After some heavy controversy and arguments with the internet writ large, Discord is now trying to fulfil legal obligations to roll out age verification systems that snoop on you as little as possible. How so? Well, with an "age estimation model" that tries to figure out how old you are, which I'm sure will put everyone at ease.
"Our age group estimation model looks at patterns of account behaviour on Discord. It does not look at your messages, calls, or other content. For example, the way a typical teen uses Discord will look different in aggregate from how a typical 30-year-old uses Discord. Our model has learned these patterns and uses them to estimate whether a given account most likely belongs to an adult (18+) or a teen (13-17)."
"Specifically, the age group estimation model looks at factors such as the communities, servers, and games you're connected to, general activity levels, such as how many channels or servers you're active in, and account history, such as how old your account is."
How did we get here?
- Back on February 9 of this year, Discord announced it'd be locking you into a "teen-appropriate experience" if you didn't verify your age.
- Notably, this still had an "age inference system" similar to what Discord is proposing now.
- In February 13, it emerged that the rollout had ties to Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel via Persona.
- By February 24, Discord had delayed its verification rollout, and also revealed that Persona didn't meet the bar for its privacy concerns.
- September 22 (earlier this week), Discord tries again.
Discord sounds pretty confident with its numbers: "We believe meeting age requirements shouldn’t require ID checks or selfies for everyone. We'd prefer to give you more choices, including less intrusive options that don't require biometrics or sensitive personal data. That’s why we built an age estimation model based on account signals to determine your age group. Because of it, more than 90% of you will not be asked to confirm your age."
But whether or not that 90% brag is any small consolation to those concerned about their privacy is a different story. Here in the UK, we've already felt the tightening noose of online safety laws and let me tell you, it's a mess—while the hope of keeping kids safe is noble, mostly just led to easily-bypassed checks and more of a third-party company asking me to open my mouth on webcam.
