[cloudwalk9]

Discord Trust and Safety in particular is downright useless. I feel I should share my story. It's a personal hell I've been stuck in for a while.

I'm disabled from severe depression resistant to first line treatments, bedridden a lot of the time, and I rely on the platform for most of my social interaction and resources for my hobbies, as far as I can pursue them of course. Discord is invaluable and is basically a monopoly in my cultural bubble.

On Jan 13, they disabled a 7 year old early supporter account with an active Nitro subscription with the reason "Your account posted content that sexualized individuals under the age of 18, or was involved in servers dedicated to such unacceptable content". I've never done this. I learned a lot of people were getting disabled for being in a server that they haven't touched in years and it went rogue or was raided and that stuff was posted there, so I figured I was a victim of a carpet bombing and it was a one-off.

But they continued to disable every new account (12 so far, I lost count). Most of the accounts were disabled in the last two weeks. They left me alone for 6 months until Sep 1 when my 4th account was disabled without the usual explanation email. I made an appeal and not only was it ignored, it was marked solved within 4 hours.

In fact they have not communicated with me at all. They have ignored all of my tickets, have not sent emails for each account that was disabled after the first. Except one time I got an email but the reason was left blank.

A few days ago I made three accounts to try to test ways to get them off my back. One was made on a virtual machine on a VPS located a thousand miles away from me and had no connection to me. Although I did give vague hints to friends that it was me. They banned all three accounts, even the VM one. I had a nervous breakdown knowing I may never be able to participate on the platform again. I also felt like I was being watched.

In the last two weeks it was always the same Discord staff assigning themselves to my appeals, "Violet". This includes the one that was marked solved without communication. And they're supposedly experiencing increased ticket volumes.

I'm not sure what I'm gonna do. Only thing I can hope for is Discord to basically die and everyone moves elsewhere, or they leave me alone.

[quikoa]

Perhaps it's worth to consider taking them to a small claims court. I don't know what the odds of winning are but it's quite the hassle for a company.

[cloudwalk9]

I've considered it. But they have a right to refuse service for any reason. Only damages I could claim is 10 dollars from my last month of Nitro. Not sure what they're doing counts as disability discrimination either. Probably don't have a case.

[TakeBlaster16]

I would claim the total amount you've spent on Nitro since you first made your account. That was an investment into your account and its history, and now it's gone. You sound like a sympathetic plaintiff. You have a shot. Best case, you get an actual human to look at your situation. Worst case, you're out filing fees and end up back where you started.

[cloudwalk9]

I also live in a state that permits injunctive relief in small claims court, I think. Although I'm not sure how much teeth that would have. I'm kinda concerned about them digging into my old DMs because I'm sure they'll find a reason to make everything relevant they possibly can, and they end up on a record I can't seal or something, costing me all sense of privacy and dignity.

I'm generally clueless about the process in depth, admittedly.

[evanwolf]

They lose if they don't show up in small claims court to defend themselves. It's a few hundred bucks in the US for them to hire a lawyer to show.

[geoelectric]

Depending on the area, lawyers (as outside representation) may not be allowed in small claims court, too. At that point, I believe they generally have to send someone working for the company who can represent them directly.

[ncmncm]

Slightly off topic, but the US FDA has just approved an analog of the miraculous ketamine depression treatment. Basically you can chug a 4oz /100 ml of dextromethorphan (US brand "Delsym") for the same effect, a couple of weeks' absolute relief via a poorly understood metabolic pathway. "If it works, it works."

I will be eager to hear about others' results. (No effect, + or -, for me, on a smaller dose. Do, always, start with a smaller dose, in case it works badly for you; and check warnings on drug interactions carefully.) Maybe ask your Dr.

[rthomas6]

Are you claiming drinking 4 oz of cough syrup cures depression for a few weeks? Do you have any studies I can read about this? I'm not being snarky, this is really interesting and something I have not heard before. Where are you getting that dosage from? How dangerous is it?

[ncmncm]

Dextromethorphan is available over-the-counter in the US and, I believe, most places.

A single dose of ketamine was discovered a couple of years back to provide a complete remission for weeks, for some varieties of depression including some that did not respond to any approved meds. But unfortunately ketamine is a "schedule 3" drug in the US, for reasons (strongly addictive, tends to persistent hallucination; cf. John Lilly).

