this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2024
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Discord defends itself against efforts to stop piracy on its platform by saying no to more invasive data collection. Even though Discord isn’t exactly known for privacy, this is a great move for its users. What are your thoughts?

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[–] [email protected] 215 points 1 month ago (2 children)

If they did not collect any information, they would not have any information to give when they are served a subpoena.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 month ago (2 children)

How else would they store and sync the information?

[–] [email protected] 61 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Encrypt it end to end with them not having the keys

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 month ago (6 children)

They do have to retrieve old messages when new users join though. I’m sure the government can force them to lett them in a server and unlock the roles

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (11 children)

Why?

Why is channel history needed for new users?

Back in the IRC days you joined a channel that was just empty, if you wanted the history you had to run an IRC client continously, I remember running screen irssi on a separate computer and sshing into the server, reconnecting the screen with irssi in it.

If you want the history automatically, you can't expect privacy.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 month ago

90% of the reason I even have discord is because people much smarter than me use it to share information. Nobody uses other areas suited for sharing information anymore. It's either Reddit or discord.

[–] JustARaccoon 21 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Because a lot of people go to discord servers to access existing information?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

That is a good point, I have never done that, and to me it is just a chat system....

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Far more than should tbh. Too many little game mods will have a Discord for questions and reporting issues rather than using their GitHub or a forum.

[–] JustARaccoon 8 points 1 month ago (8 children)

Oh I agree, it's very much a "forcing a round peg into a square hole" situation, but I doubt discord will make any changes to push back against it

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[–] GamingChairModel 6 points 1 month ago

At the same time, expecting privacy in a room where a bunch of strangers hang out is already unreasonable. If everyone already in the channel can log the chats, for example by idling in the channel, then adding E2E on top of that is probably a false sense of security.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

I remember running screen irssi on a separate computer and sshing into the server, reconnecting the screen with irssi in it.

I still do that today.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Sync from another online user. If each message is signed by the author, there's a built-in protection against tampering.

It's really not hard, they just have to care enough to build it that way.

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[–] [email protected] 91 points 1 month ago (7 children)

Discord sucks and nobody should use it.

[–] stoly 81 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The only thing that really sucks about it is that knowledge that was openly searchable is now locked away behind logins.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 month ago (2 children)

no, you're also effectively locked out of any participation unless you provide an email address and phone number, which they won't even tell you about in advance but use dark patterns and gaslighting that they noticed "suspicious activity" to step by step first ask you for an email and then once that is validated they prompt you for a phone number. the only thing they don't do yet is ask for ID.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Validation level is set by server owners, you are unlikely to need to verify a phone number except in the biggest (and therefore spammiest) servers

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

it doesn't seem to be server specific because once prompted there is no way to use the account again, even if you decided to just not use a server that may have these settings set.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

Odd, I've never had that experience. Maybe you're using a VPN or something that makes your IP look more suspicious.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago

I keep trying to take out my phone number because I don't want strangers seeing that shit, but... then "suspicious activity" gets detyected seconds later...

[–] Gemini24601 63 points 1 month ago

While this is true, Discord has a massive user base, so it’s somewhat a privacy win for the common person

[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 month ago (3 children)

its still the old chicken&egg problem: if you dont have communities you dont have users, and if you dont have users you dont have communities

thats why everyone sticks to discord

[–] FierySpectre 24 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Well, you are on Lemmy aren't you

[–] Lost_My_Mind 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] villainy 10 points 1 month ago

We are all Estebiu alts.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

Well yeah, cuz there are quite a lot of communities and users already

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago

Social inertia and an extra helping of users hate having to learn things.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Discord is a fantastic IRC replacement.
The issue is that people try to use it to replace forums, wikis, personal websites, issue trackers, git, and the kitchen sink, and it does none of these.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

Exactly. It's like IRC w/ audio (and probably video now?) chat, and you can post gifs and whatnot. It should be used for discussion, and it's perfectly okay for that. I would prefer something a bit more privacy focused (again, IRC is decent here, just needs some cryptography), but it's okay.

But yeah, not a fan of it being a resource for anything beyond meeting like-minded people to have discussions with.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago (11 children)

What's a good alternative that allows easy instant message, voice and video calls, and makes it easy to group my friends by game?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I have been using revolt, going to setup my own server once I get better lol, last 3 times have been a cluster fuck to get it working. I got mattermost working the first try but it's a slack replacement not discord.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (6 children)

There is no alternative that can do the same

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[–] recklessengagement 4 points 1 month ago

Life has gotten better since I dropped it. Moved a dozen or so people over to Signal and have been running with that ever since.

I do miss the ability to easily stream games, though.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 month ago

The attorney called Nexon’s demands “improper and overly burdensome”

They will give you up in a heartbeat as long as they don't have to do the extra work of finding you.

Discord isn't protecting anyone's privacy just their bottom dollar

Discord is committed to fulfilling its obligations under the law

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Discord still sells your information for advertising so it's meaningless posturing.

[–] donuts 22 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I'm gonna get flak for this but no, Discord does not sell any user data, no matter how many times people keep repeating it. Quoting a legendary redditor here:

Discord's privacy policy repeatedly states that they do not sell your personal information:

We don’t sell your personal information. Our business is based on subscriptions and paid products, not from selling your personal information to third parties.

We make money from paid subscriptions and the sale of digital (and sometimes physical) goods, not from selling your personal information to third parties.

We do not sell the personal data of our users or share personal data for targeted advertising purposes.

‍No sale or “share” of personal information: The CCPA sets forth certain obligations for businesses that sell or “share” personal information. We do not sell or share the personal information of our users as defined in the CCPA.

This is a legal document that they will get in trouble for if they were lying. They've already been fined hundreds of thousands of euros for GDPR violations but that curiously did not include a fine for "took people's personal information and then sold them without consent whilst explicitly saying they didn't do that"

Discord further has no third party advertisements which they can use to "sell" your data by allowing those advertisements to target you.

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[–] qarbone 21 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Not meaningless but certainly undercuts the grandstanding.

[–] Jiggle_Physics 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yes, the authorities will have to pay for data like everyone else.

[–] qarbone 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

And that's job creation right there!

Thanks to Discord, I'm able to keep merchants that "connect overbearing authoritarian entities with the data they shouldn't have, at a price point we all can agree on" at stable, sub-full time employment status.

Truly, pillar of the economy, er community.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago

Of course it's Nexon.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I had a server with a respectable size.
Did a hard cutoff due to some stupid discord thing.
I managed to get a total of 50 people of about 3k to switch and out of those like 7 actually stayed.

Yet I had to get a burner account again to get in touch with certain people.

Its all be man.

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[–] NocturnalMorning 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I've never played a Nexus game, and I'm definitely not going to start now. People who are pirating a game aren't usually doing it bcz they hate the company, or have a vendetta of any kind. It's usually a money issue. People are more than happy to pay for games when they have money, and you're not a shit company.

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[–] obinice 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Well, I have no First Amendment rights, so there's that.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Sad am forced on this app, I love matrix more.

[–] swankypantsu 5 points 1 month ago

I know the feeling. Similar thing happened in a discord I'm in. Rate limit ban on a leader account, no response from support even via burner, then jumped ship to a new one that could actually be managed.

At least discord has to foot the storage costs of a dead server pestered with bots because of their own incompetence.

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