<Rant>
There are platforms where asking for government ID makes sense.
Linkedin, for example, is a professional network. Your real name, work history, and reputation are the product.It’s a digital resume of your work experience, identity is the whole point. Age verification or ID checks there are consistent with the platform’s purpose.
Facebook is sort of similar. It is built around real-world identity, social graphs, friends and families. You can argue about whether Facebook should exist in that form, but at least its ID requirements align with what it claims to be.
Discord is fundamentally different.
Discord grew out of gaming culture – and anonymity is baked into the gaming community’s DNA.
Anyone who has ever sat in a Call of Duty lobby understands this instantly. Handles instead of names. Voices without faces. Communities formed around shared interests, not government-issued identity. That layer of separation is what makes those spaces feel free, chaotic, creative, and human.
Discord was specifically designed for the gaming community, which has always been, anonymous.
Asking for government ID to verify age feels completely disconnected from what Discord was built on. This isn’t just a privacy concern – it’s a break of trust. It’s a category confusion. It’s a clear signal that the platform is drifting away from its gaming roots and toward Slack-style corporate territory.
When a typical user joins Discord, they’re not joining a workplace, or a civic institution. They’re joining a digital hangout – a modern IRC.
It is deceptive of Discord to continue marketing itself as a casual, community-driven platform, yet moving like this quietly shift it toward the same compliance-heavy model as social networks that were never anonymous to begin with.
Once a platform that was explicitly anonimity-driven starts demanding IRL proof of identity, the culture changes permanently. Users self-censor communities fracture, and the unpolished conversations disappear.
In other words, with this move, Discord won’t be getting a safer community, but either a quiet one, or one that’s full superficial influencer-slop-driven version of its former self, à la Linkedin.
Removing anonimity from Discord raises the ‘cost of participation’ for users, redefining the community entirely.
</Rant>
<SelfPlug>
This pattern is why I’m building Talnet.
Most recruiter communities today are tied to large platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, or Discord. Each of which have their own incentives, constraints, and cultural baggage. The closest thing to an actual, self-sustaining recruiter community is probably Reddit, and anyone who’s spent a marginal amount of time there already knows the trade-offs that come with that.
Talnet is an attempt to build something different: a recruiter-first space designed around knowledge sharing and real conversations, not following:follower ratios or overengineered engagement mechanics.
</SelfPlug>