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

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by CosmicCleric@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

76 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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[–] CosmicCleric@lemmy.world -3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (14 children)

Interesting. I assumed Discord itself aggressively demands your phone number regardless of the “server” you join… At least, that’s been my experience.

That's the impression that is being given, but its not true.

I've been successful in a very few cases of getting a Discord server admin to dial back the verification level from 'highest' to 'high' on their server, so that I was not prompted for a phone number. They agreed that the highest setting was overkill.

Most times though server admins refuse to do so. ~~Gotta wonder at this point if they actually see the phone numbers or not.~~ Other server admins say they can't see the number, so will assume that's correct.

[–] Nima@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago (3 children)

on quite a number of servers that are 18+, higher verification usually sounds a little bit more safe. But then on most of the servers I run or moderate, we tend to have our own in-house verification methods instead of the built levels for discord.

the idea of the verification levels is attractive, however. anything to keep the kids out. though I'm not sure I'd go as far as requiring a phone number, I might consider it for future.

it depends on how the server is going to be used. why a gaming server should be highest level, I don't know. I would think "high" is enough.

[–] CosmicCleric@lemmy.world -4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I would think “high” is enough.

Only difference between high and highest is the asking of the phone number, all other security checks are the same. So if the other existing forms of validation are not already enough, then the bad guys have already won.

[–] Nima@lemmy.world -1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

what "bad guys"? Whatever the server owner feels is appropriate for levels of validation is up to them. ya know?

[–] CosmicCleric@lemmy.world 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

what “bad guys”? Whatever the server owner feels is appropriate for levels of validation is up to them. ya know?

Those who would spam/troll/etc. The ones you're trying to exclude from the server. To repeat my comment ...

So if the other existing forms of validation are not already enough, then the bad guys have already won.

For the record, I was NOT talking at all about the server admins, at all.

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