Discord Is About to Force You to Prove Your Age

On Monday, Discord announced its plan to begin rolling out mandatory age verification globally. Starting in March, new and existing accounts will start moving over to a "teen-by-default" setting, which will lock certain chats and features away until the account's owner proves they're an adult. Here's what you'll lose, how to get it back, and for good measure, what your other options are.

Discord will require age verification starting in March

In its announcement, Discord said the new age verification settings will start with a "phased global rollout" in March, so it may be some time until it hits you. However, once the changes make their way to your region, you'll lose access to the following features until you verify your age:

• Age-restricted channels and servers: This is the most obvious one. Any channels that are set to adults only will now be off-limits to your account until you verify your age. In some cases, this could include whole servers, or depending on the server, certain app commands.

• Spicy content: Until you verify your age, Discord's content filters will be active for you, and the app will blur any images it thinks are too sensitive or graphic.

• Message requests: Direct messages from people you don't know will now go to a separate inbox.

• Speaking in Stages: Accounts that aren't age-verified won't be able to speak in Stage channels, which are livestreams where a few server members can broadcast to everyone on the server at once.

• Warnings on friend requests: This one adds something rather than taking it away. Until you verify your age, you'll now see a warning prompt when getting a friend request from someone you don't know.

How to verify your age in Discord

Discord has two ways to verify your age, though it will tell you if you need to go through the process. To the platform's credit, it won't suddenly strip away a bunch of features from you without explanation.

To start verifying your age on Discord, either click Get Started on a prompt the platform should send you once age verification hits your region, or navigate to User Settings > My Account > Age Group to see your age group and verify from there.

Now, you can either take a video selfie or scan a valid government ID. For video selfies, just select Take a selfie from the verification page, follow the on-screen instructions, and click Done to submit. For verifying through a government ID, select Use your ID, scan the provided QR code with your mobile device, take a clear photo of your ID on said device, and tap Done to submit.

Discord says that video selfies used for age verification are processed purely on-device, and that while photos of government IDs do go to "vendor partners" for verification, they are "deleted quickly—in most cases, immediately after age confirmation."

Once you've submitted your video selfie or ID, the app will then begin the process of assigning you an "age group," which you'll be able to see under User Settings > My Account > Age Group. Discord says most users only need to verify once, but that you might need to provide a government ID in addition to a video selfie if the app can't confidently determine your age from just a face scan. You're also able to attempt re-verification at any time, but if the app determines that you're under the 13-year-old minimum for using Discord, your account will be banned. (You can appeal this and attempt to re-instate your Discord account via an ID.)

According to Discord, the age verification process "typically takes just a few minutes," and you'll get a notification and DM once it's completed.

Best Discord alternatives that don't use age verification

As countries around the world add new laws for age verification online (Discord mentions the UK and Australia in particular), it seems like Discord is just throwing its hands up and deciding to play it as safe as possible by taking the feature global. The move mimics similar decisions from Google, ChatGPT, and Roblox, but even adult users might be uncomfortable with it, since they'll need to show the company—and the company's third-party processors—personal identifying information to comply with it.

If that leaves a bad taste in your mouth, there are a few Discord alternatives you can try that don't yet require age verification, although they might not completely match the app's feature set:

• Slack: Discord basically stole Slack's entire flow, and that's great news for anyone looking for a Discord alternative. About the only Discord feature missing here is persistent voice channels, although you can still talk to others over voice using huddles. Slack can be a strong Discord replacement or supplement to another Discord replacement, but if you're a teen looking for a new home, be careful. Technically, users under 16 are banned from Slack, according to the app's terms of service.

• TeamSpeak: TeamSpeak has been updated since the 2000s to match many of Discord's features, including adding persistent chat channels. However, it's still lagging behind on some features, like video chat. Additionally, only 32 users can be in a free TeamSpeak server at a time. This is what I used as a teen before moving onto other platforms.

• Mumble and Ventrilo: These are no-frills, voice-first clients that primarily focus on privacy and low latency connections, with Mumble even being open source. They aren't as robust as Discord, but they could serve as a strong voice channel supplement to another Discord alternative, like Slack.