Ok Fedifriends - I'm sure I'm only the millionth person to ask, but I want to confirm I'm on the right course here. Discord is poop. I want to self host something that offers text, voice, and video chat for a small group of friends. Is Matrix my best option? Have at me fellow nerds.
Rig is an old gaming PC running NixOS.
The more of us that never go back to #discord , the more it tells other companies to never make the shitty decision in the first place
Make consequences stick.
YES! This is AMAZING! 🎉
Keep pushing against abusive practices, and keep fighting for your privacy rights!
IT WORKS! ✊🔒
https://9to5mac.com/2026/02/24/discord-just-canceled-its-planned-age-verification-rollout-for-now/
Edit: Just to be clear, I still encourage everyone to move to better platforms and delete your Discord accounts (even if there was no age verification at all). Discord isn't a privacy-respectful platform.
But this small victory means we should keep pushing for better privacy practices, everywhere.
This means they are listening. This means you have the power to make things better, for yourself and for others.
Celebrate that. And keep pushing back.
@Em0nM4stodonEm 
my guess is that #discord had a "#PiperChat moment" and realized that their entire business model IS a #COPPA violation!
Cuando estéis tristes, recordad que la izquierda ya está hablando de cómo organizarse y que los usuarios de Discord le acaban de tumbar un negocio a Peter Thiel
If you are feeling sad, remember that #Discord users took away a bussiness deal from Peter Thiel
“Discord cuts ties with Peter Thiel–backed verification software after its code was found tied to U.S. surveillance efforts”
•••
No no no, Fortune! Let me help you with a rewrite:
•••
“Discord cuts ties with Peter Thiel–backed verification software after people got mad about its ties to U.S. surveillance efforts, and canceled their accounts en masse”
#privacy #discord #DissDiscord
https://fortune.com/2026/02/24/discord-peter-thiel-backed-persona-identity-verification-breach/
YES! This is AMAZING! 🎉
Keep pushing against abusive practices, and keep fighting for your privacy rights!
IT WORKS! ✊🔒
https://9to5mac.com/2026/02/24/discord-just-canceled-its-planned-age-verification-rollout-for-now/
Edit: Just to be clear, I still encourage everyone to move to better platforms and delete your Discord accounts (even if there was no age verification at all). Discord isn't a privacy-respectful platform.
But this small victory means we should keep pushing for better privacy practices, everywhere.
This means they are listening. This means you have the power to make things better, for yourself and for others.
Celebrate that. And keep pushing back.
So, Discord have started to experiment the next step of their age verification: Send "age verification" data to the company Persona.
Persona, in which Peter Thiel have investments. Peter Thiel is the founder of Palantir, a data and surveillance company that collaborate with USA federal agencies. Including ICE. (And their is a lot of other things to tell about Thiel.)
But wait, there is more about Persona. [1/2]
Age verification is not en never was about protecting children. It's about mass surveillance.
"Once a user verifies their identity with Persona, the software performs 269 distinct verification checks and scours the internet and government sources for potential matches, such as by matching your face to politically exposed persons (PEPs), and generating risk and similarity scores for each individual. IP addresses, browser fingerprints, device fingerprints, government ID numbers, phone numbers, names, faces, and even selfie backgrounds are analyzed and retained for up to three years."
https://www.therage.co/persona-age-verification/
#AgeVerification #MassSurveillance #Persona #Thiel #ChatControl #Discord
Someone verified their identity with LinkedIn - similar to other verification processes.
#Discord fans, read this. This is your homework.
https://thelocalstack.eu/posts/linkedin-identity-verification-privacy/
Not stated in this report:
YOU must be aware that you are dragging your friends into the pit. Because your "network" is part of their data.
Just like your contacts are shared with Whatsapp and %friend happened to be in your contacts. It's now somewhere else. This is your responsibility.
When your password leaks:
→ Change your password
→ Problem solved
When your biometric data leaks:
→ You can't change your face
→ You can't change your fingerprints
→ The compromise is permanent
→ Your biometric data is in breach databases forever
This is why facial recognition for age verification is dangerous.
Anyone who is about to complete, or already has completed, an age-verification or identity-verification process online should read this short article.
Especially if it's on LinkedIn or Discord.
"I Verified My LinkedIn Identity. Here's What I Actually Handed Over." by 
@thelocalstack
https://thelocalstack.eu/posts/linkedin-identity-verification-privacy/
#Privacy #LinkedIn #Discord #AgeVerification #IdentityVerification #MassSurveillance
Do not comply.
Do not share your ID or biometric data with abusive platforms requesting it. You have a choice to say no, complain, and leave.
This is an important act of resistance for the future of humanity.
This isn't just about privacy, this is also about safety, diversity, democracy, and human rights.
