Discords omvendt-logik
Når man segmenterer brugergruppen i børn og voksne .. (for at "beskytte børn") -kan man målrette reklamer for voksne mod .. guess what .. de voksne!
Netværkseffekten: Discords sande styrke
⏱ 08:42
Og Discords rolle i vennegrupper og gaming er ved at være mere og mere forankret. Det betyder, at folk begynder at føle, at de ikke har råd til ikke at bruge den. Netværkseffekten er så stærk, at du straffer dig selv, hvis du trækker dig ud. Det er selvfølgelig Discords store styrke som virksomhed - og nok en af grundene til, at de forsøger at børsnotere sig, så de kan udbetale en stor fed bonus til deres investorer baseret på al den vækst, de har haft.
Alt Discord reelt behøver fremadrettet er at spille på tid og vinde folk tilbage ved at være den største med de bedste funktioner - og bare stole på deres netværkseffekt. For sørgeligt nok : Du kunne gå til GitHub lige nu og finde masser af rigtig lækre open source-alternativer til Discord. Men tror du virkelig, du kan få alle dine venner til at downloade den? Det er ikke bare at konvertere din World of Warcraft-guild til en anden udbyder - der er alle dine andre vennegrupper, alle de andre servere, du er på. Derfor sidder Discord, på trods af alle deres problemer med at øge indtægten, fundamentalt oven på noget ekstremt stærkt og ekstremt værdifuldt. De har bare haft svært ved at udvinde værdien af det.
Og én måde at udvinde den værdi på er… prediction markets
⏱ 09:48
Én måde, de forsøger at løse det problem på, er prediction markets - for hey, nu kan de målrette de ting mod voksne. Og mere end det: Især hvis de børsnoterer sig, er den vigtigste værdi, de har, dine data og dine adfærdsmønstre.
Lad os være ærlige overfor os selv: Alle incitamenter peger på, at vi er produktet. Sådan går det altid med den slags.
Hvis jeg skal være pragmatisk og realistisk, tror jeg, deres netværkseffekt simpelthen er uovervindelig. Men vi skal være på vagt. Vi må holde dem ansvarlige og modstå de ting, der kan føre os ned ad et glat skråplan. Vi har set rigeligt med eksempler på store tech-virksomheder, hvor platformen er gratis, men dine data, din adfærd, din opmærksomhed - dét er produktet. Vi har set det gå galt alt for mange gange. Så selvom jeg ærligt tror, at det reelt er umuligt at “vinde”, er det bedste, vi kan gøre, at være informerede og opmærksomme - og hvis noget gør os rasende, skal vi sige det højt.
youtube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMg9WEkyXsk kanal : https://www.youtube.com/@BellularNews Transcript : https://www.youtube-transcript.io/ Oversættelse og formattering : Mistral.ai
Discords nye aldersverifikation: "Discord Just Couldn't Resist... "
⏱ 00:00
Discord er netop gået live med deres nye aldersverifikation. Det var naturligvis et mareridt. Let det største mareridt, de har været udsat for, siden sidste gang de forsøgte at rulle aldersverifikation ud. Denne gang fik vi masseudbredte klager, vrede og en ganske katastrofal samling af fejl — ja, endda et helt land, der forbød Discord.
Baggrund: Første forsøg i februar
⏱ 00:18
Sidste gang de forsøgte sig, var i februar. Der var massiv offentlig modstand, så Discord udskød udrulningen. Med deres egne ord fejlede de i at udføre deres mest basale job: De indrømmede, at de simpelthen ikke havde holdt brugerne informeret, og at de måtte rette op på det. Discord valgte dog stadig at fastholde planen om at tjekke aldre — stort set uændret.
Baggrunden er, at mange steder i verden kræver loven på nuværende tidspunkt slet ikke alderskontrol. Men Discord ville komme i forkant af de love, de forventede ville komme verden over. Og for at give lidt appetit på noget andet, der kommer senere i videoen: Hvis man ved, at en person er voksen, så ændrer det måske de måder, man kan annoncere til dem på. Og det virker til, at det også vil de lave.
