cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/10799766

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.

  • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
    0·
    10 months ago

    discord is doing their best, and the kinds of people that complain about these things either are ignorant of the challenges such communities face, or are themselves the problem

    Did you really have to end a decent comment on a personal attack?

    Have you not considered that people just want to keep their anonymity for other reasons?

    That asking for such a personal piece of information, that has ramifications if it gets out in the wild, for such a minor thing like a discussion of a video game website, wouldn’t want to give their phone number? (Lots of server hacks these days on the news where people’s personal information gets out on the dark web, etc.)

    I can’t prove a negative, that I’m not something, but for what it’s worth, I’m not the kind of person you described. I’m a retired computer programmer who is a decent human being.