Another piece of news today concerns age verification.
If anyone missed it, at the beginning of February, Discord announced plans to switch all accounts without age verification to a restricted mode, which lacks some functionalities.
It was reported that in this mode, users would not be able to view some content and access age-restricted servers (even if they were previously part of them).
To access such content, users would need to undergo a face scan or upload personal documents, which would be verified by a third-party contractor.
These plans sparked widespread controversy. Some of the active community not only expressed their discontent but also began leaving the communication platform.
This led to Discord acknowledging, just a few days after the announcement, that 90% of users would be able to use the service as before without needing to take any additional actions. It turns out the platform can determine age with high accuracy based on indirect factors.
At that time, a Discord representative also noted that the remaining 10% of users, specifically those interested in accessing age-restricted servers, would still need to verify their birth year.
Now, two weeks after this announcement, the platform stated that, although it is not abandoning its plans to introduce age verification, its global rollout is postponed to the second half of 2026.
The platform commits to the following before this:
- add new types of age verification (including by credit card);
- ensure transparency of contractors (checking them and mandating verification on the user's device);
- add spoilers to channels (currently many set an age rating not because there is adult content, but because serious topics or politics are discussed; with spoilers, channel owners will have the option to put an informational spoiler or restrict access to their content);
- reveal how the automatic age determination systems work;
- include in reports information on how many users were asked to undergo the verification procedure.
At the same time, Discord noted that in countries where laws requiring age verification have come into force, the platform has either already been forced to implement verification (in the UK and Australia) or is planning to do so soon (in Brazil). In these countries, the service cannot rely solely on its age determination systems, as regulators may require the use of approved methods (face scanning or document demonstration).