If you somehow still considered uploading your face/ID to Discord, here's one more reason not to: Peter Thiel seems to be the lead investor in the service that implements the age check. And, oh, the service page says they will store our data on their side (at least for a little while).
@nina_kali_nina Interesting. I got a much more "we're doing this, but in as privacy protecting way as we're able" impression from their press release the other day.
I'm satisfied I made the right decision regardless of how they presented it. (Closing my account).
@GerardThornley I'm going to keep mine for now, as one-to-one chats are still not going to be limited, but *sigh* very predictable outcome, isn't it
@nina_kali_nina @GerardThornley yeah like facebook, there's too many people i'm not in touch with any other way
but it's more than a little annoying
discord does its value proposition very well! it's a pity about the company
@nina_kali_nina @GerardThornley @davidgerard we should have never relied on it in the first place, and we need to remove that dependence at light speed
@nina_kali_nina 
Personally, I wouldn't so bothered if a) people could choose their own service provider (which would presumably need some sort of accreditation), and b) the only information passed was a boolean for "age is above threshold".
I haven't deleted it just yet, and am still wondering about it, but I think the policy is a sign of the trajectory, and I don't want to have to delete it under the pressure of some future update. Also, I want to send a signal.
@GerardThornley @nina_kali_nina Yeah, I'm pretty happy with my decision to never sign up.
Was hard sometimes when I needed help on some open source project that had decided that would be their support method.
Just too much experience already with this sort of thing. Seemed obvious this would happen. Not sure what I expected, maybe not this, but I knew it would be something.
You can't even talk about this stuff without being told you're horrible though.
@GerardThornley @nina_kali_nina the implementation they were using at the time of posting that is the k-id system as developed by OpenAge (and you can see reference to this in the source linked from https://age-verifier.kibty.town/). I haven't done an in-depth analysis of how that system worked but the blurb on its page _looked_ reasonable (but absolutely still pending analysis)
discord is switching to Persona "because bypasses" (per a Taylor Lorenz tweet/skeet, didn't see article alongside it)
@GerardThornley @nina_kali_nina to be clear, not stanning any part of this, just trying to provide context on how/what shifted recently and how to read information seen both then and now
the whole damn thing is bad and should fuck off, but 100x moreso if they go with thielco shit
Great.
Next step: Discord and the Partner Companies give those infos to Ice or some shit.
Every US Service need to be left by users.
@nina_kali_nina We all need to avoid using anything associated with Thiel whose ssnity must be questioned based on some of his beliefs and comments
@nina_kali_nina Some 'servers' at Discord require phone number activation. I am not giving them my phone number because it will 100% end up in the next data breach. There is no need to store a phone number.
Now they like to scan my face and/or official ID? After what happened with all of those ID's that got stolen? They are not thinking straight are they?
@nina_kali_nina
My preferred answer to the age verification debacle would be to reduce the risk at source, just like buying knives, cigarettes, alcohol - ban children under 16 from having access to devices capable of accessing networks.
I know that this isn't workable but neither will be the age verification, children will bypass it just as they do knives etc. rather than being visible their access will go dark.
@slowmart that's... a take that would make lots of vulnerable children suffer. It would help some, but it would hurt many, too. Smartphone isn't a knife.
@nina_kali_nina
Yeah, its not Serious just trying to illustrate how badly thought out current path is 
ban children under 16 from having access to devices capable of accessing networks.
You’re a piece of fucking shit ageist cop. get a grip
@nina_kali_nina it's clear that the government is building a massive database of citizens and everything they say and do online. They are doing this using private companies to get around any direct legal challenges.
@nina_kali_nina @LunaDragofelis also their rxpeirmenting with it after the precipus one kept getting hacked . because discord cant take a hint
@nina_kali_nina Come think of it, it's the same one that VRChat uses, isn't it?
@nina_kali_nina
Murphy's rule's variation No. 42:
Even when you think something can't go worse, it will.
@nina_kali_nina What? Discord was bullshitting us with how secure their system was and how much data is being extracted and stored? SAY IT AIN'T SO! They've *definitely* never done that before!
@disorderlyf `pparently they switched systems in some regions because the system didn't work out. :>
@disorderlyf @nina_kali_nina they switched to a new one due to many people bypassing it via various methods, theres like a github repo thats gone back and forth 30 times now .. and discord opted to be more invasive instead of taking the hint
@codebuzz@indieweb.social@nina_kali_nina We should leave platfroms who are willing to compromise on our most personal data. We all know they have incentives that help them, not us.
Age-checks, digital ID etc WON'T make the internet safer.
Did we fix spam? or DDOS?
Best alternative seems Telegram. Pavel keeps a straight back, figting for users first! Great guy!
Listen to this talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjPH9njnaVU
@codebuzz I wouldn't trust a guy who lies about his involvement with Russia. Not saying he's like Thiel, but he's not as trust-worthy as furries around here.
