Discord delays global rollout of age verification after backlash

Discord no longer plans to roll out age verification globally in March and is delaying the launch until the second half of 2026, the company announced Tuesday.

Discord had faced heavy backlash from users earlier this month after it announced that all users would be put into a “teen-appropriate experience” by default until they were verified as adults.

The company clarified on Tuesday that 90% of users won’t need to verify their age and will be able to keep using Discord as usual, since most don’t engage with age-restricted content and the platform’s internal safety systems can already determine the age of many adult users. These internal systems work by looking at signals like how long an account has existed, whether the user has a payment method on file, and what types of servers they’re in.

“Let me be upfront: we knew this rollout was going to be controversial,” Discord CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy wrote in the blog post announcing the change. “Any time you introduce something that touches identity and verification, people are going to have strong feelings. Rightfully so. In hindsight, we should have provided more detail about our intentions and how the process works.”

“The way this landed, many of you walked away thinking we’re requiring face scans and ID uploads from everyone just to use Discord,” he continued. “That’s not what’s happening, but the fact that so many people believe it tells us we failed at our most basic job: clearly explaining what we’re doing and why.”

Discord says that people who are part of the 10% of users who do need to verify their age will be given options to do so. Previously, Discord had stated that users could only verify their age by either completing a facial age estimation or submitting an ID to Discord’s vendor partners. Now, Discord says that before expanding age verification worldwide, it plans to introduce additional verification methods, including the option to verify using a credit card.

“If you choose not to verify, here’s exactly what happens: you keep your account, your servers, your friends list, your DMs, and voice chat,” Vishnevskiy said in the post. “The only thing that changes is you won’t be able to access age-restricted content or change certain default safety settings designed to protect teens. Nothing else about your Discord experience changes.”

The company also plans to publish information on its website about each verification vendor and their data practices, and clearly identify which vendor is being used. In addition, it now says it will only work with vendors that perform the age verification process entirely on the user’s device.

The change around vendors also comes as Discord faced backlash for listing Persona, which is backed by an investment firm co-founded by Peter Thiel, as one of its partners in age-verification. Thiel is chairman and co-founder of of Palantir, which has attracted controversy for its work with U.S. immigration enforcement and other federal surveillance programs. Persona also attracted criticism from users for its use of third-party data and partnerships with governments. Discord has since distanced itself from Persona.

Discord also faced backlash for its age verification plans because it had disclosed last October that around 70,000 users may have had sensitive data, such as their government ID photos, exposed after hackers breached a third-party vendor that the platform used for age-related appeals. Discord says it no longer works with the vendor involved in this breach.