Andet forsøg: Planen er stort set uændret
⏱ 00:56
Vi starter altså med det andet forsøg på at rulle alderstjek ud, og planen har reelt ikke ændret sig meget. Alt det, Discord ville gøre i februar, gør de stadig. De estimerer stadig din alder baseret på signaler fra din konto — ting som hvor længe du har haft kontoen, om der er registreret en betalingsmetode, og hvilke typer servere du er medlem af. De vil gerne understrege, at de ikke læser dine beskeder for at gøre det — hverken i DM'er eller på servere. Ja, det havde de bare bedre ikke.
De signaler, de faktisk læser, dækker ifølge dem selv stadig 90 % af brugerne. Og Discord påstår, at netop derfor burde de 90 % slet ikke skulle verificere sig. Så du lægger nok ikke mærke til noget. Der er én ny ting, som er god, vil jeg sige: Du kan nu se din aldersgruppe på din profil. Den står enten som "ubekræftet teenager" eller "voksen". Det afgør selvfølgelig, om du kan komme ind i voksende kanaler og på voksende servere — og måske en ting eller to om reklamer, som jeg kommer til om lidt.
Når systemet fejler: Voksne bliver klassificeret som børn
⏱ 01:47
Men det er her, problemerne begynder: Hvad sker der, når noget går galt med de signaler? Hvis Discord vurderer, at en voksen er et barn, er der nu mere end blot ID-verifikation: Du kan verificere med et kreditkort, via din Apple- eller Google-konto eller via en platform som Age Key.
Det var stort set hele planen. Det var den store, nye udrulning. Og i teorien ville det hele fungere fint. I praksis fungerede det dog ikke så godt. Folk overalt på de sociale medier opdagede, at deres konti var blevet vurderet som teenagere af det automatiske system — selvom de havde haft en konto i et årti. Det virkede som om, Discord valgte at fejl i den forsigtige retning. Alle ramte skulle ud og bruge en af de nye verifikationsmuligheder. Og nogle konti, der allerede var bekræftet som voksne, opdagede, at de ikke kunne komme ind på servere markeret som for voksne. Systemet fungerede simpelthen ikke som beskrevet.
Og den anden retning: Børn fik adgang som voksne
⏱ 02:34
Men det bliver værre, når fejlen går den anden vej — fra barn til voksen frem for fra voksen til barn. Børn kunne komme ind på servere, som de reelt slet ikke burde have kunnet få adgang til. Tilliden var i forvejen en meget knap ressource, så alt dette var worst case. Discord viste folk effektivt, at deres systemer ikke virkede.
Og så blev det værre. I timerne inden problemet blev løst, svarede Discord med kliche-prægede opslag på de sociale medier. De forsøgte sarkastisk at antyde, at de var lige så kede af udrulningen som du var. Her er et af dem: "Da du lancerer en ekstremt populær aldersassurance-opdatering, som alle på Discord virkelig glædede sig til — og den har fejl." De her nuttede opslag faldt slet ikke i god jord. I den uge, der fulgte, lavede folk en enorm mængde ganske fantastisk fan art af Discords maskot, der blev pint og mishandlet. Og hey — måske har jeg selv lavet en til thumbnailet på den her video. Vi får se.
Det var fordi folk reelt ikke havde andre måder at protestere på, end at opsige deres Nitro-abonnement eller forlade Discord.
Spørgsmålet om penge: Gambling-reklamer og prediction markets
⏱ 03:35
Og alt det skete, før folk opdagede, at Discord samtidig kørte en test baseret på aldersverifikationen — en test, der var klar til at indtjene virksomheden en masse penge, fordi det handlede om gambling-reklamer. Sponserede quests og kampagner for FanDuel, en prediction market-platform (dvs. markedsplads for spådomme/indskud på fremtidige udfald), begyndte at dukke op på Discord.
FanDuel virker kun for folk på 18 eller 21 år og derover — afhængigt af jurisdiktionen, går jeg ud fra. Så logikken var let at se: Discord havde nu sorteret sine brugere i voksne og teenagere. Det betyder, at voksen-segmentet kan målrettes specifikt af brands, og prediction markets betaler kæmpepenge for at nå nye målgrupper. Så Discord var takket være alt dette ved at tjene en formue.
