t use age-restricted servers and channels.
What’s less clear is the parameters around the “age prediction” method.
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