Discord has announced that it's rolling out age verification checks globally from March – and the decision has sparked fury from many privacy-conscious users.
I’m liking it, but there is a lot of work left to do there. I joined today and replicated the small server I run for video game nights with my friends. That part all worked; channels, roles, voice. but the application layer seems to need the most attention. iOS is not there yet and Android needs notification integration. The desktop client has a memory leak. I hope it gets there, but it will be a tough sell to normie friends who can’t handle rough edges. The self hosted version is also behind on the release so it takes some effort to get working (looking to do this but I don’t know if I have the chops to make it work as is)
The bones are there though and hope they get an influx of help given the writing on the wall about Discords imminent continued enshittification.
The last time I looked into Stoat (back when it was Revolt), they had basically no cryptographic capabilities enabled. Have they added any e2e features at all yet? Like, the overall impression I got from them it is that it’s being developed mainly by someone who seems pretty new to programming in general, and that makes me feel pretty cautious.
In no particular order, and not all are EU or FOSS But most are FOSS. I think only the first 6 are both EU and FOSS clients.
I may not have marked all of the Self Hosted ones, but I think I did.
How many of these can handle 5-10 people in a voice chat?
Cause I use Discord weekly for running and playing TTRPGs, over voice, occasionally doing screensharing when one or more of the players are having issues with their PC
I heard sharkord allows for self-host. It’s super early in development, but it’s browser based for now, and I think if more people get on board and improve it, it’d be a pretty good alternative.
You’ve missed some news my friend, it’s an EU problem too, just the legal and privacy lawyers are fighting much harder so it keeps getting pushed away from going into law.
It’s from everywhere tbh. But the EU is certainly the largest, most forceful block in getting age verification pushed through.
The only upside is that the EU proposal demands ZKP, whereas all others are happy to accept/prefer “prove who you are”. That’s obviously an insane privacy nightmare.
So anyone who knows some good altenatives that are either FOSS or EU based?
This entire problem is because of the EU… So finding something EU based isn’t a valid solution.
Stoat (formerly Revolt), is a strong FOSS competitor with a Discord-like feeling
https://stoat.chat/
https://github.com/stoatchat
I’m liking it, but there is a lot of work left to do there. I joined today and replicated the small server I run for video game nights with my friends. That part all worked; channels, roles, voice. but the application layer seems to need the most attention. iOS is not there yet and Android needs notification integration. The desktop client has a memory leak. I hope it gets there, but it will be a tough sell to normie friends who can’t handle rough edges. The self hosted version is also behind on the release so it takes some effort to get working (looking to do this but I don’t know if I have the chops to make it work as is)
The bones are there though and hope they get an influx of help given the writing on the wall about Discords imminent continued enshittification.
The last time I looked into Stoat (back when it was Revolt), they had basically no cryptographic capabilities enabled. Have they added any e2e features at all yet? Like, the overall impression I got from them it is that it’s being developed mainly by someone who seems pretty new to programming in general, and that makes me feel pretty cautious.
I don’t think that’s their focus right now, it seems like they are focusing on replicating discord features and that is not one of them
In no particular order, and not all are EU or FOSS But most are FOSS. I think only the first 6 are both EU and FOSS clients. I may not have marked all of the Self Hosted ones, but I think I did.
https://www.mumble.info/
https://movim.eu/
https://twake-chat.com/
https://sylkserver.com/
https://fusion.privmx.com/en
https://matrix.org/ecosystem/clients/matrix-commander/
https://fluxer.app/ (self hosted)
https://a.weird.one/
https://zulip.com/
https://sharkord.com/ (self hosted)
https://spacebar.chat/
https://element.io/en
https://teamspeak.de/
https://stoat.chat/ (self hosted)
https://jami.net/
https://www.rocket.chat/
https://mattermost.com/
https://xmpp.org/ - https://roguesecurity.dev/blog/xmpp
How many of these can handle 5-10 people in a voice chat?
Cause I use Discord weekly for running and playing TTRPGs, over voice, occasionally doing screensharing when one or more of the players are having issues with their PC
I heard sharkord allows for self-host. It’s super early in development, but it’s browser based for now, and I think if more people get on board and improve it, it’d be a pretty good alternative.
Making you aware that the age requirement probably comes from the EU. Seeking another EU based solution might introduce the same requirement.
it’s from the uk and texas.
You’ve missed some news my friend, it’s an EU problem too, just the legal and privacy lawyers are fighting much harder so it keeps getting pushed away from going into law.
I’ll try and find some links for you in a sec.Edit: link - https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20251120IPR31496/children-should-be-at-least-16-to-access-social-media-say-meps
of course it’s an eu problem too, but it was the uk that pushed through undercooked regulation that forced everyone to comply.
It’s from everywhere tbh. But the EU is certainly the largest, most forceful block in getting age verification pushed through.
The only upside is that the EU proposal demands ZKP, whereas all others are happy to accept/prefer “prove who you are”. That’s obviously an insane privacy nightmare.
the eu hasn’t put anything to law yet, which at least the uk has. but yeah, of course they’re not blameless.
and Australia
Element/Matrix and Stoat (formerly Revolt)
Both have discord like communities (albeit elements are a little different), self hostable and are open source
I missed a feature like voice rooms in discord server in elements it only had server groupcalls last time i looked. Did this change ?
yes, they are called video rooms for some reasons, but ofc can be used with webcam turned off too