I've been pondering about this for the last couple of days and find it necessary to chime in on this Discord situation, as it is very important. Please forgive me because this is going to be a bit of a rant and I'm genuinely flabbergasted and irate. Undeniably, discord has become a very quick and convenient way to collaborate and keep in touch with friends and commissioners. I value the features that the platform has provided to me over the years. However, in light of recent developments, I believe things are going to change regarding how I correspond with friends on the internet. You see, I advocate for liberty and freedom on the internet and I wish to play my part in upholding my principles. If discord proceeds with embedding facial recognition and id verification into their login system, I will delete my discord account and will seek alternatives.

Discord has already proven utterly incapable of safeguarding the private information of users, regardless of who they employ to store and archive it. In this era of generative AI and deepfakes, cyber crime, online scams and identity theft are always a risk. Leaks happen, and when they do happen, the security of users is compromised and companies like discord do not care until it affects their bottom line. I do not expect anyone on here to dox themselves in order to keep in contact with me, nor will I willingly dox myself. Understand that the bio metrics and sensitive personal information you provide is like gold to these companies, because they sell it. They do not care about you, they do not care about "the children."

Speaking of which, (and I'm utterly baffled by this) parents really need to get savvy and curate what their children view on the internet. Upon inception, the internet was never made for children in the first place, it was made for grown adults and professionals. I'd be mortified if I found that kids were viewing my work on Furaffinity or Inkbunny. By extension children should not be permitted to doom scroll on smart devices, get a cheap laptop and let them use it after school for a couple of hours. If they must have a phone, give them a feature phone with "outgoing call barring" that can send and receive text messages and phone calls from specific numbers. Take command of your children, be a god damn parent! Be prudent, don't expect the state to do this for you. But what am I raving about anyway, because we all know that the UK online safety act never passed "to protect the children..." it's about creating a digital prison. Don't forget that if discord succeeds, other companies will do the same until that prison is big enough for every single one of us. The protect the children argument is a Trojan horse, pretext to enact further regulation, censorship and mass surveillance. I've warned people about this and have always received the most flimsiest excuses.

Anyway, whatever. Notes on Furaffinity and PMs on Inkbunny (for those who are on there) are both viable options. My email address will also be a useful option, particularly for keeping up to speed on commissions in future. Any discord integration with my Subscribestar Adult account will also face the chopping block. Other alternatives will be explored in the future and I wish to discuss these options with others who value the internet as an open and free space for everyone. I do not wish to be exploited and I'm sure you don't either.

Currently my finger is on the trigger and will wait and see what happens. Ultimately I will never trade my liberties and freedoms for convenience, whether it's online or in the real world.

*Sigh* thanks for reading.