Discord's Global Mandatory Age Verification, Nest Keeps Footage Even If You Don't Pay, Ring Gets Too Creepy For Everyone, and More!
Our top stories this week:
- Discord voluntarily starts rolling out mandatory age verification for all users
- Google pulled old footage from a Nest doorbell even though the customer wasn't paying the subscription
- Ring's new "find your pet" feature has not gone over well, even with mainstream audiences
- DHS is spying on Reddit
TWIP Live 🔴
Updates from the Team
On our various social media platforms, Jordan crafted a couple of excellent posts worth sharing (moreso than usual). One is about Discord's upcoming age verification push (which we discussed in this week's episode) and some alternatives we recommend instead. The other will publish this weekend taking advantage of the Valentine's Day season to suggest people switch to Signal. Here's the Discord one on Mastodon so you can see an example, and a link to all our social media so you can pick whichever platforms you use to share there.
Sources
Discord faces backlash over age checks after data breach exposed 70,000 IDs
This week, Discord announced (out of the blue) that they were going to start defaulting all accounts to teen accounts unless accounts verify as being adults. In most cases, Discord will attempt to do this automatically using account metadata such as age of the account, games you play, and active times, but if they determine you're a minor you'll have to submit to either a face scan or ID.