The Age Gate Nobody Asked For

ICYMI somehow – maybe you’ve been living under a non-Discord-shaped rock – there’s been a TON of drama surrounding the voice and chat platform over the past week and change.

On February 9th, Discord announced it would be launching Teen-by-Default settings globally, beginning a phased rollout in March. Users “may be required to engage in an age assurance process to change certain settings or access sensitive content.” That includes age-restricted channels, servers, commands, and select message requests.
(Also, weirdly, “Only age-assured adults may speak on stage in servers” ?? Who the fuck is even using stage? I’ve never touched one. Anyway!)

They also mentioned that users can choose to use facial age estimation or submit a form of identification to vendor partners, with more options coming in the future. On top of that, Discord is implementing an age inference model: a background system designed to determine whether an account belongs to an adult, without always requiring verification. Some users may be asked to use multiple methods if more information is needed to assign an age group.

That yellow arrow bit will be a bit important later. Yes, btw, this is the same Discord that, back in October 2025, disclosed that ID images of roughly 70,000 users “may have had government-ID photos exposed” in a breach involving a third-party service they entrusted to manage that data. So this is prolly not the best time to ask for shit when you’ve literally just proven you cannot handle it responsibly.

Sad to say, though, speaking as an American (unfortunately), data breaches have kinda become part and parcel of daily life. There isn’t a day that goes by without someone getting an email about their personal information being exposed, hacked, sold, or otherwise flung into the void. We’re numb to it at this point. (That being said, use masked emails with responsible providers, freeze your credit, use a password app like 1Password, and…wtf am I, your dad? Go look this shit up yourself!)

Now, to be fair, this age-gating stuff isn’t new! Politicians in various countries have been going after porn sites for years, requiring age verification and, in some cases, blocking sites entirely over compliance disputes. (Or crying when the porn sites cancel themselves out of a particular state or country.)

There’s a growing regulatory mood of JUST THINK OF THE CHILDREN, and it’s not limited to explicit content anymore. (Again, hi, American here, people in this country are being uber special and applying “adult or explicit” content to all sorts of dumb shit lately. Actually, Rogue has a great piece that touches on that stuff AND the Discord stuff, so read it here.)

Now, for one of those random topic leaps that Hashtag old-timers are used to, maybe.

I watched a documentary (Netflix? that sounds right) called Unknown Number.
GIANT SPOILER IF YOU HAVEN’T FOLLOWED THE CASE OR WATCHED THE DOCUMENTARY.

A mother was anonymously harassing her own daughter: telling her to kill herself, trying to sabotage her relationship, psychologically wrecking her. It didn’t involve Discord. It didn’t require the internet at all! It was just a mom fucking over her kid’s life in some small town. Human dysfunction doesn’t need a digital platform to exist. People were snatching kids in ubiquitous white vans long before parents told us that every person in that AOL chat room was a rapist. (Or an FBI agent.)

So this whole ID thing…harassment, abuse, exploitation, and cruelty don’t vanish once someone uploads a driver’s license. (Or becomes famous, or becomes a politician, or…)
Which, btw, I’m terrible at Gen X, Gen Z, Gen Whatever, but are we at the point of life/tech/generational experience where the people making these rules and laws have never heard of a fake ID??? (Memorizing my fake address on my fake ID was the most annoying part of having one, fucking Buffalo and their fucking awkward town names.)
If your “age technology” is being fooled by camera modes from popular games or simply by folks creating workarounds, what’s the fucking point?

This is probably why I tend to prefer paying for products when I can. When something is free, you’re usually the product. Free platforms depend on growth, ad revenue, regulatory optics, and risk management. When governments start applying pressure – and laws, and rattling their dicks- platforms tend to fall in line and adapt. They’re protecting their profits – off your info- and their board members plus their own asses. Your needs or safety don’t enter the equation.

Steam hosts adult games. Patreon hosts explicit creators. Reddit already gates certain communities. (And Reddit, btw, already requires age verification in the UK.) Do we eventually see ID checks to buy certain games? Subscribe to certain creators? PLUS. The annoyance/danger isn’t just on one side of the equation, btw, because you also have to look at the entities gathering the information – or bankrolling it.

