[astrodust]

There is nothing simple about bans. If you have a nest of trolls, banning each one individually will be an exercise in frustration and you'll just fucking leave the platform.

Tell me how that helps a company like Discord stay financially viable.

[chongli]

I'm not sure what you mean by nest of trolls. On the Discord channel I have with my friends I've rarely ever had to ban anyone. It's grown over time to include quite a few people but we've never had any nests of trolls.

Then again, I know pretty much everybody on that server. Perhaps you're dealing with a much larger community attached to a website or game? I don't see how that's a problem specific to Discord then.

[astrodust]

That's fine, but what happens when you end up on the radar of some radical group, for whatever reason, and innumerable people start showing up with the singular intent of disrupting things and causing shit? What if it's multiple groups, some Twitter based, some 4chan, some Reddit, all set out to get you? What tools do you have to protect against that?

Discord needs ways of mitigating this, of going into lockdown mode, to deal with exceptional situations. As their platform grows in scale the liability increases exponentially. Without counter-measures they expose themselves and their users to ever increasing risk.

GitHub has had to make a few radical alterations in their core features to deal with rampant, malicious abuse. Discord will have to do the same or they will fail.

[chongli]

innumerable people start showing up

People can't start showing up because they need invitations to join your channel. If you don't want a radical group there, don't invite them. It's that simple.

[astrodust]

"It's that simple" is why we keep getting into this mess. People are not simple. They're vindictive and petty, and unfortunately some are out to turn your platform into their toy with which they will do nothing but harass and abuse your user base.

[chongli]

I don't know what you're talking about. Nobody has ever harassed me on my Discord channel. Everybody on there was invited by me or one of my friends. If people you invite are harassing you, get rid of them.

There is no "turning the platform into a toy". Everybody on your Discord channel is somebody for which you gave consent to be there. There is no possible way for trolls or abusers to arrive on your Discord channel without first being invited. It really is that simple.