[Just_Harry]

For the United Kingdom specifically, I've suffered the misfortune of reading the Online Safety Act, and this kind of age estimation is both mentioned and permitted by the Act. (Not a lawyer blah blah blah)

Part 3, Chapter 2, Section 12(4) specifies that user-to-user service providers are required to use either age verification or age estimation (or both!) to prevent children from accessing content that is harmful to children. Section 12(6) goes on to state that "the age verification or age estimation must be of such a kind, and used in such a way, that it is highly effective at correctly determining whether or not a particular user is a child."

Part 12, Section 230(4) rules out self-declaration of age as being a form of age verification/estimation.

So I suppose it'll come down to whether or not Ofcom deems Discord's age estimation as "highly effective".

[Part 3, Chapter 2, Section 12(4)]: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/part/3/chapter/...

This is unrelated, but something I find interesting is that Category 1 user-to-user services (of which Discord is one, as per The Online Safety Act 2023 (Category 1, Category 2A and Category 2B Threshold Conditions) Regulations 2025) are required by Part 4, Chapter 1, Section 64(1) to "offer all adult users of the service the option to verify their identity (if identity verification is not required for access to the service).".

[legitster]

Part of me is wondering if we are all collectively misreading Discord's intent.

They have devised a system so lackluster and unverifyable that they can claim they are following the letter without having to turn over anything remotely useful to actually verify or track people's identities.

[WorldMaker]

I get the impression that is part of Discord's intent they are signalling here and a lot of the response has been maybe a bit overly vitriolic in the face of that seeming message of "we are complying with the laws because we have to, but we are doing a bare minimum to do that". Especially relating those parts of the press release to the call for a Council of Teens and increased feedback.

It feels like a modern iteration of the game of way most bars check IDs: it's a bit of an honor system most nights and for most people. On days or events of increased scrutiny they put a bouncer out front. They make a show of doing it, but at the end of the day they want to sell product and not do paperwork, so it will be the bare minimum to keep the (international) law of of Discord's back. Discord seems to want just enough CYA much more than strict "we know the age of every user". This is the "we're going to put a bouncer out front" stage of the game, not the "police are at the back door and about to raid the bar" stage. It is interesting to me how many have read this PR and jumped to believing it to be the bar raid scenario.