My Opinion on the Recent iOS Block

This post will serve as my formal opinion on the subject of the newest update for the Discord mobile app, specifically for iOS users, such as myself. If you did not already know, in the newest update for Discord, they have decided that in order to comply with Apple's standards regarding mature content on iOS devices, the best course of action would be to entirely block access to NSFW-marked servers on all iOS devices. On top of this, the NSFW gate for creating a server has now been made stricter. Not only are you now required to label whether your server is considered NSFW or not, but if you do not mark it, you will automatically be labelled by Discord as an NSFW server and therefore, inaccessible via iOS devices. For more details regarding the changes, they have written out a few different articles regarding their new policies:

https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500005292701-Accessing-an-NSFW-Server-FAQ

Now, in my opinion, this was a terrible decision from a number of different standpoints and could have been carried out in much better methods. For one, in terms of "good faith" and trying to solve the issue of minors accessing NSFW content on Discord, all this does is shift the issue to a different part of Discord. Not only do many minors nowadays have access to non-iOS devices (laptops, computers, Androids, etc.), but now you are also hitting a massive percentage of innocent Discord users with a change that will ultimately cause more damage than good.

From a legal standpoint, regarding Apple's guidelines for apps on the App Store, this change was extremely drastic and overdone. Although the update now helps Discord follow Apple's guidelines, it shoots far past them in a way that has negatively impacted their business. Directly from Apple themselves, their guidelines state that:

"To prevent abuse, apps with user-generated content or social networking services must include:... A method for filtering objectionable material from being posted to the app... If your app includes user-generated content from a web-based service, it may display incidental mature “NSFW” content, provided that the content is hidden by default and only displayed when the user turns it on via your website."

For more information on Apple's App Store guidelines, here is a direct link to the Apple Developer site where these guidelines are published:

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/

Under Apple's guidelines, Discord would fall under what they call "User Generated Content". Based on those guidelines, Discord took several steps too far to follow these guidelines. For one, Apple only requires that "...the [mature "NSFW"] content is hidden by default and only displayed when the user turns it on via your website." That is important because it is worth noting that Discord could have easily made the lock on NSFW servers a simple block from their app, not on all iOS devices in general, and simply left the rest as is. If the NSFW block was through Discord instead of iOS devices as a whole, then they could keep it to where those NSFW servers are still accessible on iOS devices, but only after you have completed age verification requirements and toggled to view such content on the Discord website. Instead, they just decided to jump the gun and completely wall off iOS devices as a whole, hurting many regular Discord users, such as myself, in the crossfire.

Finally, from a business standpoint, this was a terrible move in all aspects. Not only did they not solve the issue they aimed to tackle and overshoot when trying to follow Apple's guidelines, they also created themselves a reason for Discord users to either 1) switch from iOS devices to other brands, hurting their relations with Apple, or 2) stop using Discord as a whole and find other alternatives that do not have the same restrictions on them as Discord does. Many small or online businesses, mobile app companies, start-up businesses, and other online users use Discord as their means of communication. To completely block off a portion of users, whether it be students, business managers, server owners, and general users like myself, from accessing their server simply because of the brand of phone they own is a massive hit towards the stability of Discord's business.

In this post, I also want to offer up my own alternative to the update that, in my opinion, would have been much better for Discord and its users as a whole. For one, I propose that instead of the block being based on the brand of devices you access Discord from, whether mobile or desktop, the block on NSFW servers should be from Discord and its age verification that is housed in-app. Rather than have all iOS devices blocked from NSFW servers, you can simply base the block on whether a user has 1) indicated their age via Discord's age verification process, and 2) if that user is considered 18+ via that age verification. With this change, iOS users will not feel alienated from Discord's full potential as a communications app. In order to more easily discern 18+ users from under-18 users on Discord, the age verification should be a requirement for creating a Discord account instead of as an optional, additional piece of information. (I do not know off the top of my head if the age verification is optional or required, but regardless, it should be required.) If a user chooses not to indicate their age, then they simply cannot access NSFW servers until they verify their age. On top of these changes, I suggest that in order to keep Discord compliant with Apple's guidelines regarding App Store apps, there should be a toggle to view NSFW content only accessible to 18+ users via the Discord website. I personally believe it would be best placed in the "My Profile" section of the Discord website when signed in with your Discord account. If a user is under-18 based on their indicated age, then the toggle will simply be inaccessible and defaulted to blocking NSFW content.

With these proposed changes, I feel there will be a lot more calm to the storm that surged amongst the community when Discord released this update. I hope that in my posting of my opinion on this update, there will be change for the better on an app that I and many other users frequent.