#Privacy #MassSurveillance #HumanRights #Fascism #AgeVerification #IdentityVerification
@Em0nM4stodonEm looking at you, #Discord
We're also going to work on the #ServerDirectory this year.
This starts with moving the directory to a new pull-request-based system so admins can submit, update, or remove entries themselves.
Another change we want to make is to add more and new ways to “classify” different types of servers including demographics, interests, and geographic regions.
Once we have that kind of information, we can start to explore new ways to incorporate it into the onboarding process. Stay tuned...
In other news, we're moving off #Discord to 
@zulip.
Our first step will be to migrate the people on our existing Discord servers to Zulip. Then we also want to extend access to more and different kinds of people who are deeply engaged and actively contributing to Mastodon and the #fediverse.
We're going to move slowly and carefully because we want to be thoughtful about how we build out this space. Running this community space is important, but it does add coordination and moderation overhead to our small team.
How would a space like this be useful to you? Let me know in the comments :)
RE: https://mastodon.social/@gamingonlinux/116041309989733171
Anyone have any good alternative recommendations? I use it a lot for indie game community stuff.
Fluxer is an open-source, independent instant messaging and VoIP platform. Built for friends, groups, and communities.
https://fluxer.app
Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti-ICE Accounts
The department has sent Google, Meta and other companies hundreds of subpoenas for information on accounts that track or comment on ICE, officials and tech workers said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/technology/dhs-anti-ice-social-media.html?unlocked_article_code=1.MFA.Vs3Z.wp4uTUF3mn_X&smid=nytcore-ios-share
from #NewYorkTimes #NYT
[gift article]
Feb. 13, 2026
The Department of Homeland Security (#DHS) is expanding its efforts to identify Americans who oppose #ICE by sending tech companies legal requests for the names, email addresses, telephone numbers and other identifying data behind social media accounts that track or criticize the agency.
In recent months, #Google, #Reddit, #Discord and #Meta, which owns #Facebook and #Instagram, have received hundreds of administrative subpoenas from the DHS, according to four government officials and tech employees privy to the requests.
#AbolishICE
#DueProcessForAll
#DefendFreeSpeech
#StopTheDeportations
#deportations #immigration
#USA #US #USpol #politics #Trump #news
#Roblox, #Reddit and #Discord users must use biometric #ageverification tool backed by Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel
@JamesBaker says:
“People are worried, and angry, about having to hand over biometric scans of their face to overseas companies just to access online platforms. This includes children.
“Users deserve to know who is behind these systems, how their data is being used, and to have a real choice about who verifies their identity online.”
I've had a thought about the whole #Discord thing. One of the reasons why it has become so popular even as a “#forum” thing, despite being *utterly unusable* in that sense, is that is provided single sign-on. Once logged into Discord, you could trivially join any community with zero to no effort. Compare this with the sign-up process in *any* other context and it becomes pretty clear.
The only other place that offered a comparable experience was basically reddit, with its own sets of problems.
The migration from #Discord to anything else will not be a problem *only* because e.g. other chat systems to not provide a comparable UX, but *also* because each community going each separate way for *anything* (be it #chat or #forum) is that the first-time login/sign-up will have more friction than the funneling to Discord had.
I've had a thought about the whole #Discord thing. One of the reasons why it has become so popular even as a “#forum” thing, despite being *utterly unusable* in that sense, is that is provided single sign-on. Once logged into Discord, you could trivially join any community with zero to no effort. Compare this with the sign-up process in *any* other context and it becomes pretty clear.
The only other place that offered a comparable experience was basically reddit, with its own sets of problems.
💥 Discord Exodus Begins
｢ Unlike Discord, Matrix is federated. You don't have to use their main server. You can spin up your own homeserver on a Raspberry Pi or rent a VPS in a country that doesn't demand your ID card to send a meme.
The trade-off? The user experience is still... rough. ｣
Huh, "Discord's age verification isn't as bad as people say", you might think?
Well: #PeterThiel is pumping money into #Persona, one of companies involved with the verification process: https://www.pcgamer.com/software/platforms/oh-good-discords-age-verification-rollout-has-ties-to-palantir-co-founder-and-panopticon-architect-peter-thiel/
#Discord #AgeVerification #MassSurveillance #Anonymity #Palantir
Discord's age verification rollout has ties to Palantir co-founder and panopticon architect Peter Thiel
You "may be part of an experiment where your information will be processed by an age-assurance vendor, Persona."
#Discord #privacy #surveillance #AgeVerification #enshittification #Persona #Palantir #dystopia #socialmedia #gaming #technology
There's a lot of energy on the #Fediverse right now to discuss/find a #Federated alternative to #Discord using #ActivityPub.
@strypey suggested that I put this out there to anyone who's thinking about it. We could probably rebuild most of Discord's features as an #Emissary inbox without doing a lot of back end code.
I'm too swamped to start on this right now. But if you're a great HTML+CSS designer, I'm able to give some time to a team who wants to take this on.
🎥🔴Episode #40 of This Week in Privacy is live in 15 minutes, we'll be answering questions
from the community and covering the latest privacy news! Come say hi! 👋
🚨Attention Discord users, there's about to be a big change that will affect your privacy on the platform! 🧵
A group is considering getting off #facebook and #discord
Can you create a private group in #friendica ?
#socialmedia #privacy #fediverse
We're delighted to welcome the massive influx of users looking for decentralised alternatives to Discord!
Here's what to expect, and some clarity on the growing challenges posed by age verification.
@matrixThe Matrix.org Foundation Matrix is not ready for all of the discord Exodus. Needs more decentralization from the primary server and better moderation tools, and easier setup for admins. #matrix #Discord #exodus #tech #linux
“And that's...it. Element promises more, like native video conferencing, but heaven help you if you're trying to self-host it. It is technically possible, but by no means simple.
"Technically possible, but by no means simple" aptly describes up the entire Matrix experience, actually.
I ran a private Matrix server for about a year and a half. Why private? In two public Matrix rooms I had joined—including the room for Synapse admins—I experienced a common attack in which troll accounts spam the room with CSAM material. Horrible, but not just for the participants and admins in the room. Through the magic of federation, every server who has a user participating in the room now has a copy of the CSAM material, and has to take action to remove it. This requires a manual curl request on the server itself, because Synapse has an appalling lack of moderation tools. It's so bad that, without third-party tooling, you can't even ban a user outright from a server; you have to manually ban them from every single room.
Then came September 2, 2025. The outageof matrix.org caused by drive failures was not an indictment of Matrix's database management or recovery process—in fact, I was quite impressed with their response. But it did put the lie to Matrix's decentralization for me. Almost none of my friends could use Matrix, even though I was hosting my own server. The onboarding pipeline (especially via Element) is so focused on the flagship server, I daresay it comprises the plurality of Matrix accounts. It's not easy to get any statistics for all Matrix users, but that is my guess. How "decentralized" is that, really? Just because something can be decentralized doesn't make it so.
Isn't that right, ATProto?
I'm probably a little too close to this one. I so badly wanted Matrix to work, and I tried to make it work for my purposes for a long time. Ultimately, the pain points overcame the benefits. But if you care most about an intersection of message encryption, federation, and decentralization, and you're willing to put in quite a lot of admin time, Matrix can be a viable community chat platform.”
The claims in this post are from a blog post written by one of the devs of Fermi, a client for Stoat competitor Spacebar. I haven't fact-checked this yet, so take with a grain of salt;
https://blog.fermi.chat/discordAlts/revolt/
Although it's technically possible to self-host Stoat, the client apps are hardcoded to point to stoat.chat, not your instance. Also a bunch of the code it depends on is under proprietary (Source Available?) licenses, and can be hard to find, as it's not all in one repo.
(2/?)
There's a massive opportunity here, for someone to build a UX that would be comfortable for someone used to Discord. 100% Free Code, and connected to a federated server that can provide all the necessary functionality. Whether that's using;
* XMPP for interop with the Jabber network,
* Meg/Olm for interop with Matrix rooms
* ActivityPub for interop with the forumverse (Lemmy, PieFed, Discourse, nodeBB, etc).
* Something else(?)
(3/?)
Finally got around to checking out Revolt Chat. It's basically a Free Code Discord clone. If they were going to federate with other chat servers, matrix is probably the best choice, given it's a room-orientated UX and needs a concept like Spaces. If anyone thinks that Revolt could be federated with XMPP, I'd be interested to hear some details on how that would work.
As you may have heard, Discord alternative Revolt has been renamed Stoat;
https://stoat.chat/updates/long-live-stoat
Stoat is designed as a centralised service. So in theory the operators could sell it to Discord, or Xitter, or anyone, at any time.
To be clear, they show no signs of doing so, and claim they're getting plenty of donations to cover costs. But this was true with Gitea ... until it wasn't. Devs with control over the project accepted VC money, leading to the Forgejo fork.
(1/?)
People use Discord and Slack for different reasons.
If you want to create an alternative — the place to start is NOT E2EE (end to end encryption).
A place to start is understanding all these different types of users and use-cases. And then deciding which of these user types you are making the software for.
Some of them need E2EE, but some do not.
@reiver@reiver ⊼ (Charles) 
> People use Discord and Slack for different reasons
My impression is that for most communities it's an alternative for web forums, not for IM or IRC. So for these folks, Lemmy, Discourse or nodeBB might be a more helpful suggestion than XMPP or Matrix.
I noticed this back when Slack pulled their bait-and-switch by turning off their IRC and XMPP bridges, and wrote up a page of replacement options;
(1/2)
📅 Mark your calendars, Privacy Guides is going live this Friday with our podcast This Week In Privacy. 🔴🎥
📣 We'll be discussing the recent move by Discord to require ID and other trending topics in the privacy & security space.
🎤 We will be answering questions live, so come hang out with us! 😊
Just going to leave this here...
#selfhost #selfhosted #selfhosting #foss #opensource #homelab #discord #stoat #spacebar #sharkord #teamspeak
I know this #Discord nonsense has a lot of people searching for alternatives (like Matrix, Stoat, etc), and those alternatives have a chance to shine right now. BUT we need to go back to discussions and knowledge being searchable on the open web!
I say bring back the forums. It's time.
With news that Discord is moving toward stricter age/ID verification and privacy concerns around this shift, I’m wondering whether Open Source communities like Python and Django should consider alternatives to Discord. 🤔
Platforms like Matrix or Zulip might better respect privacy and freedom of access.
What do you think about a migration away from Discord?
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1d67vdlk1ko
#OpenSource #Privacy #Discord #Python #Django #Zulip #Matrix
CC 
@django 
@ThePSFPython Software Foundation 
@benjaomingBenjamin Balder Bach
Some of my old comics have aged well!
#discord
RE: https://mastodon.social/@lobsters/115882407207303960
Good reads:
― the 2024 blog post
― the 2026 discussion in Lobsters.
Incidentally, I did stop using Discord. No regrets.
Time for a #discord alternatives thread, for no particular reason.
I've actually been looking into all available options for the past few weeks for other reasons, so here's a thread to share what I've found.
In particular I'm looking for stuff with:
* Data sovereignty
* Strong moderation tools
* Wide platform support
Hopefully this gives everyone else some ideas too, and feel free to chime in with corrections, suggestions or anything else!
Ditch Discord! In early March, Discord will begin age verification for all users world-wide. This is a violation of your freedom and privacy!
Consider one of the following alternatives:
www.stoatchat
www.matrix.org
www.signal.org
www.rocket.chat
Now would be a great time for smaller hosting providers like Hetzner to offer managed services with Zulip, RocketChat, and IRC servers...
Wouldn't it be spiffy if we saw an explosion of open-source managed services to replace proprietary ones Discord, Slack, Instagram, etc.?
System administration isn't for everyone. It's a non-starter to expect everybody to manage their own open-source services. *Especially* when people are trying to disentangle themselves from multiple proprietary things at once.
Run your own blog and web site? Sure. File backup? OK. Chat server... and photo hosting ... music and video streaming... and everything else? That starts to add up and become overwhelming for most people pretty quickly.
There's an opportunity for lots of small businesses, jobs, improving open source, and setting people free of proprietary services all at once here. If we all take it. Self-hosting doesn't *have* to mean literally running services yourself, if there are reasonable alternatives. (e.g., Fastmail, Hetzner Storage Share.)
In case someone was on edge about the Discord age verification blabla and was thinking about doing (getting verified) it because (insert reason), you might want to read this:
A lot of hate being directed towards Discord for introducing age verification. But when half the governments in jurisdiction you operate in start demanding it, perhaps anger should be directed towards polticans and groups who support it. #discord #privacy #ageverification
Nous apprenions hier que #Discord va nécessiter la vérification d'âge pour débloquer un accès illimité aux salons et contenus considérés par la plateforme comme étant pour adultes.
L'arrivée de ces restrictions souligne l'emmerdification de la plateforme de discussion.
Heureusement, des alternatives existent ! À Framasoft, nous proposons gratuitement https://framateam.org (alternative à Discord / #Slack) !
Pas de vérification d'âge et pas de limites pour l'outil de recherche des messages ! 😉
Discord faces backlash over age checks after data breach exposed 70,000 IDs
“This is how Discord dies”
#Discord #AgeVerification #IDverification #privacy #surveillance #enshittification #dystopia #security #technology #gaming #messaging #socialmedia
Ugh, having to wait 14 days to delete a #discord account I never wanted in the first place.
Ummmm...
ID photos of 70,000 users may have been leaked, #Discord says
by Osmond Chia, October 9, 2025
"Discord, a messaging platform popular with gamers, says official ID photos of around 70,000 users have potentially been leaked after a #CyberAttack.
"The platform, which has more than 200 million users worldwide, says hackers had targeted a firm that helped to verify the ages of its users but the Discord platform itself was not breached.
"People can provide ID photos to verify their age on Discord - a networking hub for players to chat and share files with others in the gaming community."
Alright well this is very much a WIP but it's already more info than I've found on this subject anywhere else on the web: the fandom discord to IRC migration page is live!
🦆 
@
