The “ripple effect” is a classic scientific principle that is easy to understand. When you do a certain act, no matter how big or small, it sends out “ripples” into the world that can affect other things around you. How big the effects of the ripples are on the world itself depends on the starting event and what’s around it. In the case of Roblox, it has been facing some serious controversies recently regarding the safety of its users. While the team has made multiple statements saying that it’s “implemented new safety features” and that there are “tens of millions who are safe and happy in the game,” there are just as many who are getting hurt by the title.
Some are being stalked, some are being lured into places in real life by those who fake friendship with them in the game, and the “safety features” can be easily overridden or gotten around without much effort. That doesn’t even talk about the microtransactions, which have led to kids accidentally spending money on the game even though they weren’t the credit card owners, and they didn’t even realize they were spending money on the title!
When you take all that into consideration, it’s unsurprising that there were some “ripples” being sent out into the world, and in this case, one of those ripples hit Discord.
Discord is one of the major chatting services on the internet and is home to numerous communities of people. The twist, though, is that it’s had its own issues over the years. One of them is fake accounts that attempt to scam information from people. However, as noted by Fandomwire, it seems as though the Roblox controversies have inspired the dev team to overhaul some of its age verification features to ensure that people are who they say they are.
One of the key ways Discord is attempting to ensure the accuracy of age verification is through face verification using a webcam. That’s right, you’ll have to have your face scanned to showcase who you really are. There is also an option to scan an official ID, which is a fair compromise as not everyone has webcams.
At present, these features are only “required” in places like the UK and Australia, where new child safety laws were put into place. However, we could see them coming to other nations should they prove successful.
All in all, it’s nice to see a company like Discord take these controversies seriously and want to help keep users safe.