@codebuzz@indieweb.social@nina_kali_nina I hear you. Seems a lot of prominent people tend to have additional agenda's somehow. Still, his wording is right, and he tries to align his actions.
Comparing him, how many companies made promises, only to break them (ad they knew they would)
I think this is one more hurdle between 'the internet that was' and reclaiming it again (insights on Big-tech, Solutions in the Fediverse).
It's a big teaching, we all need.
@nina_kali_nina I also trust furries around here a lot more than I trust Telegram. @codebuzz
@codebuzz@indieweb.social@chillicampari @nina_kali_nina oh.. based on what track record?
@codebuzz @chillicampari ez: they aren't billionaires
@codebuzz@indieweb.social@nina_kali_nina @chillicampari meh. anyways, good talk.
@codebuzz @chillicampari I mean, I'm half joking, of course :) there are no guarantees some of the furries aren't billionaires
@malcolm @codebuzz @chillicampari lol I have no idea
@malcolm omg, I had completely forgotton about this rumor. @codebuzz @nina_kali_nina
@nina_kali_nina Thiel is nearly an anagram of evil, the nature infused into his core it seems.
@nina_kali_nina Evidently there's an accord to dis cords now...
@nina_kali_nina There are reasons why my #Facebook profile picture has been a caricature for years.
iNDUSTRIES @random_industries@mastodon.social@nina_kali_nina from my observation: gamers have a alt-right leaning, i am affraid they will not / won’t mind
I joined Discord because a blog suggested it would be great for meeting others doing research on genealogy.
It's been noisy and useless and I haven't used it for years.
It's a good time to delete the account.
@nina_kali_nina Does anyone find it Curious that ''Palantir'' is an Object of ''Sorcery'' in the Lord of the Rings? who are these guys?
@Sonlight there's a long tradition of naming creepy companies after creepy things from Tolkien ;(
@Sonlight @nina_kali_nina They're a semi-secret business owned by a man who thinks Gretta Thrumburg is one of the rising anti-christs. They build primarily military and spy equipment. They're turning it on civilians all across the globe and are especially dug in here in the USA with the current regeime, who they're using to try to gain power for themselves. The man who owns it is one of the richest people on the planet and very much thinks he should be in charge.
Basically Lord Sauron.
@nina_kali_nina christ on a bike
@nina_kali_nina this is even more worrisome as Discord "experiments" with collecting data on users' gender, https://www.dexerto.com/tech/discord-is-allegedly-assigning-gender-to-users-with-machine-learning-ai-2721391/
Ties to Thiel and through that, Palantir, mean there's a risk of using it as a surveillance tool to gather information on trans people for potential search-and-destroy operations.
There's a line in an old punk song that I sing in my head when I see this stuff.
'The shit we have to climb through is the shit we choose to take'
Choose to take this, then it's your shit to climb through for a long time. The next choice will be harder.
Your choices matter to your future. Make an actual choice, an actual active sacrifice.
Your and you is personal and collective.
Choose how & who you want to live as. Right choices cost less than easy ones in the end.
@nina_kali_nina One more reason, to delete my #Discord Account i didnt even used entirely. If I am chatting friends, I am using this old software named #Teamspeak 3.
@nina_kali_nina I know they’re going to play coy ad infinitum, per the late-stage capitalism handbook, but I do really wish they would just admit what they’re doing and own up to it. Rip the mask off, be honest about what they’re doing with our data, and unapologetically declare it.
It’s not like it would change anything. Maybe some Europeans would realize they’re being wholesale spied on by private American companies who sell the data to allow them to be targeted, but I suspect the vast majority would simply chug along like normal because it’s the most convenient group chat software available.
@ariarhythmic@ohai.social@nina_kali_nina I assume the Peter Thiel guy is part of the "Epstein class" and does mass surveillance, but I'd like some clarification on the implications here so I don't have to assume
@ariarhythmic Peter Thiel is the CEO of Palantir, a company that provides surveillance for governments. The guy himself is a famous far right billionaire, he keeps speaking up against democracy, and incidentally mentioned in the last batch of Epstein files hundreds of times, or so I've heard. The most concerning things, of course, are surveillance and anti democracy
@nina_kali_nina @ariarhythmic he is! He's directly connected to Epstein
@ariarhythmic @nina_kali_nina Quote from the article requires no assumptions:
“If that's not enough for you to be unsettled by Thiel's money being involved in Discord's age verification rollout, the billionaire—who infamously wrote "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible" in 2009—appeared more than 2,200 times in the latest release of the Epstein files, where he coordinated years of meetings with the convicted child predator and sex trafficker.”
@pythno@mastodon.gamedev.place@nina_kali_nina so that is how Palantir gets its data :) The internet really sucks if you don’t host your own shit.
) @simonzerafa@infosec.exchangeAlready cancelled my account 
@nina_kali_nina oh, come on... Can't there be anything fun left in the world? ;_;
...apart from the fediverse, of course 
@nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt somehow not surprising.. 
@nina_kali_nina oh good...