As a generational discord hater, this pleases me.
Potential alternatives:
Guilded
Element
Revolt
Telegram
Mumble
Session
Revolt is now Stoat
Guilded is dead
IRC :(
Is IRC still a thing? I havnt used it since 2006. I’d love to see it again
they don’t arrest child traffickers and rapists.
No no, it’s the child at fault for being at risk around them.
Hear me out. Maybe, if you are a parent, its your duty to keep an eye on your child, and exert some control over the spaces and people they interact with?
Conservatives have been using the “think of the children line” to justify Draconian overeach for years. All while simultaneously doing everything in their power to take away programs that help children.
Let’s not act like the dems don’t do some of the same shit.
And no I’m not both sidesing this shit…just saying that the dems/left uses this reasoning a lot as well.
Off the top of my head I can only think of Lieberman and honestly the ESRB was a reasonable compromise.
Minnesota recently used their tax on billionaires to expand education and provide free lunch to children so while the party isn’t perfect they are not at all comparable.
What makes them so similar is first pass the post I guarantees a two party system and the practice of your gerrymandering creating safe seats. The worst Democrats are the ones with the safest seats. If you want positive change start there.
political parties aren’t real. Their only purpose is market segmentation.
It doesn’t matter which teams win in sports, billionaires own all the leagues.
As a parent: 100% agree
And how do you , practically, do that?
Before the internet, parents could exert control by knowing where their children were physically going and who they were talking to over the phone.
Even in the '90s and 2000s, parents could control a child’s Internet use by limiting time on the family computer.
Nowadays? Just about every child has a tablet or phone. Even the ones who don’t have devices at home, or have their device use monitored at home, have access to school devices.
Exerting control over a child’s online activity now means monitoring everything they do on every device they have access to, including during the eight hours per day or so that they’re on devices for school work. No parent has time for that. And if the child is deliberately trying to hide some kind of illicit online activity, monitoring becomes an order of magnitude more difficult, because, again, children have access to their own devices, school devices, their friends’ devices, library devices, and dozens of other devices a parent may not even know about and has no ability to monitor.
I’m frankly horrified by the increasing requirements for real identity verification but let’s not pretend being a parent is the same as it was in the '70s.
You went to a school where they had no controls over what you could and couldn’t access?
My school was blocking harmful content on their computers when i was there in the mid to late 2000s.
When i got home i had something called CyberSitter on my computer in my room that sent logs of all my internet usage as reports to my dad.
It took me until 16 when i went out and bought my own computer with my own money before i had “unfettered” access to the internet.
Were these tools impenetrable fortresses? no, of course not. but they were a damn sight better than the ISP level blocks and legislating the “good” companies out of existence that the UK (and others) Government is currently engaged in.
Not that any of this is really about “protecting kids” anyway
And how do you , practically, do that?
By paying attention to your child.
Before the internet, parents could exert control by knowing where their children were physically going and who they were talking to over the phone.
Yes, by paying attention to their children.
Even in the '90s and 2000s, parents could control a child’s Internet use by limiting time on the family computer.
Yep, by paying attention to when the kid was on the computer and what they were doing on there.
Nowadays? Just about every child has a tablet or phone. Even the ones who don’t have devices at home, or have their device use monitored at home, have access to school devices.
If you give a child a tablet or phone, you should probably pay attention to what they are doing with it. You wouldn’t just give them a full tool box to play with unsupervised.
Exerting control over a child’s online activity now means monitoring everything they do on every device they have access to, including during the eight hours per day or so that they’re on devices for school work
Yep, by paying attention to the kid.
No parent has time for that.
Bullshit. You need to pay attention to your kids, that’s a basic fucking part of parenting.
And if the child is deliberately trying to hide some kind of illicit online activity, monitoring becomes an order of magnitude more difficult
Maybe you should pay attention to your kid and not let them have unsupervised access to the whole Internet until they are ready for it?
because, again, children have access to their own devices, school devices, their friends’ devices, library devices, and dozens of other devices a parent may not even know about and has no ability to monitor.