Men det bliver rigtig absurd, da folk tolkte reklamerne som et reelt brud på Discords annonceringspolitik — for politikken forbyder gambling om rigtige penge. GameSpot spurgte Discord, og Discord sagde: "Nej da, vores politik ændres ikke." Men sagen er, at den ikke eksplicit forbyder prediction markets, og at den allerede har en undtagelse for reklamer for fantasy sports. Så reelt betyder det, at reklamer for prediction market-platforme godt kan køre. Det var en test i et begrænset område af USA, og Discord sagde, at de brugte "et bredt udvalg af alderssignaler til at sikre, at reklamerne var alderssvarende". I teorien betyder det, at børn ikke ser gambling-reklamer, og kun voksne gør — så længe systemet virker. Og åbenlyst, da det blev rullet ud, virkede det ikke rigtigt.
Discords svar på reklameindholdet var, at reklamerne "tilføjer reel værdi, som naturligt forbinder med vores brugeres sports-, gaming- og underholdningsinteresser". Ja, "reel værdi". Og sagen er, at uanset om det er en bookmaker eller en prediction market, er det, en person fundamentalt gør, at forsøge at blive betalt for en forudsigelse om fremtiden. Det er traditionelt det, vi kalder gambling — uanset platformens eller den faciliterende virksomheds forretningsmodel. Og gambling gør enorm skade på samfundet. Det er den type, hvor virksomhederne høster alle fordelene ved gamblingen, mens de negative eksternaliteter ikke betales af virksomhederne — det hele lander i det hele taget på samfundet. Dette er helt klart Discord, der udnytter deres nye aldersverifikationspolitik til at åbne nye — store — pengeskabende veje.
Hvem er det egentlig alt sammen til for?
⏱ 05:54
Hvis vi spørger: Hvem er det egentlig alt sammen til for? Hvem tjener det? Åbenlyst: Discords børsnotering. Men det er ikke kun det, for der er også den juridiske situation og hvordan vinden vender verden over. I februar 2026 forklarede Discord med deres egne ord: "Ved at gøre det selv kan vi vise regulatoren, at det er muligt at verificere alder uden at indsamle identitet" — og de kaldte det den model, de håber resten af verden vil adoptere. De så grundligt, hvilken måden vinden blæste.
Og ser vi på verden — Texas, Brasilien og mange andre steder — er der faktisk kommet mange love i kraft. Og så er der en meget stor: EU's Kids Act, som er ved at effektivt gøre Discords politik til lov — altså aldersestimering ud fra kontosignaler for flertallet og direkte aldersverifikation for et fåtal. Men det vil åbenlyst ikke være sådan alle steder.
Forbudet på Filippinerne
⏱ 06:47
Og vi fik faktisk et tegn på det hele den samme uge: Discord rullede det ud og blev forbudt på Filippinerne — selvom det varede mindre end et døgn. Efter en skudaktion på en high school krævede landets cyberkriminaledirektorat at møde lokale Discord-repræsentanter — de ville kort sagt have Discord til at flyve folk derud. De krævede også detaljer om aldersverifikationssystemerne og deres politikker på børnesikkerhed og ekstremisme, og gav Discord 24 timer til at efterkomme det hele. Det virker til, at Discord enten ikke gjorde det eller ikke kunne nå det i tide — og derfor faldt forbuddet, hvilket åbenlyst gjorde mange lokale brugere rasende. Det førte så til, at Discord og direktoratet talte igen, og de kom ganske hurtigt til at vende 180 grader om forbuddet, da Discord gav dem nogle forsikringer.
Grunden til, at jeg tager den historie op, er, at den tydeligt viser niveauet af bekymring verden over for, hvad der foregår på internettet, og hvordan det kan — eller ikke kan — flyde ud i virkeligheden. Det er derfor, Discord besluttede at komme i forkant af alle de love. Og i den proces er deres plan faktisk endt helt i tråd med det, EU er ved at udvikle.
Problemet: At overbevise brugerne
⏱ 07:47
At overbevise teknokratiske organer er én ting — det er de rigtig godt indstillet til: De er en stor virksomhed, der nok kan flyve repræsentanter ud for at tale med vigtige mennesker. Men der er en gruppe, der er langt sværere at overbevise: Discords egne brugere.
