Clearing Up Confusion About Nitro Subscriber's "New-Looking" Accounts

[In case you did not already know, Discord is currently working to update the username system.]

When we were first building Discord, one of our top priorities was to let you give yourself just about any name you wanted. We didn't want people to ever hit a screen that said, "Your Desired Username is Taken." As Discord grew, however, the four-digit suffixes to usernames (called a "discriminator") that differentiate users were no longer enough. With those four digits, "Mike#4914" could be differentiated from "Mike#9419". But today, there are already 9,999 Mike's, meaning that this username is now off-limits.

With this new username system, each Discord profile will have a unique username (allowing letters A-Z, numbers 0-9, and a few special characters such as "." and "_"). This was done in an effort to differentiate users better (because who actually remembers those four digits anyway? It also makes it easier to add people with usernames that have special Unicode characters). To allow all users to get the username they want, however, each profile also has a Display Name, which will be seen by other users and is separate from the username. Display Names have no limitations and allow everyone to be known as the name they want.

Discord Nitro subscribers will get "first-dibs" on their usernames, meaning they will get to choose theirs first before other users. Since we are already working to implement this feature, Discord users that are currently subscribed to Nitro will be moved to another account, and this may be a little confusing.

Users with a Discord Nitro subscription will be moved to a new account, and their old account will be terminated within a few weeks. You shouldn't be worried, though, about losing anything from your account (DM's etc.) because old accounts will still be there temporarily, and everything will be transferred over in two weeks.

Since over 1 million Nitro subscribers are currently being transferred to a new account (though not all at the same time), we have some suggestions to verify the person you are talking to (to prevent impersonation):

1. The discriminator. Remember, the messages from users' old accounts will still be there. Search through your DM's or servers and compare the username and discriminator (the four-digit differentiator) with the same person you are talking to. This cannot be faked and is the best way to confirm someone's identity.
2. Their Discord Nitro subscription. As stated earlier, this migration is only happening to those with a Nitro subscription. Make sure they have a Nitro subscription to confirm that they are who they claim they are.
3. Besides the first two points, some differences may be apparent in profiles. (Such as the date of creation and the date they joined a certain server). Please note that the data displayed on their profile(s) may be inconsistent across servers and group DM's. Everything is currently in beta right now, and to confirm a user's identity, the discriminator and Nitro subscription are the only ways to (and the only things necessary to) 100% confirm a user's identity. You may have to re-friend them and open a new DM (again, all DM's will be transferred back and restored after two weeks).
4. Not everyone is being moved over at the same time. This is important to note, as not all Nitro subscribers will be moved to a new account right away.

Hopefully this clears up confusion about Nitro subscribers and their new accounts (though they aren't technically "new").

Important Note:

• We have seen a few cases of DM messages that are shown to have been sent from October 30-31 of 2022 in the DM's of these "new" accounts. If you see these, disregard them; it is simply an error that will be fixed (just like everything else) in two weeks. It is especially common in accounts that have migrated early, so beware that this might be here (in a fresh DM that should otherwise be clean).

Yours Truly,

Rein Erlock, Discord's Trust and Safety Team

[If you are interested in learning more about Discord's new username system, check out our other blog here.]