TeamSpeak claims an 'incredible surge of new users' has maxed out its hosting capacity in multiple regions as many would-be voice chatters seek a Discord alternative

On the one hand, I don't want kids to see everything I did in the early oughts thanks to unfettered internet access. On the other, I really do not want to give Discord my personal data just to prove I'm old enough to be talking to my favourite weirdos. There's gotta be a better way—and some might say it's TeamSpeak.

In fact, TeamSpeak itself says it's seen an "incredible surge of new users" recently, so much so that the voice and chat platform's hosting capacity has apparently been maxed out in a number of regions including the US. It's worth taking this with a grain of salt because this information is coming directly from TeamSpeak's own social posts on X and Facebook, and they've yet to reveal the cold, hard numbers.

Still, as I saw for myself while testing out free Discord alternatives, it's hard to deny the appeal of TeamSpeak. It's quick and easy to make an account, join or start a group chat, or join a massive, game-based community voice server, and at no point does TeamSpeak cheekily ask if it can scan your wizened visage.

During my testing, I was able to dive into 18+ group chats without tripping over an age gate. However, there's no guarantee TeamSpeak won't have to deploy its own age verification mechanism in the future. In the UK at least, the Online Safety Act makes those sorts of checks a legal obligation, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer recently stating "No social media platform should get a free pass when it comes to protecting our kids."

Besides all of that, if you'd rather not chat to randoms who also happen to have an unhealthy obsession with Arc Raiders, you'll likely need to pay an admittedly small subscription fee to rent your own ten-person community voice server. By that point, you're handing over card details and essentially fulfilling an age assurance check anyway. If you'd rather limit how much info your chat platform of choice has about you, there are arguably better options out there.

Discord recently announced it would be rolling out facial scanning and ID checks globally from March this year. Given that Discord may have leaked 70,000 age-verification ID photos in a security breach last year, privacy is the top of many people's minds when it comes to seeking an alternative.

If you find yourself staring down an age check, you can choose to simply embrace Discord's teen-by-default account settings—but historically the facial scans have been quite easy to fool. Our James has previously passed Discord's age checks with little more than his phone camera and a copy of Death Stranding, though a free tool on Github achieves a similar effect without needing a copy of the game.

Discord has been eager to clarify that not all users will necessarily need to submit to an age assurance check as the platform may be able to "confirm your age group using information [it] already [has]."

Though unfortunately for me and my fellow UK-based unfortunates, some Brits may be subject to an age assurance 'experiment' that deploys Persona. This is a third-party age verification vendor that features Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel among its investors, making this one 'experiment' I'm not especially keen to be a guinea pig for. Perhaps I should give TeamSpeak another shot… at least, before it likely has to deploy its own age checks.