Then somebody observed that DM operated on some of the same receptors, or something, and tried it, and then initiated a full RCT on a very limited dose. Approval for that coupled with a low-ish dose of bupropion just came out a few weeks ago. Presumably higher-dose trials are in the works now.

Depression is what is often called a "wastebasket diagnosis", analog to a wastebasket, or paraphyletic, taxon in biology, where unrelated species have been lumped together because their actual relationships were too hard to tease out before DNA analysis became practical. (Falcons ended up having to be split from hawks, on DNA evidence they are sister to e.g. pigeons, over birders' outrage.)

Numerous unrelated pathologies get called "depression", so the only way to distinguish them is by what med they respond to, if any. It is why we keep seeing spurious media reports that depression meds "don't work": RCTs depend utterly for validity on accurate diagnosis, which for depression does not exist.

So, search anywhere for "ketamine depression" for the original discovery, and "dextromethorphan bupropion" for the recent FDA announcement.

[ridgered4]

> A few days ago I made three accounts to try to test ways to get them off my back. One was made on a virtual machine on a VPS located a thousand miles away from me and had no connection to me. Although I did give vague hints to friends that it was me. They banned all three accounts, even the VM one. I had a nervous breakdown knowing I may never be able to participate on the platform again. I also felt like I was being watched.

Curious what the mechanism for identifying the VPS account was. Phone number? Some sort of client signature? I don't use discord.

[cloudwalk9]

Well, I was very vague but still identified myself to a few friends in a trusted server using subtle cues like the cloud emoji. This was a mistake in hindsight because I'm sure they could put two and two together, but it also made me realize how dedicated they are to keeping me away that they're now watching the server I join for any sign of me.

There should have been no other link to me, no fingerprint. This was an environment that has never touched Discord.

As of now I set up a new account that is less-than-discreet, obviously me if they're paying attention, and another account that is very discreet, on a VPN. I'm testing to see if an Android work profile is leaking anything. If both accounts get disabled, then it's back to the drawing board. If the not-so-discreet account gets disabled, the work profile is working and I'm on the right track. Although it sucks to have to abandon my friends and identity over this nonsense, just to stay hidden and be fearful of seeing that damn login screen again.

Hey, if neither get disabled in the next, say, month, maybe this Violet person was fired or they gave up. I can only assume it's them if they're the ones intercepting my appeals every time.

[breakingcups]

Alternatively, they ban any new accounts made from a known VPS ip range due to scam bot issues and that ban was just unrelated.

[celdon25]

The vps account was banned because it was created on a vps. Probably wasn’t linked to you if you ask me.

[cloudwalk9]

I dunno. All three accounts were banned at the same time.

[celdon25]

The process that does the bans will do them in batches. It is not a person pressing a button for each account.

[cloudwalk9]

Huh. That's reassuring.

[workethics]

They probably use the user's social graph. Taking all those precautions won't help if the new account just rejoins the same servers and talks to the same people as the banned account.

[steanne]

you may be able to participate in servers that have bridges, like to irc or matrix. that's a minority, though.

[cloudwalk9]

As much as possible, I've done this, but then it's Discord server after server for every single new thing of interest.

I'm a budding programmer and I maintain(ed) the DarkPlaces engine. In August 2020, I created a Discord server for it with LadyHavoc's blessing, creating a community that brought together professional developers making commercial games using the engine.

...only for me to not be able to participate unless I can poke someone to make time to set up a bridge. Even then, if I'm banned from Discord, who is to say they won't see me talking through a bridge as ban evasion and wipe the bridge, or even the whole server out?

I certainly have my regrets.

[ncmncm]

A burner account, used just to announce a new platform?

[cloudwalk9]

Oh, nah. I created that server in August 2020.

[ncmncm]

I am suggesting making on a new, less volatile platform, and announcing via a burner Discord account.

[iLoveOncall]

> "Your account posted content that sexualized individuals under the age of 18, or was involved in servers dedicated to such unacceptable content". I've never done this.

You shared furry porn picturing subjects of a questionable age, didn't you?

[cloudwalk9]

No. And they have a different ban reason for that https://twitter.com/Really_Tall/status/1438986482430193666

[dannyw]

There's no foolproof way for them to ban you; something is leaking. Do you know any technical friends why may be able to test ideas?

[theo1996]

>using discord after 2014+2