Actually, you do have an ability to monitor who your kid spends time with, and when. It’s called parenting.
I’m frankly horrified by the increasing requirements for real identity verification but let’s not pretend being a parent is the same as it was in the '70s.
Let’s not pretend that phones and the Internet only started existing in 2026 too. I was a child in the 90’s, during the real “Wild West” days of the internet. If anything, parents have more tools and controls over what their child can access in 2026 than they did in 2000. There weren’t “child” cellphone controls when I got my first phone. My dad didn’t give me one until I both needed it, and was mature enough to have it. The parental controls on my old Window 2000 machine were laughably easy to defeat. Do you know what kept me out of trouble though? My dad paid attention to when I used the computer, what I was doing on there, and how much I was doing it.
Either parent your kid, or don’t, but it is not my job to make sure your kid is coddled on the internet.
Devices given to children can be configured to restrict access to unwanted things. Obviously, school networks already are.
The only uncontrollable thing would be kids seeing things via friends with less observant parents, but that is not a new thing.
No, it’s the not the same but there are options you’re ignoring.
Exactly, how can you limit a child who knows internet and technology more than their parents? Like, if I was a child I don’t think they could limit me at all
Exactly, it’s basically impossible to control as a parent, but just blaming the parents is a simple solution for many. Everybody loves their easy solutions to complex issues: left, right and center.
It’s not impossible - parental controls can be used and school networks don’t HAVE to allow access to Porn Hub
By talking to your fucking kids lmao
Like, have a conversation with them. Treat them like a person, a real human being, with thoughts and feelings and basic decision making capabilities, instead of treating them like a wild animal that needs to be leashed.
Everyone immediately thinks “it’s impossible for parents to be aware of and block everything they don’t want their kids to look at on the Internet!”. But maybe the first step should just be talking to your kids about what you do/do not want then looking at on the Internet, and trusting that they’ll heed your warnings. Tight fisted control over what your kids can/can’t see on the Internet should be the last resort.
So are you for or against mass surveillance veiled as “child safety”?
Should be pretty evident from the comment.
I can’t help but see their comment as a joke. One can only hope
Absofucking- lutely!
My 12 year old has zero unsupervised access to the internet. Zero. “But they’ll suffer sociallly!”
Will they? My son has tons of friends and they play sports and Nerf guns. And, he can read. A whole chapter book, on his own, without prompting.
Suffer socially, ask the “incels” who have recovered if the internet access they had as teens “helped them socially”.
My nephew plays lots of on online games. My sister checks in with me to make sure that he is both playing games that are appropriate for him, and with people who are appropriate to play with. We’ve setup a discord specifically for him and his friends, and the account he uses is actually my sister’s account, on her own device, so she has direct control over what communities he’s on in discord, who he talks to, and what content he is exposed to.
He is not allowed to play public lobby games with out her supervision, or a trusted “chaperone” (one of many IRL friend and family members) being in the lobby with him. This is as much about protecting him from harmful content, as it is about teaching him proper gaming etiquette. He was showing some toxic behaviors (greifing mainly) and I shut that down pretty quick.
So they’re going to turn everybody into teenagers. Last I checked, teenagers can’t buy things like nitro right? Doesn’t that completely fuck up their own business model?
They must have come up with some sort of plan to merit losing some nitro users for harvesting personal information.
What’s wild to me is that I’m not on corporate social media, and the outrage has absolutely exploded on Mastodon and Lemmy. I wonder how bad it has gotten on the corporate media sites, because there’s no way the algorithm hasn’t noticed it.
It reminds me of when OnlyFans (stupidly) told us all they weren’t going to allow porn anymore, as if that wasn’t the core of their business.
I haven’t even heard about it on Discord itself.
Anecdotal obviously, but I’m not sure it’s a big news story on corporate media sites.
Huh, wow.
Could be I’m wrong.
It makes sense that it wouldn’t be story on corporate news sites though.
