When Discord said it would require all users to verify their identity (and thus their age) by 2026, thousands of users raised their voices in protest. And it’s normal, it was the end of freedom of expression and communication under the protection of anonymity, a sacred thing on the internet since its inception.
Well, now Discord says they regret the decision they made and announce that they are reversing it. We’ll tell you all about it.
A temporary step back, says Discord
The storm of criticism against Discord’s decision to start requiring “age verification” seems to be putting the company in trouble, enough to change course, at least temporarily.
To begin with, Discord has recently announced that it will sever its ties and distance itself from Persona, the controversial service associated with age verification that has received much criticism from users for its privacy policies and the handling of facial and identification data. Now Discord is evaluating other providers and emphasizing privacy as a top priority.
The original plan of Discord was to start age verification in March, but in light of the controversy, the company has postponed the implementation of age verification until the second half of 2026, according to a blog post explaining to users that they have misunderstood the issue, as age verification is actually a positive thing despite all the concerns about privacy.
In that blog post, Discord co-founder Stanislav Vishnevskiy writes that “more than 90% of users will never have to verify their age to continue using Discord exactly as they do today.” Later, he also explains: “If you are among the less than 10% of users who do need to verify their age, we will provide options designed for you to communicate only your age and never your identity.”
And Discord really wants you to believe that the company will not collect your personal information: “We don’t want to know who you are. We just need to know if you are an adult. And this works both ways: a provider also has no way to associate your identity with your Discord account. That’s how it’s designed.”
While delaying the implementation of age verification, Discord will work to add more verification options, improve the transparency of providers, and create transparency reports that include “how many users were asked to verify their age, what methods they used, and how often our automated systems handled it without any action from the user.”
“We have made mistakes,” concludes the blog post. “We are listening. We will do it right.” It is clear that they have sung the mea culpa, only time will tell if they truly learned something from listening to their users.
