piefed.eeDiscord faces backlash over age checks after data breach exposed 70,000 IDs
Chris Remingtonarstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/discord-fac…
30 Comments
Comments from other communities
They expect to lose a few users but will work hard to get users back?
No. Once I’m gone, I’m gone. Account deleted. You are not getting me back. Trust broken. Thank your dumbass shareholders for forcing you to do this shit
It’s okay. People who don’t care will keep paying and keep staying.
And the same people will be even more likely to continue buying or to buy new things.
I’m in the process of switching my two communities to Matrix. It’s not bad from a user point of view, but running your own server is such an enormous pain in the ass. Like, way harder than it should be.
Mind elaborating a little? I have one community to switch but haven’t started at all yet.
If you set up your community on an existing server, like Matrix.org, it’ll be really easy. And it’s pretty easy to join as an end user.
But if you have your own domain, and you want to host your own Matrix server (mine is matrix.port87.help), be prepared to spend at least a day trying to get everything to work. There are six different services you need to run:
- synapse
- postgres
- element
- coturn
- jwt
- livekit
And there’s no guide for just setting up everything easily. You have to follow several different guides that sometimes have conflicting information. Not all the guides are exactly comprehensive, too, so be prepared to read a lot of documentation. You’ll also need to forward a bunch of ports, and then a port range (thousands of ports, for coturn).
It’s very easy to mess something up, and sometimes it’s very hard to tell. For example, I was running federation on 8448, like you’re supposed to, but my server was advertising that federation was on 443. This caused some rooms on other servers to be unjoinable. It gave me a cryptic error message about it, and I had to read through a few Stack Overflow posts and GitHub issues to finally figure it out.
Synapse will complain about Postgres’ collation and encoding, and that’s quite difficult to fix. You have to add some arguments to the startup command to force the right encoding.
Synapse will also log fucking everything, so make sure to set log level to “ERROR”.
None of this is meant to scare you away from running your own Matrix server. If you want help, I’d even be willing to zip up all my docker compose files and send them to you. This is more meant to indicate that the Matrix team should focus on making this process easier.
Whoa, ok thanks I appreciate the warning and details! I’ll try the existing server route first then. My friend has a domain name we could use but it’s not that important.
An open source project that’s easy to understand and use the sun. Will devour the Earth before that happens.
Open source is great, but first and foremost it is unfortunately designed by coders and engineers, not user interface, designers and artists.
In 20 years of self-hosting servers, apps and fiddling with things, I think I’ve come across maybe two programs ever that I could call easy to set up and use from an admin perspective.
Such things just don’t exist
There are plenty of easy to set up open source servers. I use a bunch of them. Here’s a few that come to mind:
- jellyseerr
- navidrome
- jswiki
- homeassistant
- docmost
- rustdesk
Those are all ones that only require three or fewer services in a Docker Compose stack. And the docker-compose.yml files are short and easy to understand.
There are plenty that are hard to set up, like:
- jellyfin
- nextcloud
- wordpress
- immich
- mastodon
I’ve installed all of these, and they were not as straightforward, but not too bad.
Matrix is the only one that has taken me more than a day. And I couldn’t even get everything working. Element Call still doesn’t work after trying to set it up for two days.
There is a lot of variance in how difficult these servers are to set up, but Matrix stands alone as the absolute hardest, most convoluted setup process I’ve ever experienced.
What is the reason you pick Synapse for the backend?
Aren’t there simpler to use implementations?
It’s the most popular one by a huge margin, and it’s the reference implementation from the protocol devs.
eliSucks that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all alternative, yet.
Stoat doesn’t have enough features.
Matrix is confusing for the masses, plus there is so much conflicting information online of what home server do you join? You shouldn’t join matrix.org’s because of admin abuse? Element clients on mobile are meh.
TeamSpeak is a voice first platform.
For my situation it looks like I should move my wife and I to Signal and then my friend group to Stoat, but the recent server issues(prob due to influx of new users) has caused a bit of my friends to have a sour taste out of the gate…
Nothing is ready to replace Discord IMO. And that sucks. We need dedicated forums again, more wiki servers, and better chat applications.
RouthinatorWe interacted on the internet for years without discord.
It is far from essential.
True, we all also interacted in the real world for years before the internet.
So the Internet is also non-essential!
But, it makes it convenient. Discord is also super convenient.
It’s not like we didn’t see the writing on the wall 10 years ago, but all of us accepted convenience over everything else. Now we are reaping the “benefits”.
For me I have a private self hosted wiki that I use to document everything from gaming to my servers to just general life stuff. I’d love to start up a forum for gaming/tech, but I don’t have the resources nor funding to do that, plus there’s a decent amount of others already out there…
If you don’t need voice, there are a lot of options. Matrix has IRC support and encryption, and has voice options if you self host.
Riot is… A Discord clone without working voice and I found it to be an odd duck.
There’s RocketChat.. More Slack like.