I det mindste ved Discord åbenlyst, at de må gøre noget for at gøre brugerne lidt gladere. Så jeg tror ikke, det er en tilfældighed, at de i dagene efter den rodede udrulning tilføjede en bunke forbedringer: bedre echo cancellation, et mobil-refresh, en ny gamemode, der skal reducere de performance-tab, Discord-appen kan forårsage, og større fil-upload — meget større. Jeg kan på Nitro upload en gigabyte, hvilket faktisk er ret brugbart, for jeg kører såmænd min forretning igennem Discord. Men intet af det rammer kerneproblemet, selvom det er godt. Det overbeviser ikke folk, der er rasende over udrulningen, eller som måske er blevet låst ude af deres konto. Det tager bare tid.
Netværkseffekten: Discords sande styrke
⏱ 08:42
Og Discords rolle i vennegrupper og gaming er ved at være mere og mere forankret. Det betyder, at folk begynder at føle, at de ikke har råd til ikke at bruge den. Netværkseffekten er så stærk, at du straffer dig selv, hvis du trækker dig ud. Det er selvfølgelig Discords store styrke som virksomhed — og nok en af grundene til, at de forsøger at børsnotere sig, så de kan udbetale en stor fed bonus til deres investorer baseret på al den vækst, de har haft.
Alt Discord reelt behøver fremadrettet er at spille på tid og vinde folk tilbage ved at være den største med de bedste funktioner — og bare stole på deres netværkseffekt. For sørgeligt nok: Du kunne gå til GitHub lige nu og finde masser af rigtig lækre open source-alternativer til Discord. Men tror du virkelig, du kan få alle dine venner til at downloade den? Det er ikke bare at konvertere din World of Warcraft-guild til en anden udbyder — der er alle dine andre vennegrupper, alle de andre servere, du er på. Derfor sidder Discord, på trods af alle deres problemer med at øge indtægten, fundamentalt oven på noget ekstremt stærkt og ekstremt værdifuldt. De har bare haft svært ved at udvinde værdien af det.
Og én måde at udvinde den værdi på er… prediction markets
⏱ 09:48
Én måde, de forsøger at løse det problem på, er prediction markets — for hey, nu kan de målrette de ting mod voksne. Og mere end det: Især hvis de børsnoterer sig, er den vigtigste værdi, de har, dine data og dine adfærdsmønstre. Lad os være ærlige med os selv: Alle incitamenter peger på, at du er produktet. Sådan går det altid med den slags.
Hvis jeg skal være pragmatisk og realistisk, tror jeg, deres netværkseffekt simpelthen er uovervindelig. Men vi skal være på vagt. Vi må holde dem ansvarlige og modstå de ting, der kan føre os ned ad et glattet skråplan. Vi har set rigeligt med eksempler på store tech-virksomheder, hvor platformen er gratis, men dine data, din adfærd, din opmærksomhed — det er produktet. Vi har set det gå galt alt for mange gange. Så selvom jeg ærligt tror, at det reelt er umuligt at "vinde", er det bedste, vi kan gøre, at være informerede og opmærksomme — og hvis noget gør os rasende, skal vi sige det højt.
