Please, pretty please, be the spark that will stop OSS projects from hosting their “support forums” on Discord.
I wish it was only limited to support forums. I’ve even seen a Linux kernel driver where the Issues sections was closed and you should go to Discord instead. No thanks.
It’s horrible. We already had that stuff figured out. Wiki pages and forums to make information accessible even after 20 minutes have passed. Fuck that development and everyone that was/is pushing for that.
Americans- If you’re thinking “this isn’t so bad” please consider that all it takes is a teeny tiny, insignificant api added to the back end with absolutely no notice to users and suddenly the DHS has a database of dissenters, with cross-referenced IDs, photos of faces, chat history, link share history, raw uploaded photos, and approximate locations.
Say no to this. If you need a temporary alternative that’s quick to get going, create a signal group chat with your friends.
Forget DHS or other government agencies, these companies have been shown to be untrustworthy stewards of our data from regular hackers.
I get that discord is used to groom kids and there is a very real risk to allowing children to use it unsupervised, but that means kids devices are the ones that need to be locked down, not the rest of the world.
No argument there. Just feels particularly relevant right now if you know what I mean.
I found this little substack article that lists out alternatives. The timing is is great & I hope it helps people out.
Hear me out. Maybe, if you are a parent, its your duty to keep an eye on your child, and exert some control over the spaces and people they interact with?
Absofucking- lutely!
My 12 year old has zero unsupervised access to the internet. Zero. “But they’ll suffer sociallly!”
Will they? My son has tons of friends and they play sports and Nerf guns. And, he can read. A whole chapter book, on his own, without prompting.
Suffer socially, ask the “incels” who have recovered if the internet access they had as teens “helped them socially”.
My nephew plays lots of on online games. My sister checks in with me to make sure that he is both playing games that are appropriate for him, and with people who are appropriate to play with. We’ve setup a discord specifically for him and his friends, and the account he uses is actually my sister’s account, on her own device, so she has direct control over what communities he’s on in discord, who he talks to, and what content he is exposed to.
He is not allowed to play public lobby games with out her supervision, or a trusted “chaperone” (one of many IRL friend and family members) being in the lobby with him. This is as much about protecting him from harmful content, as it is about teaching him proper gaming etiquette. He was showing some toxic behaviors (greifing mainly) and I shut that down pretty quick.
Hear me out: parents are irresponsible, and also can’t watch their kids 24/7
I hear you. I guess shitty parents is a good enough reason to let a company monetize your PII for a bit before they (or one of their customers) gets hacked and dumps to the dark web.
It’s not, but that doesn’t make your argument any more sensible.
Ah, so maybe shitty parents isn’t a good enough reason to let a company monetize and eventually lose your PII to the dark web?
That is what I said, yes.
Okay. Cool that’s what I said too. Just… the way you said it sounded like you were advocating for using bad parenting as a pretext for massive breaches of privacy and identity security.
The way you said it sounded like you were advocating for parents to watch their kids every second of every day, and if they don’t then whatever happens is their fault.
“I categorically cannot trust tech companies with that kind of personal data,” wrote one frustrated user, with many hoping they might be able to convince Discord to do a U-turn with enough public pressure. Others went further. “What a great way to kill your community,” added another longtime user, while some predicted “that’s game over for Discord” and remarked ruefully that “privacy on the internet is truly dead”.
LOL. Just like Netflix price increases, or reddit third party apps thing, the protest will barely register in usage metrics and discord will carry on.
These companies have effectively infinite resources with which to test changes with user reference groups, model potential outcomes, and mitigate risks. It’s pure hubris to suggest that you have a better understanding of Discord’s user base than they do.
The vaaast majority of users will just do the video age test and never think about it again.
Man 100%. Every now and then you hear that Facebook is “hemorrhaging users” or “it’s all over” but most normal people just don’t give a fuck and use it because they’re already there and their friends are too. This’ll be no different.
hmm idk, i only know like 2 people in my life that still use Facebook heavily. i know it’s different in India though.
Facebook has seen stagnation or user drops in most mature markets, it’s still growing in growing markets. India especially represents like half of all Facebook now.
no idea where you might be from, but this is not a globally universal issue. this will likely play out differently in different markets.
That’s a real good point. Here in the UK I’m the only one out of my friends group who doesn’t use it. Here’s me also jumping to conclusions that it’s the same everywhere !
