deleted
this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2024
165 points (87.3% liked)
Technology
59086 readers
3563 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
I came across this issue on my own discord server, the system kinda encourages you towards those higher security levels without really being especially clear about what it will do to the user experience.
One thing I would clear up though:
I think both sides in the OP are correct here.
Yes, the server admin sets the security level that triggers those requirements.
But it's also true that the server/admins do not get your phone number, that private information is only kept within discord's verification system. It is not sent to the server admins.
I mean, I sort of get why the developers say it's Discord's policy even if it's a bit misleading.
Game developers don't really want to moderate their own discord server and simply want to use the strictest automated filtering system available and this just happens to include phone number linking. The operators of the servers themselves do not have access to these phone numbers and they are only stored by discord directly to prevent spam.
I would personally prefer games to not have their communities tied to discord, akin to how forums were big deal for games back in the day, but even then they do need some kind of automated way to filter out all the crap. This is a problem with moderating any community, including a lemmy/kbin/mastodon, and I don't blame them for simply picking the strictest option to ease the burden on the 1 or 2 people who are charged with managing these servers (especially if they are unpaid or volunteers, which is a whole other can of worms that shouldn't happen...)
load more comments
(10 replies)
Discord has 5 levels of user verification.
None.(none)
Verified email. (Low)
Verified email + more than 5 minutes old account. (Medium)
Verified email + >5 mins old account + member of server for more than 10 mins. (High)
Verified email + >5 mins old account + server member >10 mins + verified phone number. (Highest)
Server admins can set the level. Some server sizes or types (community severs etc.) have a discord-mandated minimum level to qualify for the server type.
Normally (Medium) or (High) security is more than enough. Servers that experience raiding or high levels of trolling are recommended to choose (Very High) security as it makes it harder to make multiple accounts and evade bans or brigade a server.
Discord store the number. The server never sees those details.
Servers that ask for ID to ensure you are over age, are doing that in their own, and probably illegally handling that data, without adequate security.
The server sets the security level. Discord does the enforcing. It IS discord asking for the phone number. But only because the server asked Discord to. But the server definately doesn't see your phone number.
I run a game community server, and normally have security set at medium.
If raided, it goes to High.
If persistently trolled by a user or users that are ban evading (has happened only once), I turn it to highest for a bit.
But I turn it back down after a bit.
A bigger server might not get that luxury.
If a server has stupid high security settings, chances are they have active troublemakers.
What does the "5 minute" rule even do? Any bot can be programmed to wait that long, or have a few accounts lined up to use in sequence.
load more comments
(1 replies)
it sucks, and it is absolutely necessary for some communities. i work for a small game company and we have one or two people that have gone to extreme lengths to contribute hate and saltiness to everyone there. im talking dozens of alt accounts made over the course of years. discord provides the tools for these verification paths. its a choice on behalf of the discord managers to enforce the different levels of verification, but it is absolutely discord that stores and verifies that data. we've tried other methods before, like alt identifier bots, and ive been in communities that do personal ID verification, and neither of those are trustworthy. discord is doing their best, and the kinds of people that complain about these things either are ignorant of the challenges such communities face, or are themselves the problem.
As Discord is still unable to provide a GDPR compliant process for the phone number thing (and let's not even start about personal ID), if I were a small game dev I would rather not make myself liable the way one does when using this - it's simply fucking expensive.
But it's not the game dev that handles the information, so the game studio wouldn't be at fault. The game dev never gets that info so isn't storing anything. Discord would be liable for any GDPR infractions.
Nope, doesn't work that way. The game dev is offering a networked service (community,support,etc.)in his name/trademark/brand and therefore is therefore liable for the data protection, it doesn't matter at all if the dev is the data holder or not - that's up to the dev to manage contractually with discord.
The concept of "not holding the data, not liable for the data" has been turned down by various high court rulings by now - Amazon and Microsoft amongst others have tried it and lost.
load more comments
(8 replies)
discord is doing their best, and the kinds of people that complain about these things either are ignorant of the challenges such communities face, or are themselves the problem
Did you really have to end a decent comment on a personal attack?
Have you not considered that people just want to keep their anonymity for other reasons?
That asking for such a personal piece of information, that has ramifications if it gets out in the wild, for such a minor thing like a discussion of a video game website, wouldn't want to give their phone number? (Lots of server hacks these days on the news where people's personal information gets out on the dark web, etc.)
I can't prove a negative, that I'm not something, but for what it's worth, I'm not the kind of person you described. I'm a retired computer programmer who is a decent human being.
load more comments
(5 replies)
Hopefully, Matrix [Element & al ] and Revolt will catch up to discord
The times I have run into this verification stuff, it's for servers that want to be for adults only. And so would much rather just give Discord my phone number than a copy of my ID to the server owner, like most of them want to verify I am over 18.
It's not hard to get a toss away phone number you can use for these things or for 2FA stuff. Like a throwaway email.
How does one go about doing that? Because Google Voice doesn't seem to cut it.
I could stop trying to use Discord and drive to Best Buy and buy a cell phone and pay for a month of service. Then I could add the number to the account. Then if I stop paying for the monthly service, there's a good chance that Discord or whoever won't believe I'm me at some future login and will demand I give them a code they sent to the phone number on file.
I just searched for it and got into some shady free service that didn't even need an account, the only caveat is that you are sharing that temporary phone number with several people, and it will probably stop existing in some days, just enough to create an account.
Which means when they ask to verify your number again in 6 months, or after a computer upgrade, you are SOL without that specific phone number.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
I'd like to see what they say if you tell them you don't have a phone number.
Probably "get one". Or "use a friend's".
view more: next ›