Marketplace Tech · Friday, September 25, 2026
Social media platforms, including Discord, are entering an 'age-gating era' due to increasing regulatory pressure and the need to protect younger users. This follows a significant settlement by Meta related to social media addiction. The implementation of age verification poses cybersecurity challenges, as evidenced by past data breaches involving third-party vendors and identity verification services.
“Right. And, you know, given particularly this meta settlement that we talked about last time, it seems like this is just going to become a regular part of interacting with any online platform, you know, Meta is going to have to separate, you know, younger users from older users. They're encouraging other social media platforms to to do this as well.”
“Even last year, a third-party vendor that Discord specifically worked with was actually breached, 70,000 users' data was leaked.”
“And so this is just the beginning. I think this is going to be a huge challenge and issue that these tech companies have to reckon with if age verification and age checks gain traction across the globe.”