Following the backlash, Discord will delay age verification changes to its platform

In a Long blog post From CTO and co-founder Stanislav Vishnevskiy, Discord announced that it will delay and improve changes to the way the company handles content and communications for younger users, including adding age verification features.

Earlier this month, a real-time chat and message board service was launched It announced that it would default All user accounts are set up as teenagers. This will restrict access to adult-oriented servers and restrict some content and communications to accounts that are not already automatically detected as adult or have their age manually verified by Discord users.

Vishnevsky admitted that the company’s plan was not communicated clearly, which led to this Huge backlash. He said many people think everyone will be asked to scan their faces and upload their government ID cards to verify their age.

“That’s not what’s happening, but the fact that so many people believe it tells us that we’re failing in our primary task: clearly explaining what we’re doing and why we’re doing it,” Vishnevsky said. “This is on us… We made mistakes.”

The changes, which will still include age verification options, will now be rolled out globally in “the second half of 2026,” according to the post.

the Backlash over planned changes to Discord It prompted some people on social media to post an announcement that they were canceling their subscriptions to Nitro, Discord’s paid add-on service, or leaving the service entirely. Find an alternative.

Two differences

Vishnevskiy also addressed two controversial aspects of the changes: Discord’s plan to use Persona as an age verification service, and announcing the changes only a few months after Data breach involving user data.

Vishnevskiy said Discord will no longer cooperate with Persona, the company that works with Reddit and Roblox. Accused of monitoring user data. a personality He denied it It has relationships with federal agencies and says it does not sell or share personal data.

“In January, we conducted limited testing with Persona only in the UK,” Vishnevsky said. “After completing testing, we decided not to move forward with them, and in line with our privacy policy, all data was deleted after verification was completed.”

Discord is improving how it estimates users’ ages, using factors like how long someone has been on the platform, Vishnevskiy said. The company’s “new bar” for age estimation is to conduct all aspects of age verification on the same device, so that a user’s biometric data never leaves their phone.

Regarding the security incident, Discord said it happened severing ties with the relevant seller, 5CA, It will be more transparent with customers in the future.

“To be clear, we do not use this vendor for a lifetime guarantee,” Vishnevsky said. “In fact, we no longer work with them at all, and we have taken the lessons learned from that incident very seriously.”