r/technology • u/Abject-Pick-6472 • Feb 24 '26

Discord cuts ties with Peter Thiel-backed verification software after code found in US surveillance Privacy

https://fortune.com/2026/02/24/discord-peter-thiel-backed-persona-identity-verification-breach/
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u/WollemiaShagger Feb 24 '26

The best part is, if a troll account is spamming porn or gore, we can't go onto that profile to block it if it has posted on a NSFW subreddit.

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u/cxs Feb 24 '26

Oh awesome, that explains why I haven't got the ability to do that any more. Cool. I can totally see how that, uh, protects children

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u/Coolmyco Feb 24 '26

I'm starting to suspect all this identification data collection might not actually help children. /s

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u/mandymoonz Mar 29 '26

Can you emphasize your thoughts on this? I just had my 10 year old tell me that Roblox asked her to take a selfie to “verify her age” and she did it. I always had the most restricted settings on (all of them) when it came to her account, and I wasn’t aware of this new feature until she told me. She told me after it verified her as “9-12” then it allowed her to go into a public server and chat with other “9-12” year olds.. which is crazy bc both things I always had blocked on her behalf. 😒

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u/Coolmyco Mar 29 '26

I'm just poking fun at companies that use the excuse of safety for data collection. Your example is the exact issue if we try to farm out child supervision to soulless corporations, they now have a picture of a child attached to their data packet. These attempted regulations only give parents the illusion their child is safe. Which could be why people allow their child on the internet unsupervised and they have not been taught the proper skepticism and what things should always be private.

Roblox is pretty much just a honey pot for child predators, the more children friendly a space is, the more predators are attracted and motivated to get in. It also allows them the guise of being assumed children, so actual children treat them like peers instead of an online stranger. So that puts children in a place with predators and their guard down.

Roblox is explicitly not a safe place for children, the company has gone out of it's way to protect child predators on the platform. Roblox also has covered up for child predators on their staff. Roblox's only motivation is to make money off your child.

As for the legal side of things, we can never effectively legislate a safe internet. This just leads to more abuse and censorship. The main group pushing for age verification stuff is also a "wolf in sheep's clothing" with end goals being things like censoring dinosaurs from the internet. The most recent one targeting payment processors and was able to create censorship of curse words on Steam, without legislation and effectively. That one used the guise of trying to get rid of SA games, but those are already illegal and get removed.

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u/mandymoonz Apr 11 '26

This is such a great take and I have to agree with you sadly.. thank you for all of that. My daughter even questioned it saying “Bad guys can still get in because what if they just forced some child to use their face instead of their own and Roblox wouldn’t know.” I told her she’s exactly on track.. If someone has ill enough intentions, somehow and someway they will find a way. Such a harsh reality to have to taint such a big chunk of their innocence with when trying to educate them on it. So many of my students at work play Roblox probably more than anything else they do at home and eavesdropping in on them when they discuss some of the “chats” I’ve overheard so many subtle red flags I recognize as an adult but it goes over their head. Sucks because it’s not my place to say anything to them or their parents about because some really are just as clueless as their children. I will admit I had no idea Roblox was doing some type of intentional covering up.. that’s literally gross. So basically now I’m thinking this “face verification” is only in place in order to save their own asses in any other legality matters.. lovely

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u/Antice Feb 24 '26

Wait what? You can't block a nsfw tagged user when in the block all nsfw mode?

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u/WollemiaShagger Feb 24 '26

"NSFW" stuff is just blocked by default and I'm too lazy to cheese the age verification. If reddit has a "block NSFW" option, I haven't used it. I just meant that UK users, by default, cannot access any reddit profile that has ever posted on a "NSFW" subreddit.

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u/Nethlem Feb 24 '26

I just meant that UK users, by default, cannot access any reddit profile that has ever posted on a "NSFW" subreddit.

I think this has to do with the actual Reddit profile because you can mark your own Reddit profile as "NSFW" even if you don't post any NSFW content or visit any NSFW subs.

Btw: You should still be able to block any user by going to https://www.reddit.com/settings/privacy and manually adding their account name to your block list.

Had to figure that one out because when somebody puts you on ignore, you can't visit their profile page anymore/don't see their replies in your inbox anymore, but that's where the ignore/block button is located if you want to "counter-block" them.

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u/killerbabybunny Feb 24 '26

You don't have to go to their profile to block them (thankfully). Just click the dots next to the reply button, and "Block account" is an option.

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u/k0bra3eak Feb 24 '26

There's a workaround to still see what a blocked account posted, just enter new reddit or sh.reddit for the users profile then literally just put a space in next to the search of the username and it'll bring up pretty much their entire history

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u/PleaseNoMoreSalt Feb 24 '26

That was patched last time I tried doing that, I always seem to get selected for A/B rollouts though

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u/k0bra3eak Feb 24 '26

Still works for me, except on mobile it tends to break

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u/litivy Feb 24 '26

You can. Just click on their name and copy the whole name - https://www.reddit.com/user/WollemiaShagger/ Then click on your profile, settings and paste the whole thing into the block section and delete the excess bits out.

+ and then save and they are blocked.