Discord Drops Persona After Users Blast UK Age Checks And Data Practices

Discord has drawn significant criticism lately, thanks to a major data breach in October and the debut of a new "Teen-By-Default" policy, which will require select users to verify their age by uploading a government issued ID. At the root of the criticism was Discord's involvement with Persona, an "age assurance" firm partially funded by controversial Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel. Hackers found that some of Persona's frontend code was seemingly tied to US government surveillance efforts, including an apparent OpenAI-powered watchlist database. This led to speculation that Persona could be tied to immigration enforcement (ICE) and government intelligence agencies, though Persona has denied those claims and clarified that Peter Thiel is only an investor and not involved with its operations.

Even so, Discord confirmed in a statement to Ars Technica that it wouldn't be working with Persona any longer and that its temporary run within the UK ...