Det er et princip, der rækker langt ud over Discord — for eksempel til reklamer i selve vores videospil. Der findes en ny Microsoft-patent, der er dybt bekymrende, og jeg synes, du bør vide af det. Den gode nyhed er, at jeg allerede har lavet en video om det, som du kan se nu. [⏱ 11:08 — slut]
Original transcript
Discord just rolled out their new age verification. It was of course a nightmare. Easily the largest nightmare that they've faced since the last time that they tried to roll out age verification. This time we had mass complaints, outrage, and a fairly disastrous set of bugs and even Discord getting banned in a whole country. Now, the last time they tried this was February. There was massive public backlash, so Discord delayed the roll out. In their own words, they failed to do their most basic job, admitting that they just hadn't kept users informed and that they needed to fix that. Of course, Discord [music] did choose to keep the plan to check ages and to basically keep the same plan. And what that amounted to is that many places in the world do not currently require the age checks by law. But Discord wanted to get ahead of the laws that they expected to come in worldwide. And to wet your appetite about something else that is to come in this video, well, if you know that someone is an adult, maybe that changes the ways you can advertise to them. And it seems they want to do that, too. So, where we start off today is the second attempt at rolling out the age checks, and their plan really has not changed that much. Everything Discord was going to do in February, they're [music] still doing. They still estimate your age based on signals from your account. Things like how long you've had the account, whether there's a payment method on file, and what types of servers that you're in. They want to stress that they don't read your messages to do this, either those in DMs or in servers. Yeah, you'd better not. Those signals that they do read will still cover, they say, 90% of users. And Discord claims that basically because of that 90% of people should not have to verify at all. So you probably won't notice. There is one new thing that is good, I'll say, and that's that you can now check your age group on your profile. It'll either be unconfirmed teen or adult. And that'll decide, of course, whether you can get into adult channels and servers, and maybe one or two things about ads, which I'll get to shortly. But where our problems begin today is in what happens when something goes wrong with those signals. If Discord decides that an adult is a child, there's now more than just ID verification. You can verify with a credit card, through your Apple or your Google account, or through a platform like Age Key. That was basically the whole plan. That was the big new roll out. And it was all going to work great in theory. In practice, however, this stuff didn't work out great. People all over social media were finding their accounts rated as teens by the automated system, even though they'd had an account open for a decade. It seemed then that Discord were airing in the side of caution. Anyone impacted would have had to have went and used one of the new verification options. And some accounts that had already been confirmed as adults found that they could not go into servers marked as being for adults. The system simply was not working as described. But where things get more rough is when the failure goes in the other direction from child to adult rather than adult to child. Kids were able to get into servers that they really should not have been able to get into. Trust was already in very short supply. So all of this was worst case scenario. Discord effectively showed people that their systems did not work. And then it got worse. In the hours before the problem was fixed, Discord responded with cutesy social media posts. They tried to sarcastically suggest that they were just as unhappy about rolling this out as you are. Here's one of them. When you launch an extremely popular age assurance update that everyone in Discord was really looking forward to, and it has bugs. These cutesy posts did not go down well. Over the week that followed, people made a huge amount of pretty awesome fan art of Discord's mascot just being tortured and abused. And hey, maybe I made one myself for the thumbnail of this video. We'll see. Now, that's because people didn't really have any other way to protest this short of just canceling their Nitro subscription or quitting Discord. And the thing is, all of that happened before people discovered that Discord was also running a test based on age verification at the same time. a test that was poised to earn the company a lot of money because it was gambling ads. Sponsored quests and promotions for FanJul, a prediction market website, started appearing in Discord. Now, Fanul only works for people who are 18 or 21 and over, I guess, depending on the territory. So, it was quite easy to see the logic here. Discord now had its users sorted into adults and teens. That means that the adult segment can be marketed to specifically by brands and prediction markets will pay huge money to reach new audiences. So Discord, because of all of this, was about to make a killing. But where it all falls into the absurd is when people saw these ads as actually reflecting a change to Discord's advertising policy because their policy bans real money gambling. Now, GameSpot asked Discord about this and Discord said, "Oh, no. Our our policy is not changing." thing is it doesn't explicitly ban prediction markets and it already makes an exception for fantasy sports ads. So basically that means that ads for prediction market platforms could run. Now this was a test in a limited region of the US. Discord said that it was quote using a range of age signals to help ensure that the ads were age appropriate. In theory that does mean that kids don't see ads for gambling and only adults do as long as the system is working. And obviously when it first rolled out it wasn't really working. And Discord's response to the content of the ads is that the ads are adding quote genuine value that naturally connects with our user sports gaming and entertainment interests. Oh yes, genuine value. And the thing is whether it is a book maker or a prediction market, the thing that someone is fundamentally doing is trying to get paid for a prediction about the future. Now, that is what we traditionally call gambling regardless of the business model of the platform or the business that is facilitating [music] said gambling. And gambling does huge damage to society. It's the type where the companies [music] reap all the benefits of the gambling, but the negative externalities of that aren't paid for by [music] the companies and basically it just all falls on society to pay for that stuff. This absolutely is Discord taking advantage of their new age verification policy to open up ways of [music] making money. huge ways of making money. And if we were to ask the question, who is this all really for? Who is it in service to? Obviously, it's Discord going public. But it's not just that because there is also the legal situation and how the tide is turning worldwide. 