Discord has announced that it will require all users to change their usernames in the next few months. Previously, a user’s username consisted of a first name followed by a # followed by four numbers, but the new system will require users to set a unique username after the @ symbol, just like other social platforms such as Twitter. Users need to wait for the notification of the platform name change before they can choose a new name.
Co-founder and chief technology officer Stanislav Vishnevskiy explained that this decision was due to the confusion of the four-digit username. More than 40% of users on the platform did not know the number of their username, which led to almost half of friend invitations due to digital input. Reasons such as errors are not passed to the correct user.
The decision to change the name has been questioned, and some creators may not get their usernames
But Discord also suffered a lot of criticism and doubts after announcing this change. Since the priority of renaming will be determined by the user’s registration date, this may cause the creator’s name to be occupied first. Some people ask whether Discord should reserve usernames for famous creators in advance to avoid this situation from happening?
Discord’s objection to the voice stated that the platform has established a process for high-profile users to reserve usernames to ensure that the identities of these creators cannot be impersonated; and Discord business partners who manage other accounts or servers. Ability to select usernames before other users.
But there are still potential problems, like a creator who said that he is not a Discord partner and does not think he is famous enough for the platform to notice, so he can’t guarantee whether he will get a username under his name now.
However, some users are not worried. For example, an administrator of a large Discord Pokémon group said that the server already requires users to set a server-specific Pokémon trainer nickname, so there is no need to rely on usernames to identify identities .
Some people think that Discord’s decision to change its name is a kind of centralized identity, which is similar to the four-digit user name previously compared to a phone number, and this is equivalent to requiring millions of users to change their online identities. change.
Source: The Verge, BBC
Responsible editor: Jocelyn
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The first draft of this article was compiled for INSIDE using AI.