c/technology · by Skavau@piefed.social · 149d

Dad stuck in support nightmare after teen lied about age on Discord

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/04/dad-stuck-in-support-nightmare-after-teen-lied-about-age-on-discord/

"Brady Frey did not realize that his daughter lied about her age when she set up her Discord account. He only found out after her account got hacked and he got trapped in a spiraling support nightmare while trying to stop the hacker from targeting dozens of her young friends with financial extortion scams.

When Frey’s daughter signed up for Discord, she was 12 and technically not old enough to have an account. But like many kids who, regulators have found, commonly lie about their age to access social media platforms, she didn’t want to wait another year to join her friends on the messaging app. Hiding her age, she created an account that listed her as over 18 years old.

Now 13, the teen had been happily using the app for months when she suddenly got locked out of her account after clicking on a link from an attacker posing as Discord support. Since she didn’t enable two-factor authentication, the attacker was able to commandeer the account. Frey only found out what was happening when the attacker asked the teen to share her parents’ banking information if she wanted to get her account back.

Once Frey realized his daughter had been hacked, he assumed that Discord would promptly intervene, recognizing that many minor victims on her friends list could be harmed the longer the attacker kept control. Instead, Discord’s chatbot, Clyde, and a seeming human support member, Nelly, automatically closed her support tickets after telling her it would be best to report the issue from inside the app, which she could not access.

Frey told Ars he was shocked to see a platform as big as Discord relying on such poor support infrastructure.

“There’s no pathway for a parent to step in and advocate for a minor whose account has been compromised,” Frey told Ars."

Everyone laugh at Discord AI moderation

71 points · 14 comments · view on lemmy.world

14 Comments

schwim@piefed.zip · 75 pts · 149d (9 replies)

This reads like stricter age verification propaganda.

Skavau@piefed.social · 33 pts · 149d (2 replies)

A bit. But the part I focused on was the dad getting stuck in an AI loop with Nelly over something very serious.

audit69@programming.dev · 4 pts · 149d (1 reply)

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otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 148d

go full-blown Luigi

The millions of people worldwide who'd leap at the chance to thank that man in such a way is not zero.

zo0@programming.dev · 12 pts · 149d (1 reply)

Yeah I still don't understand what her age has to do anything with the situation. What exactly would be the difference if she was 60?

frongt@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 148d

It doesn't have anything to do with it that I see.

If anything, I would have expected them to ban the account even harder for admitting to being underage.

MagnificentSteiner@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 149d (2 replies)

Try reading the article next time

Since his daughter set up the account with an 18+ setting, it’s possible that the field corresponded to her self-reported age. But Frey could see that Discord updated the setting twice: once two days after the hack, and again after her account was restored. Each time, she was marked as not underage, despite support forum messages that repeatedly informed Discord she was 13.

Seemingly, that meant that the platform could create “a detailed behavioral ad profile” on the teen, even though its internal system had categorized her in the 13–17 age group, Frey said.

Samantha Baldwin, a policy and research staff technologist for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), told Ars that Discord’s hesitancy to formally update the age setting is telling. Frey’s case shows why privacy advocates believe that age verification laws aren’t about “protecting children” but about “surveillance and censorship,” she said.

“That they would not recategorize a minor’s account demonstrates this clearly,” Baldwin said. “Discord is in the business of making money by selling their users’ personal data. They are implementing ‘age verification’ to meet regulatory compliance and to collect more data about their customers, not protect children.”

EFF has long warned against age-gating the Internet, opposing the mass collection of IDs that might block users from accessing platforms and viewing age estimation technology as ineffective and privacy-invasive.

Xenny@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 149d

I'm putting on my tin foil hat here to say that this could be another propaganda technique.

You front load the data you want the smooth brains to absorb and then on the back end you explain why this article has a reason to be shared around to everybody who is sane. Smooth brains and the people they want to control will only read the title and the base knowledge that the article is getting across appealing to their base emotions and fears furthering the point that the publisher is trying to propagandize.

"Smarter" people will read the whole thing and read the back part of the article, which says that this is actually an "anti-age verification article" So you share it to social media to try to prove your own point. But all the smooth brains only see the front loaded point.

So in a way, creating an article like this is more likely to be shared by more people and then the hidden point of age verification is front loaded and the criticisms against it are hidden behind too many paragraphs for most.

Arstechica is a captured media site owned by Condé Naste who not only published "The Art of The Deal" they also are anti-union, pro Iseal, and they are partially responsible for this current radicalization of america through their many publications.

They recently fired several people from Teen Vogue for their political opinions and Union organization.

This is an entity which likes to appear impartial but definitely is pushing an agenda.

Anyway i have to take my tinfoil hat off to play beat saber now. This is all speculation

audit69@programming.dev · 0 pts · 149d

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audit69@programming.dev · 5 pts · 149d

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socsa@piefed.social · 20 pts · 148d (2 replies)

This is pro age verification propaganda. Don't fall for it. I don't give a shit what your kids do on the Internet.

otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 148d

It's what's done to them that's the issue.

Also, who doesn't tell their device-capable kids about security hygiene, FFS?! Did he also fail to discuss prophylactics during the sex talk? Thafuq, dad.

HuudaHarkiten@piefed.social · 1 pts · 148d

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paraphrand@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 149d

Good moderation and support staff are expensive.

ech@lemmy.ca · 8 pts · 148d