The EU has apparently decided that this has to be done by July 2026, so Discord may not have much of a choice and other platforms will likely follow:
I could be wrong I’m not a lawyer, assume everything I write from here is bullshit, but see here:
https://www.mlex.com/mlex/articles/2368265/online-services-get-up-to-12-months-to-apply-age-verification-eu-guidelines-say “Online services get up to 12 months to apply age verification, EU guidelines say” This was in July 2025.
EU guidelines in question seem to be: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/commission-publishes-guidelines-protection-minors + https://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/redirection/document/118226 Quotes:
“[…] the Union legislature enacted Article 28 of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 of the European Parliament and the Council (6). Paragraph 1 of this provision obliges providers of online platforms […] to ensure a high level of privacy, safety, and security of minors, […]”
“Self-declaration is not considered to be an appropriate age-assurance measure as further explained below.”
“In the following circumstances, […] the Commission considers the use of access restrictions supported by age verification methods an appropriate and proportionate measure to ensure a high level of privacy, safety, and security of minors: […] an online platform accessible to minors has identified risks to minors’ privacy, safety, or security, including content, conduct and consumer risks as well as contact risks (e.g., arising from features such as live chat, image/video sharing, anonymous messaging)”
“Age estimation methods can complement age verification technologies and can be used in addition to the former,” (AKA the alternative to a literal gov ID check seems to be big data AI sucking up all user data to estimate user age.)
The in my opinion horrible solution the EU seems to have found to avoid sharing the physical ID for services that don’t want to request one, is apparently this app: https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet/av-app-android-wallet-ui Which from what I can tell 1. it requires Google device attestation so all custom ROMs are out and to be a citizen you can apparently no longer own your device, 2. unless you use iOS or Android you’re apparently not a citizen, 3. once everyone is used to using some citizen app like that, I feel like a fascist government could easily tie it to a social score or other authoritarian measures bewyond the age verification. 4. There is a privacy friendly alternative approach anyway, that most governments seem to conveniently be ignoring: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/13/california-law-online-age-checks-00606115
Anyway, I’m not a lawyer and this isn’t legal advice. But spread the word, somehow press seems to be ignoring this.
Hi, it’s me your lawyer!
Here’s some legal advice for you: delete Discord, hit the gym, lawyer up.
This has been official legal advice from me, your official lawyer.
Peace!
I hit the gym and now i need to pay for damages this is not a good idea
Just say it was threatening you or something idk lol
The practice of making a “free” thing so you can whore your MAU numbers out to private equity to keep the lights on should be wholesale abolished.
I’m already making backups and deleting all the posts and DMs I made on discord. Yes I know they probably have everything backed up, but there is always a possibility that they lose that shit or don’t fully back up everything. I am not interesting in playing along with their bullshit.
Oh right, another account to delete.
If Gen Z had left Twitter when Musk ruined it this wouldn’t be happening.
If people didn’t leave Twitter when it became an unholy cestpool of alt-right propaganda, they have chosen to stay there because their audience is the alt-right.
Unfortunately this isn’t true. My GenZ niece is trans. Her and her friends believe they have to stay on there for “Reach” and for each other. They are now nearly 4 years into being brainwashed. She explained to me last year how activism was just a meme. (This was before the recent protests)
This platform has trans people believing that pronouns are why things broke down. This is not me using hyperbole, which I often do. Just is.
alt-right
Ah, haven’t heard that in a long time. 'Member when Nazis weren’t mainstream conservatives?
Please, pretty please, be the spark that will stop OSS projects from hosting their “support forums” on Discord.
It’s too bad the open source community couldn’t find some programmers to help them make an alternative.
As long as the alternative is not another chat app that is not indexable by search engines. Forums fill the role pretty well, I don’t understand why devs would use Discord in the first place.
Hear hear!
Matrix is an ok alternative to Discord for what Discord does.
Support forums are not an appropriate use of Discord, or of Matrix. Discourse is pretty great open source forum software. NodeBB forums even added ActivityPub support! I never particularly like when companies use Reddit as a primary communication method, and for the same reason I’d rather they didn’t use Lemmy or Piefed, but all of these are vastly better options than Discord, Matrix, or other un-indexable private chats.
As long as the alternative is not another chat app that is not indexable by search engines. F
For me this is the biggest probem about Discord and Discord alternatives why not just use Lemmy what’s the problem with Lemmy?
I wish it was only limited to support forums. I’ve even seen a Linux kernel driver where the Issues sections was closed and you should go to Discord instead. No thanks.
🤮
Who are the morons that keep making these decisions?
Several open source developers in this case
It’s horrible. We already had that stuff figured out. Wiki pages and forums to make information accessible even after 20 minutes have passed. Fuck that development and everyone that was/is pushing for that.
I deployed several docker containers using an image from this one guy. Later when I needed help with an image I realized the support is provided exclusively through a Discord server. To nobody’s surprise the guy is an asshole who shouldn’t interact with users.
Yes, thank you.
Many of the communities I am are pissed and these aren’t even tech people, this is even worse than what reddit did.The thing that most people online hate is age verification, who thought this was a good idea, reminds me of when Tumblr decided to ban porn same level of stupidity.
They for sure made the calculation, how many leave maybe 10-20% if we are lucky. How many stay and give them the right to sell their most sensitive data. How much money do they make with the data? Its more than they lose for sure.
It’s all about abuse.
Companies get too big for their britches and are accustomed to doing whatever they want with their sheep just going along.
I’m sure they’re very surprised to see any kind of significant backlash.
They, like some political parties across the west, are arrogant in thinking people have no other choice. They’ve consolidated it all down into a few options, buying out their rivals, or crushing them legally, and or using anti competitive behavior to hurt them, that’s against the law but not enforced because plutocracy, and think we have no other options, the other option is worse, so they can continually get worse and not lose market share, because what are you going to do?
You can start your own websites, they will use the law and courts to try and crush them. They will lean on isp’s to strangle the traffic, get hosting sites to refuse to host them, they will lean on credit card processors to not process transactions for them. Maybe manufacture a terrorist connection to justify personally going after anyone involved in the website or it’s operation.
There is no limit to the caprice of these entrenched interests where we are headed, with an openly corrupt government; openly sold out courts with contempt for the constitution and ancient rights of English Common Law countries, open contempt for their citizen charges seeking redress from powerful interests abusing them; an executive branch that is all but openly harvesting protection money, payoffs, and bidding off regulatory actions, bidding off laws and executive orders and justice department investigations, and setting the federal government up like a political machine from a century prior, where everybody pays and the boss gets a cut of everything. Like boss tweed or something, I don’t know what we’d expect with a mobbed up blackmailing and blackmailed real estate baron from New York City that’s been involved in over 10k court cases and never once paid any real price for cheating everyone he’s done business with that couldn’t hurt him and slandered them to justify it.
We could go on with the corruption bit, but point being, any new sites that start to get critical mass need to be set up in a way that they can’t strangle traffic off on them, and that they cannot take down the whole unit for allegations of criminality in any part of it. Easy enough for them to set up a fake terror account, wire money from here to terror there, and then take the entire thing down. To sanction everyone involved. The federation bit could help limit the liability and prevent a lot of that maybe. But we need our own infrastructures. We need our own internets. We should be setting up community cooperative internets everywhere. There is no reason we should pay two companies trillions of dollars to provide internet poorly and spy on us in the process, when hundreds of billions could provide ourselves internet at cost under a less intrusive nature.
How to kill your company 101
For someone that used discord only for video chat and the chat sidebar for D&D since we have players in person and a couple in other states, what would you all recommend?
Should we just switch to Zoom or something?
Matrix would be great for that. You just need a single room for that sort of thing, and the video support is pretty great.
Matrix came preinstalled with mint, so I am learning that now.
This is where I’m leaning. I tried Matrix years ago and just couldn’t get my brain around it, but it looks like it’s time to revisit it.
My understanding is that if your community is not adult content and you aren’t on any adult servers, you won’t need to ID verify. But I suspect it’s only a matter of time before all accounts are required to verify.
Discord has more breaches than my wallet how can i even trust these. Clearly, i won’t.
