“Concentrated energy will not be rendered innocent by the nice intentions of those that create it.” – Milton Friedman
Discord’s transfer to require age verification by way of facial recognition and ID scans arrives wrapped within the language of safety. But it surely’s really a blueprint for one thing extra troubling: normalizing surveillance within the title of security.
There’s no actual method to know what number of Bitcoin-focused Discord teams there are, however there’s little question that Discord is an often-reached-for software in our ecosystem’s toolbox.
The rationales offered by Discord are, by now, acquainted. However whereas KYC (Know Your Buyer) necessities, as acknowledged, serve noble functions, they’re little greater than ratcheting screws in follow. Every requirement normalizes the subsequent. Every new baseline turns into tomorrow’s minimal. The Overton window strikes.
Our motion is skeptical of concentrated energy regardless of its supply—significantly the facility to know, observe, and categorize residents. That is true whether or not that energy comes from governments, firms and, extra narrowly, on-line neighborhood platforms.
Discord presents its transfer as inevitable. It’s not. I do know that Discord isn’t attempting to hurt anybody. The corporate genuinely believes it’s defending customers. However good intentions don’t stop the drift. They speed up it. There’s additionally the danger that the collected knowledge turns into uncovered.
Fortunately, there are alternate options. As with Linux and even Bitcoin itself, the open-source method presents the answer. Options that invert the facility dynamic—the place customers management their keys and platforms can’t—are quietly gaining traction.
Open Supply Beats a Tightened Fist
Open-source platforms constructed on federation fashions—providers like Fedi—don’t require identification verification to take part. They’re privacy-by-design, not privacy-theater. They could be slower to scale and lack Discord’s community results, however they’re additionally proof against the stress that turns “security options” into surveillance infrastructure.
Moreover, Nostr—a censorship-resistant protocol constructed on cryptographic keys as an alternative of usernames and passwords—represents one other various. With Nostr, you don’t create an account with an organization however, moderately, a keypair. That secret’s yours. No verification. No ID. No biometrics. No firm between you and your knowledge.
The protocol continues to be younger. The person expertise wants work. However the structure is sound: you personal your identification, not a platform.
This issues greater than it sounds. On Discord, your account is Discord’s property. On Nostr, your account is mathematically yours. You possibly can transfer between relay servers—the infrastructure layer—with out shedding your identification or your social graph. You possibly can’t be deplatformed as a result of there’s no platform to deplatform you from.
And it’s not simply Discord. It’s TikTok going through potential regulation. It’s Instagram including identification verification for creators. It’s your entire social web transferring inch by inch towards a future the place participation requires documentation.
The Strikes We’re Making
We’re at an inflection level. Over the subsequent few years, communities like Bitcoin Park‘s 1,000+-person Discord will migrate to alternate options. We’re slowly transferring ours throughout a number of platforms—Fedi for federated communication, Nostr for censorship-resistant social layers.
This isn’t as a result of our members are doing something mistaken and most actually not as a result of we now have one thing to cover. We imagine individuals deserve infrastructure that respects privateness and sovereignty as rules.
These instruments are unglamorous and slower to undertake, however they’re getting higher. And so they’re the one infrastructure that genuinely inverts the facility dynamic—placing customers in management moderately than platforms.
So we’re selecting instruments that may’t be turned off. Not as a result of we’re paranoid however as a result of, on behalf of the communities we serve, we’re paying consideration.
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This can be a visitor put up by Rod. Opinions expressed are fully their very own and don’t essentially replicate these of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Journal.
