Can you provide literally any evidence that would suggest this is the case?
Now that I think of it, I bet I could host a decent instance of some open-source alternative in a public cloud for around the same cost as what I paid for Nitro ($100 a year)...
I don't expect the masses to change their incomprehensible habits just because of this.
Telegram, Slack, Facebook, Team Speak, Reddit, GroupMe, nothing really offers the same feature set and ease of setup that Discord does.
I also value end user freedom, but I also accept reality. And I guarantee you you have compromised on your freedom/anonymity for convenience online. We all have. And ultimately discord is so turnkey that most people just don’t care
Apart from the open voice channels, what Discord features is Slack actually lacking? (and huddles can sub-in for voice channels much of the time)
I suppose the silver lining is that they are putting the responsibility for age verification adults. Which imo is better than requiring everyone; kids get a free pass to the kids stuff...
In my experience, you run the risk of getting your server shut down in small servers if someone reports it. Or risk losing your community server status in larger public servers until you come back into compliance.
Also in my experience what teenagers are going to do when they hit an age gate is use a fake picture/video. Sometimes they'll get banned for that and then they'll make a new account and do it again.
I don't know if this will personally affect any servers I use since they're not obviously adult, but I assume the slope will be slippery and if they're doing a faceID system now it will only get worse. Article says "analyze a user’s video selfie, which Discord says never leaves the user’s device"
...are they really going to implement a facial recognition algo in the browser, or is this a "download our app or fuck off" situation? I'm guessing the latter.
And that's the thing, these policies are always loose and will be abused.
- M rated game? Okay, it's adult only now. Sure.
- Emulators? Well they can play adult stuff. Now they just happen to add friction on something that is convenient for billionaire studios.
- LGBT content? Well you're talking about sexuality. Of course you need to be an adult. Here let's take face scans and totally not be a sitting duck for any malicious parties looking to identify traditionally disenfranchised people
The escalation is fairly obvious at this point. We've seen it happen in real time.