i try not to be too outwardly negative on my public-facing accounts, especially those attached to an art alias, however; the news of today is something that concerns me as an artist, client, user, and most importantly; a person.

without getting into the politics of it, the entirety of 2025 and now 2026 has been spent having online censorship and (facial) recognition software pushed from all spectrums. some more quieter than others, but the biggest push for it i've seen has been from Mastercard and Paypal working in tandem with certain "Christian Moms Against Porn"-type 'activist' groups to blanket ban a ton of content, especially pornographic content.

since then, i've seen news of this caliber become more and more rampant with each passing day. the most recent form it's taken is through a second wave of Facial ID pushed by Discord, intended to target users under the age of 18 for the sake of "Child Safety". this isn't a new thing, back in October 2025 they rolled this out as a feature, of which almost immediately led into nearly 1.8TB worth of personal information and IDs being stolen in a data breach, after Discord explicitly promised that the info wouldn't be backed up/saved, which was a lie, that affected ROUGHLY 70k users
source:https://arstechnica.com/security/20.....f-70000-users/

but as of today, they're planning to ramp up their efforts. it's going to be worldwide, and users on Discord will now be assigned "Teen" by default. what does this mean? it means a lot of the previously default userbase experience is going to be restricted unless you verify your age, either through Facial ID or giving your government IDs to Discord, a platform that has been involved in multiple data breaches throughout every year, including that infamous 1.8TB personal info breach. here is a list of things that are now restricted by default:

︀︀- No access to age-restricted or NSFW servers and channels
︀︀- Cannot speak in Stage channels
︀︀- Automatic filters applied to sensitive or graphic content
︀︀- Warnings shown on friend requests from unfamiliar users
︀︀- Direct messages from non-friends filtered into a separate requests inbox

but hey, not all hope is lost! because according to Discord themselves they can actually determine your age through metadata! what metadata exactly? oh, the usuals. game activity, personal/message activity, and also inferring your work hours through 'behavioural signs'. although this isn't any new or shocking information, Discord is essentially stating "we're watching you! always have been!" except now, they're watching you even more.
source: https://x.com/TNOQuoProQuid/status/.....81241210294283

if you're sat here thinking that the restrictions aren't that bad, i'm imploring you to consider the ramifications of normalising this. we are essentially being dripfed censorship and restrictions to get us used to the experience of having our basic rights as users stripped away, whilst slowly descending us into worse and worse conditions. do not allow yourself to get comfortable with this.

additionally, Discord is also introducing the "Teen Council", in which users under 18 can be 'recruited' to join a 'council' or team of around 10-12 other teenagers to work alongside Discord admins in their decision, to ensure they're listening to the voices of the youth. first things first, this just sounds creepy. straight up. this seems like a lot of labour to be placing onto teenagers, especially when they're likely going to be unpaid. and that's assuming this council is going to even exist in the first place.
source: https://x.com/discord_support/statu.....550927243?s=20

my opinion on the matter? this is a blatant attempt to get younger users to conform to further internet surveillance via exploiting the voices of their peers. if Discord is able to sell to these teenagers that surveillance and censorship is [good, and even that compliance earns them power (a spot on the council), then that will stick-and-carrot other likeminded teenagers and younger children into believing the same.

now, as i alluded to prior, that's even if something like this is actually 'real'. what do i mean by this?
an alternative scenario to what i described above is if there are actually no teenagers involved in the council. i find it entirely possible that Discord could be creating some 'ghost' team that's actually just the same admins parading around in different cloth. and when they inevitably roll out even more surveillance features, and restrictions, and IDs, they can use the "Teen Council" as a scapegoat and go "well, this wasn't OUR decision! this was decided by the Teen Council, we just want to make sure Teenagers are having their voices heard! if Teenagers think that these features are safe and benefit them, why don't you?" i also think they'd do this even IF the Teen Council happened to be real.

in conclusion: Fuck Discord.
don't give them your info. bypass it at all costs. develop alternatives. do something.
if you're a NSFW artist like i am, this is going to be very harsh for us. i use NSFW Discord servers to advertise my work and commissions, and i'm at risk of losing a good chunk of my advertising resources due to this update. if you own or moderate a NSFW server, please disable the "mark channel as NSFW" feature if possible.

and if you are a commissioner, or just a person capable of compassion and empathy; please support artists during this time. corporations are constantly targetting our work and our expression. if online censorship starts getting worse, it's likely that all the art you love seeing--such unconventional art, or art that goes against the grain, or even art that could constitute as queer as otherwise taboo--is going to start disappearing if we don't oppose this.