Discord Users Protest Age Verification With Gruesome Art Of Its Mascot

Discord has something of a history of unpopular decisions and security incidents, but the global rollout of its age-estimation system a few days ago seems to have been the last straw for a lot of people. If you missed it, this system automatically estimates users' ages, so people won't have to scan their ID or take a selfie. Discord said it expected around 90% of users wouldn't need to do anything at all, but, as you can guess, bugs were unavoidable.

If you're on X/Twitter, you've probably already come across the image of Wumpus, Discord's purple mascot, posted by the company after the rollout. Nobody liked that, understandably, and it only prompted the internet to vent its collective frustration over the system's mistakes, "quirky" corporate statements, and concerns about censorship and the exposure of private information, which age verification is ultimately associated with.

And people got insanely creative with it, making edits, animations, memes, and museum-quality art. Fair warning before you scroll: things get very violent: