Discord is requiring everyone from all over the world to verify their age if they want to access age-restricted channels, disabling message scanning and having complete access to other features.

Discord has already had their age verification provider hacked:

• https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/09/discord-suffers-data-breach-impacting-at-least-70000-users/
  
• https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hackers-claim-discord-breach-exposed-data-of-55-million-users/
  

I'm interested to hear if people want to move to alternative chat platforms.

I'm kind of interested in Element chat or using a self-hosted Stoat chat instance as an alternative.

Data breaches everywhere, and support age-restriction

^ Even if it is well-intended, the way about it is terrible. Should really be supporting parents through the use of service-provided controls and education, instead of choosing data privacy and security over feature/service access. Could use on-device controls like iOS's "Screen Time" feature that restricts what type of content can be viewed and which apps can be installed. Admin password is generally fine for installing apps on desktop. In router settings, you can choose what types of websites can be viewed. None of those methods require submitting personal sensitive data. The risk of submitting personal sensitive details puts everyone more at risk of real harm, through hacks or selling of information. Algorithm changes have already been forced, which actually make services safer for everyone. Age verification isn't needed for algorithm changes.

Real-life in-person actions need to be sorted first. (I'm not sure if specific examples are allowed due to advertiser rules that the site enforces.)

The alternatives that I mentioned aren't currently subject to the "safety" rules because of being much less used, so less regulated.

well I won't give discord a scan of my face even if it requires me to, but I also use discord to speak to most of my friends so like I wouldn't be able to talk to them in a group chat
The issue is that I don't think half my friends care enough to migrate to something else..... just another chapter of the internet slowly trying to make everyone more lonely.

for discord alternatives, I see a lot of people saying team speak would be a good alternative but I don't really know anything about it.
I think steam's chat system is kind of underrated for a discord alternative, I think its kind of trustworthy. Free, well known, private company, most people have it
The downside to this is that steam isn't exactly built around its chat system so there's probably some features you miss out on and there isn't any great ways to chat with a large amount of people like you have with discord servers (not exactly a problem for me since I only really use discord servers to get updates on video games)
I also see a lot of people saying that telegram is great, but again I don't really know what there is to it, plus I kind of associate that app with illegal activity

@halloweenLights: You are fine.

Also for the selfie age verification, there is no data sent at all over the internet but it is done via locally running AI.

Personally I wonder if Discord is smart enough to not bother me since my account is like almost 10 years old and the minimum signup age is 13.

I don't see why Telegram should be preferred over something like Signal or even WhatsApp though. Telegram tries to be more private with E2EE on private messages if manually configured, but the same level of privacy doesn't exist on group messages. Discord and Stoat aren't end-to-end encrypted either, but there's only a certain number of people you can invite to a group for something to be kept a secret, regardless of technical implementation.

I know of Team Speak. Was the go-to platform before Discord. I've never personally used it. It was like an alternative to Skype back in the day.

I think the issue with Steam chat is it should only be used for IRL friends, rather than anyone on the internet. Imo, Steam chat makes sense for Steam games, but not so much for games not on Steam. I'm not sure how good it is as a chat platform though.

Personally, I value open source over closed source alternatives. Open source alternatives are community-driven, rather than controlled by shareholders and advertisers. Element and Stoat aren't as prone to enshitification as something like Telegram, Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Treads), Snapchat or Discord is, due to the open source nature. Steam, even though it's centralised and closed source, is different though because it has good leadership.

The issue with most alternatives is that they are still centralised systems. Element can be self-hosted or you can join other instances. Stoat has an official centralised option, and anyone can self-host or join other instances.

It's always going to be difficult to convince others to change platforms. I think there is a certain limit of how much users can tolerate though before moving elsewhere though. In my view, centralisation and closed-source nature is the underlining reason for moving elsewhere.

Still good that there are alternatives and some people are interested in moving elsewhere.

Edit: added some clarification over Stoat and Element.

Edited 2026-02-12 10:16:33

@Norman
The issue with AI selfie verification is that it makes mistakes, so you'd even up having to submit ID instead:

• https://itif.org/publications/2023/04/05/ai-could-make-age-verification-more-accurate-and-less-invasive/
  
• https://arxiv.org/html/2506.00038v1
  
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/janicegassam/2025/08/13/ai-age-checks-are-here-and-theyre-not-fair-to-everyone/

Selfies can also be faked: https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/1mbrjwv/reddit_and_discords_uk_age_verification_can_be/ .

The locally running AI part defiantly has merit for being more privacy preserving, but in reality it's much more prone to being faked. Personally I don't trust it to stay offline.

Parental controls are much better than any age check imo.

Edited 2026-02-12 09:34:26

It is wild in my head that a platform like Discord would be considered more critical than e. g. Instagram. I mean, it’s a corporate choice and not legislation, but still, feels like step 10 before step 1, even if done properly.

Technically it is legislation though. Easier to conform to the most strict rules, rather than only as needed.

The ones in charge don't really understand what they are legislating. It sets a precedence. Should always be a person's choice, rather than a state-mandated decision that compromises privacy and security for everyone else.

If there's at least 50 different people here in favour of changing platforms, I'd be willing to self-host an instance of Element or Stoat for non-offical Warzone servers. I'd automate deleting messages older than 7 days, due to storage limitations. Might also need ~£5 per month to cover domain name registration and power usage. Would really be only be servers moderating content or users blocking each other, rather than myself. Platforms shouldn't be responsible for moderating user-generated content, but rather individual choice or server rules at their own discretion. The number of unique users should be sufficiently low enough to not enforce me to be pre-emptive about user-generated content.

Edited 2026-02-12 21:32:01

It's worth noting that Discord kind of has admitted to tracking your activity to determine your age or age-range. YouTube and other platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok likely do this (even if for advertising purposes, rather than determining age). It's creepy.

It's probably also worth noting that there are other chat-oriented programs that can be self-hosted, like Zulip and SimpleX, among others I've already mentioned, like Stoat and Element. All of which are free of cost, open source and I'd be fine with self-hosting. The only real cost is strictly domain name registration and electricity usage (which should be ~£5 per month, even if at my own expense). I'm also bound by UK jurisdiction (so either certain topics are geo-location restricted due to age-gating, or withdraw service if there are too many users and unable to keep up with pro-active moderation).

Discord's experimental age verification partner is tied to a government surveillance contractor: https://www.pcgamer.com/software/platforms/oh-good-discords-age-verification-rollout-has-ties-to-palantir-co-founder-and-panopticon-architect-peter-thiel/ .