To quote that Rogue article:

Remember that yellow arrow bit I pointed out in the Discord announcement? Yea, that was before news broke that showed that part wasn’t quite true, with publications like Eurogamer posting “Discord advises UK users that they “may be part of an experiment” where instead of their age verification data never leaving their phone, it will now actually leave their phone.”

Also pointing out, again;

And again, for Americans, let’s not forget recent news, according to reporting conducted by the New York Times (strangely doing some actual news, lately), that “the Department of Homeland Security is issuing hundreds of subpoenas to the largest social media companies, including Google, Meta (Facebook and Instagram), Discord and Reddit, seeking to learn the personal information behind accounts that have either criticized ICE or alerted the general public to the locations of ICE agents.” (Read about it here, without a paywall.)

Not only is normalizing identity verification as a routine part of accessing communication platforms absolute bugfuck bonkers (times like this I really miss AIM, great forums, and more) – but in a time when crazy shit is happening, the last thing we need is to lose access to the tools and platforms that DO let us communicate and convey information or news.

So. What’s the plan?
I’m going to sit tight and see how this shakes out.

Discord hosts over 200 million unique users every month. It’s gone beyond where you keep in touch with friends, clan mates, guildies, and creators. It’s a marketing tool. A dev tool. A community hub. A QA sandbox. A place to meet your wife, even though you technically met her in World of Warcraft, you still hung out in Discord for a year. It’s a place to test ideas in real time. It’s pretty deeply ingrained in gaming/peoples lives at this point, and for some of us, that makes it hard to just unravel overnight.

I know some folks are flying the “we can go back to greener pastures” flag, and that’s a very nice sentiment, but I’m not sure it’s grounded in reality. We moved on from Ventrilo, Mumble, TeamSpeak (and more) for two important reasons.

One: they didn’t do everything Discord does. If we’re sticking to free products, that already limits finding a one-to-one replacement. (Again, I have no problem paying for something, but you will find a smaller parcel of folks wanting to do that when it comes to gamers.)

Two – and far more important – everyone isn’t there.

Putting aside, for a moment, the entire “I hate Discord, I’ve never used it, you can’t make me, I’ll die on this hill” crowd – and I know you fuckers are out there! (Lovingly, obviously.) I run game communities. I’ve read your rants across many a Steam forum!

But a communication tool is only useful if the people you want to communicate with are actually on it. News at 11. Maybe you can get your immediate 20-person (look at me, aiming high) friend group to move to Stoat.chat, or Root App, or Fluxer or whichever open-source savior app is promising to fix everything. (Some of them are, by the way, already experiencing issues under the load from the relatively small audience peeling off Discord right now. And, since I am not a tech blog and do not have infinite free time, let’s not even get into the weeds about these apps growing ,taking on questionable investors, ending up subject to the same laws – and choosing the same solutions- as Reddit/Discord, etc.)

As a voice of experience, it’s already hard to get people onto Discord when Discord is basically the one voice/chat platform everyone uses. (It’s also hard to get them on newsletters, on a specific social platform, etc. Herding cats is way easier.)

Imagine this: of the ten games you follow, one dev is on one app, another dev is on a different one, another community is somewhere else entirely. Now you need twelve separate applications just to keep up with your hobby. Which, again, is DoA. A digital exodus is not as simple as “Oh hay everyone, let’s move!” Look at the platforms that flourished, struggled, or flat-out died after the Twitter migration circus. I have BlueSky AND Threads and I don’t know when I last checked them, lol.

So. Me. I’m landing somewhere in the middle, for now. I’m not handing over my ID. But I’m also not rage-deleting my account and sprinting into the arms of the first alternative that pops up unless it can actually meet my needs. (Also, I am really curious how Discord’s magic tool whatever categorizes my account. Maybe it’ll short circuit. “He looks 12, but he curses like a 60 year old sailor!?!”)

Also, and cover your ears if this upsets you, but this needs to be said.

Before you spam Discord threads, comment sections, and social feeds about how you’re done, furious, and taking a stand, you better have actually fucking voted.

Again, speaking as an American: too many people don’t exercise that right. I’m talking about the folks who “just aren’t interested” and “think it doesn’t impact them.” That disinterest is exactly how unqualified idiots end up in positions to pass broad, sloppy, reactionary legislation that trickles down into stuff like this!

If you didn’t vote, you’re just as much part of the problem as the people drafting this garbage.

Actually, you’re worse.

They’re fucking us over for money.

And you’re getting fucked for free.