Discord wants to void your right to sue them in court — but you can opt out of the practice

Funny thing is, EULA agreements like this have already been shot down in so many cases, it's dumb at this point to try and pull this off. They're just trying to test if anyone will actually pull the trigger on a class action.

They're just trying to test if anyone will actually pull the trigger on a class action.

What would be the benefit to such a move?
- Thirty-seven cents for every Discord user.
Yeah, not sure why folks care

I can sue discord and there's nothing their EULA can do to stop me.

God bless our right to litigate*

*terms and conditions apply: enough money to win in a battle of attrition

*For US users

EU users are already protected so this doesn't apply to them.

Common W for the EU

...in the USA. Doesn't affect us over the pond, but very important for USA users to take note.

…in the USA. Doesn’t affect us over the pond, but very important for USA users to take note.

Really appreciate you guys over there keeping up the pressure on corporations to act ethically/ accordingly.

Here's hoping some of that splash back happens over here.
Shows how much been biased countrywise the posts are. And internet in general.

Companies can do that in US? Sounds like a loophole...

There are many, we're just oblivious because it doesn't affect us in our day to day lives. I'm sure there are loopholes in the EU as well.
- I'm sure there are loopholes in the EU as well.
  
  Sure, yeah.
Welcome to the corpocracy and the land of the fee.

Go ahead, give Discord your address

It already has anyway. Ive requested my discord data once and everytime you do anything in discord it explicitly saves and stores the location of where you were when you interacted with discord.
- Ive requested my discord data once and everytime you do anything in discord it explicitly saves and stores
  
  Curious as to if you saw your phone number in that data?
  
  I ask, because of this.

Everyone calm down. They're just going to use it for training AI and if you love tech you love AI. So this is a non-issue.

The trained AI will make their public offering so much more desirable

I attempted to email opt-out@discord.com per the ToS and got a bounceback.

The article says arbitration-opt-out@discord.com
- Ah, thanks!
A bounceback? What does that mean? Anyways I sent three emails to arbitration-opt-out@discord.com but got no replies at all.
- In email terms, a bounceback is a category of error that in this case meant that the email address didn't exist. Although, that's because I emailed opt-out instead of arbitration-opt-out. My mistake. After fixing it, it went through without a reply as has been the general experience.
- I'm glad I'm not the only one. I'm not using the application until I get a response. For all I know, they may respond on the very last day or not respond whatsoever.
- What did you send them, is there a template?

So we are caring about privacy but that polygon site is a massive scrapper

Any particular reason for this whataboutism that makes it stand out from the average website?
It's a massive scrapper?

Like it engages in scrappy flights? I guess that's one way to frame fighting with discord but I'd personally see them as fairly comparable weight classes.

Or did you mean scraper like vacuuming up data* off of everyone who visits?
- Vacuuming up days?
  
  Like it sucks time from your life, siphoning precious time out from your life without even realizing it? I guess that's one way to frame browsing Polygon but I'd personally view it as a pretty tame example compared to sites like YouTube or Lemmy.
  
  Or did you mean data like the site is harvesting information off your service when you click the link?

I just deleted my account & it solved all my discord problems.

It’s cute you think deleting your account means they’ve removed your user and information from their servers.
- Im considering the info i gave them as lost to discord. But now I'm not giving them more.
- What does that have to do with forced arbitration agreements?

I deleted my Discord account 2 days ago, and I'm very happy with that choice. Conversations / Any XMPP client is significantly better than Discord in terms of direct messaging and small groups for friends. Some of my friends haven't switched to Conversations yet, but at that point it is their choice to not speak with me outside of work.

I'm still sticking with IRC.

You'll all be back... Some day
- It was all cool until we had to pick up Teamspeak to have voice chat while playing Minecraft in 2010...

I don't see how this matters to the common user. Why am I going to disagree with Discord enough to sue them. What services do they provide other than a way to communicate for gamers?

Are companies involved? Yes. But I'm not a company and I don't really care if they have a hard time dealing with it. They replaced Teamspeak and I will use it as a platform to communicate. If that changes I might change my stance, but I don't see any other need for it.

You shouldn't give up your rights in exchange for nothing. In some places that's not even legal.
- Maybe it won't be. I don't see the situation coming up often. In fact I think this might make them more prone to being sued.
The long story short is that you are being made to (by default) give up rights that you should have, particularly around class action lawsuits. It's strictly bad for you and strictly good for the company. They probably shouldn't be allowed to do this. Since they are, the only thing we can do to protest it is to opt-out.

Maybe you'll never sue discord. But maybe someday there will be a lawsuit brought against discord by someone else. A few ideas for topics might include a security vulnerability that leaks personal information, the use of discord content for AI training data (e.g. copyright issues), or the safety of minors online. If you don't opt-out, you can't be a part of such lawsuits if they ever become relevant. This overall weakens these lawsuits and empowers companies like discord to do more shady things with less fear of repercussions.

And, since the vast majority of people will never opt-out (since you're opted in by default) these kinds of lawsuits are weakened from the start. That's why every company in the US is doing this forced arbitration thing. At this point, they would be crazy not to since it's such a good thing for them and the average person doesn't care enough about it.
- And it just makes no sense.
  
  The courts are supposed to be a higher authority than personal agreements, so how can a personal agreement override the courts?
- I hear you. I'm not discounting that these could happen. But how likely is it for my usage? Or most people's usage? My kid is on discord and it's monitored and we use it for gaming. That is what I am led to believe most use it for.
  
  I guess my point is I don't see a scenario for suing Discord itself. They are just the vessel I use to communicate with. I use it constantly. I just don't care. There has never been a time I give out enough information to worry about it.
  
  If there are other scenarios, sure. But it sounds like more of a liability clause for companies that join Discord than individuals.