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Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month
(www.theverge.com)
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this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2026
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ill take my leave asap then, 10 years has been a pretty good sample of what capitalism does to a platform
This is coming from socialdemocrat countries like Spain, State interventionism at its finest.
So, capitalist countries? You do understand that "social democracy" is still a form of capitalism, right?
Why are you so hostile? Read what I said and then read your reply and see if I am trying to argue against you or simply adding information to what you said.
Anyway this is what replying against your original comment looks like: you are blaming an economy system of political (parties) policies. The more socialist governments turns the more control government have over everything (including economic systems), the more, well, controlling the State becomes. Democracy doesn't need to be capitalist, and social-democracy is just a political system.
"Socialism is when government do things"
Sure thing bud. You clearly have no clue what you're talking about. Socialism has nothing to do with what is being talked about. I'm hostile cause I'm tired of uneducated idiots like you spreading your ignorance.
"Capistalism is when bad" that's your whole argument, with adding disrespect and lack of education.
I hate discord but they are just implementing what the EU will force every single "social network" to do.
how is a government requirement for age verification forcing a company to implement a non profitable change the fault of capitalism? I guess the 10 years have been a good sample of what capitalism does to a platform. Discord saw a problem and used VC capital to build one of the most well engineered platforms on the market with hundreds of millions of free users and many happy to pay to support it.
If you don't think this is all a pretense to collect more data and sell it.. All the way up to the govt enforcing these rules lmao
wow this is just what they need to know who you are.. the final piece of the puzzle. You dont think discord can accurately identify most of its users already. They have email, IP, device, port scans of the network, all the people they interact with, contact list scans, social media and online account linking. This only affects a small subset of users and doesnt even go to discord as its done through a 3rd party service.
"They already have your data bro, it's fine just let them scan your face too bro, it's all a third party really bro trust them."
"Its all a conspiracy man, all the way up to the government man, all this is being done to collect more data having a picture of someones face is so valuable". You do not live in reality and there is no logic to your story. Discord is not accessing this photo so they have nothing to sell. Discord gains nothing and suffers reputational harm for this change. Then the "nefarious" 3rd party age verification company who supposedly stands to benefit the most out of all this. There is fuck all money to be made as an ID verification service, they are not legally able to sell the data and will most likely be automated out of existence in the next few years. Lastly why the fuck would the government suffer reputational harm to do all this to access your ID, you may not be aware but they actually already have your id and sensitive information about you. You werent private on discord before this change and wont be after. Unless you've taken extraordinary security measures, Discord should be treated as a public forum.
Its not a change im happy about but its the way legislation is going around the world and it makes sense discord would comply. At the end of the day I operate on the internet under my personal info, i use a cc with my name, i use my personal phone number, i use my email. Im under no illusion that im not identifiable. If thats a red line for you then either dont access nsfw content or dont use discord you dont have to make up a crazy conspiracy to explain the actions.
Idk if youve been living under a rock, but we have a facists government in power with direct ties to our tech oligarchs who have literally said they're trying to harvest everyone's data.
Its not a conspiracy, its just fact.
Look into Peter Thiel and Palantir, look into Epstein and his ties with Trump and the tech broligarchs, look into Cambridge Analytica and Meta, its really not difficult to see how all of this is coalescing to harvest all your data and use it for whatever they want across a gigantic database and while you might think it's already hopeless that doesn't mean you should make it even easier for them to do so.
Palantir already has full access to the governments data which includes your ID. They dont need to get it via discord changing the way it handles age verification.
the ID isn't a direct cause. i just mention capitalism because most of the rest of the cause for me leaving is the enshittification. this is just the straw that broke the camels back like how reddit killing the app api is what pushed me off that platform
It absolutely is a direct cause.
These ID verification companies have been lobbying governments to mandate this so they can earn $$$$
good point, wasn't my original intent but yeah lol
Thats true but ID companies are not lobbying or making changes on a scale that matters. This change isnt going through because an id company lobbied the government. Its actually a popular position with the constituents of the democracy. Its supported by many different interest groups for various reasons good and bad. To simplify it down to "id companies lobbying the government to earn money" is in my opinion intentionally misleading.
I think you underestimate how much lobbying is happening by these firms. It's a 10s of billions of dollars industry, and it's up and coming hence why it's suddenly starting to happen everywhere. It's not happening because its suddenly a good idea all over the world.
Huge money involved.
source? I completely disagree that this is a result of extreme amounts of lobbying money being injected into politics. The issue is very very popular with the average parent and thats what politicians are reacting to.
While this might not all be explicit lobby, they are being lobbied, and there's an exceptional amount of money being put into it in many ways. And if you don't think millions and millions of dollars are going into things like SPAC's to support candidates who will support it via side conversations, or other campaign finance tricks around the world then you just don't know how things work in the US.
Here's an example of Yoti spending money supporting the Texas laws.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-1122/332630/20241122163435761_23-1122%20Amicus%20Brief.pdf
Yoti In response to COPPA
https://downloads.regulations.gov/FTC-2024-0003-0192/attachment_1.pdf
You really think they spend all that time writing this up and they aren't having side conversations or nudge nudge wink wink deals going on? The US has a supreme court justice Clarence Thomas blatantly taking money from people and nothing happens.
This is a world wide campaign to support it by these companies who built the tools. There's is an official industry lobby group as well https://avpassociation.com/
Edit: This is actual lobby record relating to kids online saftey act. https://lda.senate.gov/filings/public/filing/edf57428-13bb-4f91-89af-137bbe898e91/print/
Edit: Here's Onfido (now Entrust) an explicit lobby: https://lda.senate.gov/filings/public/filing/251cf218-5db4-49bd-8b12-cf3cfa950d15/print/
Edit: Onfido lobbying again in EU over many years: https://www.lobbyfacts.eu/datacard/onfido?rid=193458043836-76&sid=157476
Edit: This is ID.me lobbying the US government, getting hang of the search (which isn't great) which is millions of dollars in identify verification lobbying. And just think of how much money is being spent behind the money they legally disclosed. Lots.
https://lda.senate.gov/filings/public/filing/search/?registrant=ID.me®istrant_country=®istrant_ppb_country=&client=&client_state=&client_country=&client_ppb_country=&house_id=&lobbyist=&lobbyist_covered_position=&lobbyist_conviction_disclosure=&lobbyist_conviction_date_range_from=&lobbyist_conviction_date_range_to=&report_period=&report_year=&report_dt_posted_from=&report_dt_posted_to=&report_amount_reported_min=&report_amount_reported_max=&report_filing_uuid=&report_house_doc_id=&report_issue_area_description=&affiliated_organization=&affiliated_organization_country=&foreign_entity=&foreign_entity_country=&foreign_entity_ppb_country=&foreign_entity_ownership_percentage_min=&foreign_entity_ownership_percentage_max=&search=search#js_searchFormTitle
Palantir
you mean the company that already has full access to government data?
Yes. It's got immense influence in government policy.
Ok so why do they need discord when they already have this information. Do you see what im getting at here?
This statement is what I'm disagreeing with. It just wrong.
These changes are going through because Palantir lobbied the government, or more specifically Peter Thiel. They have 34ish contracts with the government right now across MoD and NHS. One of the ID verification companies (Persona) is also his. This information drives the technologies he sells to the MoD for tracking individuals. Technology currently being used by ICE and in Gaza.
You're right, it's not about discord. It's about making databases of all living people on earth and how they interact with each other.
There's a number of MPs that have grave concerns about this relationship as well. https://youtu.be/cvDF7Z18Anc
You could argue that in a general sense government regulation goes against unfettered capitalism. Though in this age where personal information is a commodity, some might say this is being used as a pretense.
I think the argument that this is done to collect more personal info is stupid.
Did you miss the part where the change is global? It also applies where the government hasn't required it.
how does that change anything?