15 decades ago in February 2026, Discord explained that in their own words, "By this ourselves, we can show regulators that it's possible to verify age without collecting identity." and they called it the model that they hope the rest of the world will adopt. Basically, they saw what way the wind was blowing. And when we take a look across the world in say Texas, Brazil and many other places, a lot of laws have actually changed and came into force. Then there is a very large one though. It's the EU Kids Act which is shaping up to effectively make Discord's policy the law. Of course, that meaning estimation from account signals for the majority of people and direct age verification for a few people. But it's obviously not going to be like that everywhere. And we actually got a sign of all this the same week the Discord rolled this out and managed to get themselves banned in the Philippines, even though it was for less than a day. After a high school shooting, the country's cyber crime agency demanded local Discord officials. So basically, they wanted Discord to fly people out. They also demanded details on the age verification systems and their policies on child safety and extremism. They then gave Discord 24 hours to comply with all of that. It seems Discord either didn't or couldn't comply in time. And because of that, the ban came down, which sure seems to have pissed off a lot of local users. Now, it seems that that all led to Discord and the agency talking again, and they quite quickly 180 on the ban after basically Discord just gave them some assurances. Now, the reason I bring that story up is because it clearly shows the level of concern worldwide about basically what goes on in the internet and how it can or cannot spill into real life. And that is why Discord ultimately decided to get ahead of all of these laws. And in doing so, their whole plan has actually ended up right in line with what the European Union is developing. Convincing technocratic bodies is one thing, and they are well set up to do it. They're a big old company. They can probably fly representatives out to places to talk to important people, but there's a group of people who are a lot harder to convince. That would of course be Discord's users. The very least, Discord does seem to know they need to do something to make users a bit more happy. So, I think it's no accident that in the days following [music] this messy roll out, they've actually added in a bunch of improvements. These are things like better echo cancellation. There's a mobile refresh. They also revealed a game mode that is designed to cut some of the performance hits that the Discord app can actually cause. And then we got bigger file uploads, like much bigger. [music] I believe on Nitro I can upload a gigabyte, which is actually fairly useful because I sort of run the business through Discord. Though, none of that is really relevant to the core issue, even though it's good stuff, right? None of that will convince people who are furious about the roll out or who've maybe been locked out of their account. That will just take time and Discord's role within friend groups and gaming is becoming more and more entrenched. That does mean that people will start to feel like they can't afford not to use it. The network effect of Discord is so strong that if you opt out of that network, you do inconvenience yourself, which is of course Discord's [music] big strength as a business and probably one of the reasons why they are trying to go public so that they can actually figure out how to get a big old payday for their investors based on all the growth that they've had. All Discord really has to do moving forward is play for time and try to win people back by just being the biggest and having the best features and just relying on the strength of their network effect. Because look, I'm sure you could go to GitHub right now and find loads of different really cool open- source alternatives to Discord, but are you really going to be able to get all your friends to download that? It's not just converting your World of Warcraft guild to run a different provider because there's all your other friend groups, all the other servers that you're in. That is why in spite of all Discord struggles with getting their revenue up, they are fundamentally sitting on top of something that is extremely powerful and extremely valuable. They've just struggled to extract value from that. Of course, one way they're trying to amend that struggle is is prediction markets, you know, because hey, now we can target those things towards adults. [music] And even more than that, and especially if they go public, I mean, the core thing of value that they also have is your data, your usage patterns, all of those things. Let's be real with ourselves. The incentives all point towards things that um are you being the product, right? That's how this type of thing always goes. If I'm to be pragmatic and [music] realistic, I think that the network effect that they have is just insurmountable. But we need to be careful. We need to hold them accountable and we do need to resist things that could lead us down a slippery slope. I think we have seen enough instances of big tech companies where their platform is free to use and ultimately your data, your behavior, etc. or just exposure to you and your attention where that's the product. We have seen that go wrong in so many instances. So, while I honestly think like winning is basically impossible, I do think that the best thing we can do is just be informed, [music] be aware, and if something pisses us off, we should actually vocalize that. That's a principle that extends far beyond Discord, such as to advertisements in our actual video games. There is a new Microsoft patent that is deeply concerning, and I think you should be aware of it. Good news is I've already done a video on it that you can watch next.