this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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I don't hate Discord, but I do hate that they seem to require my phone number. I tried joining Discord over a year ago. Upon first log in they claimed that there was suspicious activity that required me to verify the account by giving them my phone number. This was from a computer, I never even visited the site on my phone let alone use the mobile app. I gave up and forgot about until a few months ago and decided to try again. They still wanted my phone number, email wasn't good enough. I contacted their support email and was told that there was no other option but to provide a phone number and that they couldn't override it. So I told them to delete my account and that I would never use their service. It took two weeks for them to do it.
There are very few situations in which an app needs my phone number in my eyes. And a chat application is not one of them. Just like I refused to use the official Reddit app because it wanted access to my contacts and location. I am not a super privacy nut, but the whole hog approach of gathering my info is not acceptable. I would rather pay for the service. I would have paid for Reddit if they had gone that route rather than dropping 3rd Party apps. Instead I'm on Lemmy.
So fucking hell yes, this again.
There are alternatives to Discord.
Everyone wants your phone number now because it's a decent approach to combating spammers. Note that I said decent, not perfect. It's relatively easy for a company to determine if a phone number is owned by a specific person vs. a voip company that enables spammers to use hundreds of new numbers, so now we're asking everyone for theirs. SMS is also used for the lowest form of multi factor authentication, so they get to claim that it's a security decision, not one for marketing, etc and because of network effects, we all have to choose to either go along or miss out.
Agree that it's super annoying and certainly not privacy-centric, but Discord is owned by Microsoft, what can we expect? Innovation?
Discord being owned by Microsoft, now that's news to me. I don't think that's a thing, at least not yet.
For some reason I was convinced they had sold out, but it looks like you're right, they're still independent for the time being. Thanks for the note!
I understand the ease for choosing phone numbers. I would love it if they gave me another option to validate.
For a community like Lemmy, I would prefer that they choose a different chat system, one that doesn't require me to validate with a phone number. Matrix is an option and doesn't require phone numbers.
It also doesn't work. I can't use telegram because I have a number that I originally got from project fi, back when it was project fi. Eventually I moved cell providers and I migrated the phone number that I got with Project Fi. As such, a real number that I've had for over a decade looks like a voip range number, even though it isn't anymore and hasn't been for a long time.
Must be server specific. I've used Discord for years and never had to add a phone number.
This is shitty, but not common.
Certain channels will require a phone verified account, but most won't.
Did you ever try on a phone or a different computer in a different location? With a different email?
I did try on phone, laptop, and desktop. I didn't try with another email. Perhaps the channel required it, but since I was only trying to join Discord for that one channel, it wasn't worth pursuing further. I sought and got support for my issue in other places.
If discord ever decides that your account is "suspicious" (they won't tell you why they decide it), you will be completely locked out of your account and you can not do anything on the website unless you provide your phone number for verification. I have one such accounts too that I created for joining the community of a certain game. These are the only two screens you can access on this account:
They also helpfully tell you that you can only verify a single account with your phone number, so if I wanted to verify this account for a gaming community, I would de-verify the account I use for work, so I'm not going to do that, lest it looks "suspicious" to discord and they delete my account - For example a while ago the person who created one of the discord community "servers" we use for work got their discord account deleted (discord wouldn't tell us a reason).
The point isn't to bash the discord company or service, I'm just stating things that happen if you choose discord.
Your requirement to use software is based around whether or not it requires your phone number for verification?
Man some people draw really weird lines.
What makes it a weird line for them to draw?
are you in the uk? Cause that might make a difference. I'm in the US and a lot of apps use phone numbers for log in.
I understand a large number of apps request phone number to log in, but that doesn't explain why it's a weird line to draw to not engage with that.
so you don't understand that it's been normalized?
That's why its a weird line to draw. Cause its considered normal here.
I understand it's been normalized. I'm trying to figure out my hangup with the word "weird"... I guess ultimately I don't consider it weird for someone to stand against something that's normalized.
I mean, I agree with that for some things. Like I think its fucking weird that people do celebrity worship, but that's also considered pretty normal.
but I think in the case of using your phone number to sign in, it's normalized because its been shown to work as a log in/sign up method. In the US phone numbers are treated like a form of ID as you're assumed to have a phone in your name, that can be attached to you and your identity. It's so common place that it's encouraged to do things that way - so its weird to draw the line there because its then also preventing you from using something, even though the only hold up is that it's something most people do with no issue.