Recently, Discord announced a change to a key feature of its platform that will impact all of its users: a username and display name system will be implemented and the current discriminator system will be removed. The purpose of this change is to make finding friends on the platform easier while preserving the ability to use your preferred name.

I believe that this change fails to address the issues it attempts to, and from what I've seen, most Discord users agree. As of 5/4/23 at 1:20 AM EST, the post announcing this change has a strongly negative approval rate of 7%, and this number is still going down. This is absolutely not blind hate towards Discord, there is very good reason for this update to be so controversial. It is a blatant infringement of users' freedom to express themselves via their username. It will also usher in the problem of namesnipes, or taking a name before anyone else can, sometimes solely for the purpose of being a nuisance to other users. An additional drawback of this update (albeit not as severe of one) would be the removal of a Discord Nitro feature connected to discriminators.

This update will be going into effect very soon, but it's not too late to express disapproval. I have already seen many servers and individual users alike complaining about this change, and the goal of this petition is to centralize those complaints and display the sum total of all who disapprove. To all who wish to keep their identity, I ask that you stand in support of this petition so that we can continue to have a good time on Discord.