Less than 10% of users are expected to be affected
In his message, Stanislav Vishnevskiy explains that the management of the company based in San Francisco (California) expected that the announcement made a few weeks ago “stirs up controversy” but he also recognizes that he was its responsibility to “provide more detail about its intentions and how the process will work” to the publicand in particular to those fearing that this is yet another action aimed at collecting ever more personal data. Here is how he decided to reformulate the firm’s objectives behind these upcoming changes:
“Our goal is simple: to preserve the Discord experience for the vast majority of users, while ensuring it is suitable for all ages. Over 90% of users will never need to verify their age to continue using Discord like they do today. This is made possible thanks to our internal security systems which are able to determine the age of many adult users without their intervention. […] The number of teens on Discord has increased significantly since the pandemic and they deserve an age-appropriate experience. At the same time, we believe that adults should be able to take full advantage of Discord. To do this responsibly, it is essential to put safeguards in place to ensure that adult content remains accessible only to adults. But the terms of age verification are currently defined according to the legislation in force in each State and country. By developing our own system, we will be able to demonstrate to the authorities that it is possible to verify age without collecting personal information. »
The technical director and co-founder of Discord continues his argument as follows:
“For over 90% of users, nothing will change because most never access adult content or change their default security settings. For those who do, we have an internal system that accurately determines your age. Discord already uses features that spot spam, prevent raids, and detect coordinated abuse through its “rules/moderation engine” […]. Age determination works the same way, using the same types of signals such as how old your account is, whether you have a payment method stored on it, the types of servers you visit, and your usual activities. The system does not read your messages, analyze your conversations, or look at the content you post. We know that the simple phrase “Trust us” is not enough, which is why we will publish the operating methodology of this system before its international deployment. If you are among the fewer than 10% of users who will be affected by these changes, we will offer you options designed to tell us only your age, without ever revealing your identity. And if you choose not to verify your age, here’s what exactly will happen: you’ll keep your account, servers, friends list, private messages, and voice chat. The only thing that will change is that you will no longer be able to access adult content, or change certain default security settings designed to protect teenagers from this type of content. »
Working with third-party providers, yes, but not just any third-party providers
Stanislav Vishnevskiy also returned to the case where this future device would not be able to verify the age of a small minority of users who would like to access adult content, admitting among other things that it will be necessary “propose alternatives” in these circumstances. And by that, he confirms that it means having to collaborate with external companies.
However, he tries to be reassuring on this aspect by specifying that the victim of a hack last October will not be part of the list with which Discord will work. In addition, official documentation allowing us to know the identity of these firms and their data collection and processing methods will be publicly accessible later on the official website of the social network.
“In order to maintain the confidentiality of your personal information, we will work with third-party providers who handle age verification and will only provide us with your age range. The principle is simple: we do not want to know who you are. We just need to know if you are an adult. And it works both ways, a provider has no way of associating your identity with your Discord account. It’s intentional. We know that many of you are skeptical about our management of partnerships and last year’s security incident has only fueled these doubts. To be clear, we do not use the relevant company for age verification. In fact, we even stopped all collaboration with her and seriously learned lessons from this incident. Each service provider we work with will be audited before any integration. This will include contractual limits on the use of data, as well as strict requirements for data retention and deletion. Information submitted for age verification will only be retained for the minimum period necessary, which in most cases means it will be deleted immediately. If a service provider does not meet these requests, we will end our collaboration. »
In conclusion, Stanislav Vishnevskiy therefore declares that the deployment of this new system for verifying the age of Discord users was pushed back to the second half of 2026 and the precise date on which it will be carried out will only be revealed when the Californian company considers that it has ensured that it has done what is necessary in terms of alternatives and transparency upstream. If we cannot blame him for having taken the time to choose his words carefully to achieve this beautiful “damage control”, it remains to be seen how they will take concrete form in the coming months and whether the public’s fears will have really been heard or not. To be continued…