Mattermost.
I replaced my voice/video chats with Nextcloud Talk and/or Steam, based on the scenario. Outside of those, Matrix is good for community needs in my mind.
There was a post here yesterday about a matrix frontend that looks like discord called cannonball. im’a try to get my cousin and his Minecraft friends on that.
I’ll have to try that. I saw Comet, but getting some errors and slowness compared to Element (classic)
Done!
Just deleted my Discord account!
Good riddance…
PyrSame, I was disappointed though that they never asked for a reason why
FredselfishYeah me too. Wanted to give peice of my mind. They did send email saying I have until 14th to change my mind. Fucking A didn’t even delete it like asked them to do.
Did so yesterday morning fuck Discord. Been using it for at least 10 years. Now this.
LaunchesKayaksWOW. So Discord was already hacked back in October. I thought that as of yet, it was just a hypothetical. Yeah…I’m leaving Discord.
The issue I see here is alot of people have friends… Solve the discord problem by getting rid of them.
/s
If you’re willing to use discord just use zoom or Google for video/screen sharing it’s all going into the same database anyways.
They expect to lose a few users but will work hard to get users back?
No. Once I’m gone, I’m gone. Account deleted. You are not getting me back. Trust broken. Thank your dumbass shareholders for forcing you to do this shit
They’re a fucking chat app… They can be replaced in like a weekend. What is the gaming community’s fascination with Discord? I’ve used it a little and it felt like MS Teams to me…
I watched discord take over, in my opinion they “won” over other chat apps because they were easier to get started than team speak or mumble, and better than skype. These days they have the network effect working for them. Sure you can easily replace a chat app in a weekend, but convincing everyone who you play games with to install a new chat app is a lot harder.
Team speak and mumble also looked ancient compared to Discord. Also, easy bot support surely didn’t hold it back; though I am not sure to what degree team speak and mumble offer easy integration.
Why add age checks?
I’ve read this from several sources now and not found anywhere that explains why they’re doing this. Are they being threatened with legal action?
tinfoil hat on: discord is a company based in the USA, the USA administration saw those teenagers in Nepal supposedly organise a revolt/revolution over discord, sees the inhabitants of Minneapolis organizing against ICE on Signal, and wants to preemptively know which of their citizens are using discord with which accounts in case any of them start organizing on discord.
BrikoXOpen source your code and then you will have a leg to stand on about trust. Right now it’s just “trust me bro” when you have proven record of being lying piece of shit.
That wouldnt even help much. The issue is them being in control of the servers and that its not e2ee. Even if the client is open source, they still get all the data and control.
If their claims are true then it would help. They claim that they process everything locally and only sends the check to the server. But again, there is literally no reason to trust any word they say without being able to verify it ourselves. Proprietary systems should never be used for this.
Also their liability avoidance doesn’t inspire confidence. Discord outsources the liability to k-ID and k-ID outsourced the liability to Privately.
Im talking about message content, images, contact networks, behavioural patterns, etc.
All that can be inferred from just the serverside data even if the client sends only whats necessary.
This whole ID thing is just the tip of the iceberg. People are just blind to all the spying that happens without them noticing.
That goes without question, but my comment was directed at ID services, not Discord itself.
I’m in the process of switching my two communities to Matrix. It’s not bad from a user point of view, but running your own server is such an enormous pain in the ass. Like, way harder than it should be.
You mean actually hosting a matrix server, like a Docker instance or something, or do you mean having a room (channel? Topic?) on a public matrix server?
I’ve never done either. Is it even possible to have a private room on a public server?
Is it even possible to have a private room on a public server?
certainly
I mean actually hosting a Matrix server. Like, on my own hardware. It’s very difficult to set up. Especially if you want audio/video.
I’ve been struggling to accomplish this, and I’m familiar with self hosting. It’s brutal. But now that discord has shit the bed (even more) I think I can finally convince my friends to move to it, so I’m taking another crack at a matrix/element server
I’m checking out Stoat, and its giving me infinite captchas. Its not fake or something, right?
mintiefreshI have used Stoat for awhile. It works. I think they’ve been bombarded with new signups so it’s kind of taking their system down. But hopefully they get back up and running. It’s a great opportunity for them right now.
Good to hear; I like their vibe. I wish it would have errored out instead of fucking with me, but thats tech for you lol. Sitting in the infinite captcha queue, I still feel more respected than I do every time I open discord lol.
The Discord news is hugging them to death. If you get past the captchas the email verification takes 24h to arrive and is expired when it does. It’s fine. I’m patient.
SoapboxI had the same issue the other day when I tried to check it out. I think they don’t like VPNs.
Welcome to Lemmy, where there are easy open alternatives that don’t actually work or need 300 lines of new code weekly.
