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Discord Servers asking for Phone Numbers and 'Verification Levels' (lemmy.world)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

49 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/10799766

(Edit: Cross-posted OP (link above) was mod removed by the Discord forum 'admin' on 2024-01-19 as being "False claim, false interpreted", so the above link will no longer work.)

Recently read this on a Steam game's reviews section ...

User Comment...

The game's Discord REQUIRES your personal phone number to get access at all. This is a very intrusive, and 100% unnecessary requirement, in order to just be able to interact with others about the game, it's content, player experiences, and many other things. It's also intrusive in regards to being able to contribute any input to help other players in any way at all.

Dev Response...

It's Discord that's asking you for verification of the account. We're not getting your phone number. This is standard practice on bigger servers that allows for a better user experience, filtering bots/ spam accounts, trolls, etc.

Could companies please STOP lying about it being Discord's choice, its not, is the Discord server's choice to ask for it.

Its a "Verification Levels" setting that the server op sets, and they have multiple options that they can choose from, its not an on/off switch. They can dial it back one notch and still have spam/bot protections.

The only difference between "High" and "Highest" verification levels is the addition of asking for a phone number, all other features of "High" is in "Highest", and "Highest" has no other extra features besides asking for the phone number.

Makes it really hard to have an pseudonym account on the Internet, for gaming purposes, and then be asked for your real phone number. I don't need to be tracked 24/7.

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[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago (7 children)

I mean, I sort of get why the developers say it’s Discord’s policy even if it’s a bit misleading.

“It’s Discord that’s asking you for verification”

The language on that is very plain, and a lie, as it is the server admins, and not the Discord corporation, who are asking for it, by having the ‘Highest’ verification level setting, vs. just the ‘High’ setting.

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 only difference between the 'High' and 'Highest' verification level setting is the asking of the phone number. All other verification features (email validation/verification, time on the server before approval, etc.) are the same.

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.

How exactly does that prevent spam, vs just using other existing established verification methods like email validation? If the only goal is preventing spam, its overkill, and other web sites who also have to contend with spam don't use it.

Finally, I'd feel allot better about it if a trusted third party verified that its not used for marketing reasons, and that we all just didn't take Discord's word for it. I don't know this as fact, but I can't help thinking that we are being lied to, and that the number is used to link our Internet pseudomnames to real-life persons (via agregate gathering/purchasing of data via third-party brokers).

Having said all that, my post wasn't about what is done with the number (that's a whole other topic), just the fallacy of stating who is requesting the number (Discord vs server admins).

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (6 children)

How exactly does that prevent spam, vs just using other existing established verification methods like email validation? If the only goal is preventing spam, its overkill, and other web sites who also have to contend with spam don’t use it.

It's trivial to create new accounts and emails to verify those accounts. It is not trivial to get a new phone number since virtual numbers are blocked by the verification process.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago (5 children)

It’s trivial to create new accounts and emails to verify those accounts.

Is it really that trivial, especially while having to spend your own money to do so?

And can't that be detected in the same way that virtual phone numbers are detected by Discord currently?

You get your ISPs email address, and you could have your Google address, what else?

Granted, a phone number is better than email for verification, but plenty of websites work off email verification today successfully.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

You get your ISPs email address, and you could have your Google address, what else?

I host my own email. I have literally billions of email addresses available if I want them and getting billions more only costs however much I can get a new domain registration for, which isn't often more than $10. I already own a dozen domains or more and I can have any username I want at any of those domains for any email at no additional cost.

Now I'm not some dickhead harassing people online or spamming discord servers, but I will admit that Wendy's once had a deal where you could get a free frosty for creating a new account and I had free frosty coupons for weeks before they realized that email only verification for unique users was a losing proposition and they switched to requiring that new accounts attach a phone number.

Email verification only works if you've got nothing to lose. As soon as there's anything on the line, you'd better look for something more concrete like a phone number, a credit card, or a government ID. Personally I'm more comfortable with Discord having one of those pieces of info before the other two, but that's just me, you do you.

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