this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2024
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Discord now requiring phone number to login? (lemmy.world)
submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Seems like discord is asking people to verify their accounts with phone numbers nowadays. I guess I won't be using it anymore? :🀷

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

They think you might be a criminal, literally. Discord has a big problem with people conducting illegal activities on their service (buying, selling, and providing support for cheats, black hat hacker communities, harassment and stalking, etc. The list is pretty long)

Something about your account + connection makes you look very similar to people they know to have done these things. And discord decided that the risk of having these things on their platform is a greater threat to their business than the risk of people like you quitting the platform.

They do this so that if regulators, law enforcement, or one of their business partners comes to them with evidence that you're using discord to do bad shit, they can help track down the real person behind the account.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Maybe because I use librewolf with most browser fingerprinting and tracking disabled? I normally got like 3 to 5 captchas before I could login to discord.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 8 months ago

Oh yeah, it's definitely that. For sure. Your behavior is more similar to the < 0.1% of users who do bad shit than the 99.9% who simply install the app and play games or chat with friends. You are a casualty of war, so to speak. Honestly, I don't blame discord, they have to secure their platform. I blame the shitheads who make this crap necessary by trying to hide their illegal activity using the same methods as the people like yourself who just want privacy

[–] lurch 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

i read in some other post that's a per server setting the admins of that server can set. i'm not sure this is true, because i deleted discord a long time ago for being a boring waste of time

[–] IdiosyncraticIdiot 3 points 8 months ago

If only I could convince my small servers of "friend group chats" to migrate to matrix πŸ˜–

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Why a phone number? Not everyone has a phone and most companies don't get my number.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I assume it's because it scales poorly. You can't readily source 500 phone numbers, while you could spool up a $5 per month VPS and host 500 email addresses.

They don't really want to match you so much as adding a stumbling block to someone making a bazillion accounts.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (2 children)

But I don't think they require a phone number for account creation right?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

Yep, they let you create your account with just an email address, and once you've joined a few servers and started using discord they're like "oh btw give us your phone number too, you won't have access to anything until you do".

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Depends on your configuration. I deleted my old account when they first got involved in phone numbers. Went back after talking with a friend and said I'll join his server if they let me create an account.

All attempts on any VPN were rejected. Service hosted and self hosted cloud VPNs (IPs were still datacenters). Tried multiple browsers, no spoofing. I refused to sign up no VPN at all though so I'm 98% sure I didnt even attempt from my local IP or cellular IP. I assume the combination of VPN/DC IPS and them seeing Linux flagged their system into wanting data about me. I did try a VoIP number at one point and it was promptly rejected.

Wish they would move to matrix but πŸ€·β€β™€οΈ

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

Yeah exactly. What are they even verifying? They don't have my phone yet, so anybody could put their number there and 'verify' the account. I suppose it's to stop bots, but still, some other options should be available.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

What strikes me more is one pretty big e-mail provider here (something like Czech Google) wants phone number now.

They have lots of account functions like videos, comment sections ... I use only mail with clients (Thunderbird and k-9). They say it is for 2fa.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Yes, there was a significant controversy about this about a year ago.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

What triggers it? I'm currently abroad, so I suppose that might be the reason. But not really willing to give my phone number to discord. Is there no known workaround?

It's kinda bothersome that so many online groups are using it (or facebook).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

From what I understand, new signups aren’t allowed without a phone number now. As far as what makes them claim that and ask, as with other proprietary services, who knows? It could be a legitimate security reason, or it could be that they just made up some nonsense because they want to collect more data. Exactly like Facebook, yeah. I stopped using Facebook when they insisted I had to send them my driver’s license to sign in.

There’s no way to bypass phone verificiation, but many people use various services to get a temporary fake number and verify with that.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

I suppose I can try that option, but I guess these kind of services should be blocked by them as well.