Good thing is that it made me remember I had Nitro on autopay from 4 years ago. Been meaning to cancel it for years and the reminder was much appreciated.
you should check your bank statements, and cancel some more subscriptions you forgot.
heck, check your statements almost monthly. you’d be shocked at the silly little things that appear that you forgot about and you’ll suddenly have more money not tied up with useless things that you don’t even use. :)
rogsson
Sunshine (she/her)The vendor they’re using for the id checks is called K-ID based in Singapore.
Oh hey, the obvious thing we all knew was going to happen, happened.
Can’t wait for absolutely nothing to be done to prevent this from happening again, especially as they push to make this mandatory for all users…
I’ve used it a couple times, what a dumpster fire of an app.
Walked away years ago and refused to use it since.
Same. It looks like it was made for one thing, with parts added over time to add functionality. If you were there from the start, using it regularly, it would be fine, but to jump in now…
The original discord design for sharing text and voice and video between gamers in a reasonably sized group were great!
Trying to scale that up and adding monetization features are what is running it into the ground.
I sure hope this is the end of Discord. Maybe only 10% of people will rage quit rather than show their ID, but if every group has one in 10 people they invite say “nah, that’s not happening” and everyone has to admit they’re probably in the right, it might make some difference.
“Nevermind the man behind the curtain folks, because it’s a different man this time around!’
Deleted by author
I thought this comment was going too far when you felt the need to mention they were from Israel, as though merely being born in a country is grounds to hate someone. But Jesus Christ, this is a hell of a lot of assumptions to make based solely on an individual’s nationality.
I hate Israel’s genocidal government as much as the next guy, but this is just racism.
Edit: Author has retracted and apologized. Good on them.
Deleted by author
I’m trying to be as charitable as possible, but I’d like you to provide a source for this assertion that Sakhnini has some connection to Israeli intelligence or the Israeli government besides being from Israel, otherwise your comments will be removed.
I’m sorry. I was angry with the current decisions, and haven’t been as careful as usual with verifying my sources.
I still believe that nothing good will come of this, but I cannot prove that nationality will have anything to do with it.
I have deleted my own comments, and will be more careful next time to avoid spreading rumor and misinformation.
Hey, I appreciate your response. I totally get the anger, and I can see lots of possible ways that this wave of age verification policies could bite folks in the ass. Thanks for being reasonable, I hope you have a great day.
Perfectly valid to be angry about Discord’s current behavior, as it’s absolutely terrible. I already cancelled my Nitro over this and am actively taking steps to be prepared to leave the whole thing if needed.
Consequently, it’s worth mentioning that I don’t actually have any faith whatsoever in Discord’s current CEO. It’s just important to make sure that when we hate Israel’s treatment of Palestine, we don’t end up slipping into bigotry towards people just for being from the country and nothing more. Not every Israeli likes Israel’s actions. Plenty of teens have chosen prison over IDF draft, for example.
With regard to that, then: I appreciate the self-awareness and de-escalation. Not easy to do, but always good to see. Thanks for that.
I will never give them my ID.
I suppose the next question is where will everyone go? If they wanted to keep kids safe this ain’t it because they’ll go somewhere else anyways. So it’s a lose/lose for everyone.
Possibly a win for companies if they want to harvest data/sell it.
time to go back to Xfire, i guess.
Shit, I forgot avout Xfire. Mumble and Teamspeak are still going too
yeah i actually just discovered this revival right before posting my comment. It’s really neat! Xfire and Discord are always linked in my mind, because i literally first installed Discord because my friends were moving over from Xfire. These days, Steam Chat can do almost everything that Xfire did, so there isn’t REALLY a reason for it to exist. But i love seein that ancient UI.
I had like 2 friends back in my CS 1.6 days that insisted on Xfire, but I paid for a Mumble server shortly after that. Might self host one again…
Xfire was the shit. Messenging while gaming? Automatic game status set? Absolute mind blowing
Uh…anywhere? There are plenty of alternatives that are less bloated and less shitty and faster.
I honestly don’t even know why people use it.
The only times I’ve ever used Discord are for things that really should have been on a forum, issue tracker, or something like a lemmy community in the first place.
I hope this causes a return to sanity, but I’m not holding my breath.
Ima be honest here. The last messaging service I used was Facebook back in 2012 prior to discord. And prior to Facebook was MSN messenger lol I really just don’t know what’s available. I’ll have to go do some reading
IRC is still alive and well, team speak for voice chats. Hell, Nextcloud even has these, as well as video calls.
XMPP
Count me in as one of the people who quits Discord over this. For my use case which is gaming with my friends we may as well just use Telegram for voice chat plus screen sharing.
Haha haha haha haha haha
Uh, didn’t they say the scanning happens locally on your phone?
Different age check case
So, after reading several sources on this, it sounds like it’s going to be harder to access furry hentai, which one shouldn’t be doing on Discord in the first place.
That has never been a private space. You want E2EE for anything spicy.
Until this comes for every porn platform
Don’t think this can’t happen to you normies. Once the weirdos are dealt with you’re next!