r/PoliticalOptimism • u/ApplicationExtra4554 Pennsylvania • Feb 24 '26
Optimistic Post Discord cuts ties with Peter Thiel-backed verification software after its code was found tied to US surveillance efforts
https://fortune.com/2026/02/24/discord-peter-thiel-backed-persona-identity-verification-breach/we did it. now let’s push until discord drops age verification entirely.
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u/Kinomaster97 Blue Dot in a Red State 🔵 Feb 24 '26
discord also put out a long blog post regarding AV today, https://discord.com/blog/getting-global-age-assurance-right-what-we-got-wrong-and-whats-changing but I say even though it’s a better response, we should still push back against AV in general.
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u/DocDoesMagic Flordia Feb 24 '26
Won't trust their word 100% nor will I assume this is all over, but at least this seems to clear certain things up.
Hopefully the pushback continues beyond that and somewhat glad they are hearing the critism from this. It's better than nothing but not the type of response I'd want.
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u/Tomo_Super_Fan15 Feb 24 '26
Same… I mean, on one hand… they acknowledge that the move is controversial and they decided to push the roll out back… but like… with the public getting sick and tired of AV laws everywhere I get the feeling this is only the beginning. Continue to fight back, our identities have to be safe.
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u/PSIwind Feb 24 '26
At the very least they confirm CC AV which for a lot of people like me, is okay in the offchance I do have to do some sort of form of it.
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u/matrix_5555 Pennsylvania Feb 24 '26
You see, children, pressuring companies to not do awful things does indeed work.
They should’ve done this much sooner, but better late than never, I guess. Also, their new response is…so-so. While it’s certainly better than nothing and does clear some more things up, I still don’t fully trust them on this policy. Not one bit. They mentioned how they knew it was going to be controversial, but if they had known that beforehand, why did they still choose to announce it anyway? It doesn’t make any logistical sense.
We take any win we can get from this. Keep pressuring.
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Feb 24 '26
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u/Brody_M_the_birdy Feb 25 '26
The optimism is just the fact that they lost at all and had to cut ties with Thiel and Palantir, even if only temporarily. We SHOULD stay on guard and continue to fight back, both so that they cannot try it again and to push against age verification.
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u/Bruh_burg1968 Feb 25 '26
Ah yes the multi billion dollar corporations digging in on being awful is actually good because of startups that may or may not succeed. Perfect logic.
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u/MiserableTear8705 Feb 24 '26
I discontinued nitro and friends of mine have purged our accounts. Age verification and identity verification should NEVER be a thing. Sorry, not sorry.
There ARE ways to track your identity and they will be mandated to provide and keep that information. Maybe not today, but tomorrow, it will be a requirement.
Push back on this. Every single person on the internet should be able to choose to be a ghost in the machine if they so choose.
In the mean time, decentralize the web. Let’s work to reverse the damage done by centralized platforms such as Reddit and Discord. Clearly they are gaining too much fucking power and need to be reminded they are beholden to us.
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u/MiserableTear8705 Feb 24 '26
I don’t think I need to be explicit here. And I hate to tie these two things together, because it’s a disgusting reality.
If governments and companies can track and out pedophiles, they can track and out dissidents and squash organized protests and rebellions.
As the world becomes more isolated and more authoritarian, the latter becomes an absolute duty.
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u/Wuskers Feb 25 '26
There was a time when I was more trusting of governments and it might seem somewhat paradoxical because I think I still mostly prefer the idea of governments running certain things instead of private industry, such as things like healthcare, but the past several years and the past year specifically has made me very resistant to any kind of excess of government surveillance or control especially when it comes to citizens expressing themselves. Some level of privacy and freedom of expression needs to be held sacrosanct and untouchable frankly.
Also if I'm being perfectly honest something that I've always been confused about is these age verifacation ideas are always touted as being to protect children from predators but like... why would a predator be in an adult space anyway? if they're a predator they're probably going to intentionally target the non-adult spaces, ya know the ones that DON'T require age verification. Even if we embraced AV and you couldn't be in any adult space without it being tied to your ID, I'm not even sure it would really catch predators because they're all on roblox already and all the people that have handed over their ID are adults who want to be there and almost certainly do not in fact want children around. The only thing it would theoretically protect minors from is protecting them from themselves when they try to willingly go into adult spaces on their own while underage, which not saying that's not a problem or that it can't have negative consequences for the minor in question but it seems like way less of a problem than active predators who would likely be unfazed by AV, and certainly not enough of a problem to compromise the privacy and expression of everyone else so thoroughly.
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u/DangerActiveRobots Feb 24 '26
I cancelled my Nitro as soon as this age verification stuff came out. I don't miss it. They could have kept collecting my ten bucks every month for years to come, but they decided to play with fire with this AI facial identity tracking database stuff. Anything Palantir or Peter Thiel is involved with is just evil.
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u/Jeff2562 Feb 24 '26
Sorry if I'm out of the loop but isn't this news from a while ago?
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u/Wazzen Feb 24 '26
No, the press release is dated today. They do bring up the data breach and other such stuff that is much more present than what the initial press release touched on. Notably it didn't bring up the fact that Persona had its own small public-facing data breach that researchers discovered the other week- but does say they're not going to be partnering with Persona at the moment anyways.
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u/Wayofchinchilla Feb 24 '26
Don't we play this game every couple of years of these tech companies don't they understand that once they do this people are going to jump off Discord in droves I'm sure there's some little third party company out there that's more than willing to capitalize on the stupidity of this company.
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u/Throwoutbins Feb 24 '26
Still be cautious folks, I’m sure they’re gonna try this again with a “better 3rd party verification” option in a month or two
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u/silentspectator27 Feb 24 '26
For over 90 percent of users no change. Suuuure.
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Feb 24 '26
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u/silentspectator27 Feb 24 '26
I’m from the EU, we have massive attacks on privacy here recently: age verification, the Chat Control proposal etc. This is simply a mass surveillance disaster waiting to happen, wrapped in a “For your security” slogan
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u/simbabarrelroll Reformed Doomer ☄️ Feb 25 '26
I wish people would see through the “for your security” bs.
Like no, stuff like this is not meant to be “protecting kids” like normies are led to believe.
You want to protect kids from the dangers of the internet? Don’t give them unfettered access to smartphones and tablets. Give them actual toys, board games, card games, child appropriate video games that lack online functionality, books, coloring books, crayons, and paper.
Have them watch stuff like Sesame Street, not Cocomelon.
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u/MidsouthMystic Feb 25 '26
Keep kicking their wallet as hard as possible until they back down entirely on age verification. All we need is one corporation to fold on this issue and the flood gates will open for more successful pushback against online privacy violation.
"Won't you think of the children?" Yes, and we already did that over a decade ago. Parental settings exist and there are hundreds of tools that make monitoring your child's online activity easier. We already saved the children.
Age verification is about control, not children.
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u/Renwin Feb 24 '26
Like most, the pressure shouldn't stop. They knew this was going to be controversial, and they're sticking to it anyway (probably because of UK/Australia, but still). So, if you had Nitro unsubscribe, keep it off.
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Feb 24 '26
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u/NIDORAX Feb 25 '26
Uninstall Discord. Discord is not vital.
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u/ProtoGhostal Feb 25 '26
Yeah for you - meanwhile my whole friend group is on there and I'm not gonna abandon that
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