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by MildRant 1049 days ago
> The fundamental fact that Discord users refuse to see is that the platform isn't run on magic dust and fairy incantations, but actual human beings. Using Discord is no different from having a group of strangers sitting in your room with you, noting down every word you say to your friends and everything you run on your computer, and doing the devil knows what with it.

Anyone making this argument doesn't understand why people use Discord. These articles about why Discord is bad crop up over time and they ALL miss the boat. If your argument is that "Discord isn't private" then you've already lost because no one who uses Discord cares about that and you've shown that you don't actually understand Discord.
2 comments
lbourdages 1049 days ago
My main issue about Discord is not what it is, but what it replaced. A lot of websites or forums have been replaced by Discord. It sucks, because it's fundamentally a messaging app, but people will use it for reasons where a website would male sense ("link is in my Discord").
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stu2b50 1049 days ago
That's on the things (vbulletin forums, etc) that Discord and Reddit have replaced for being so bad that people would prefer using Discord over them. It's hard to blame Discord for making a good product. As to users, a UX principle is that users aren't wrong, the UX is wrong. There's a reason people use Discord for these purposes, and you need to resolve that reason, not make punitive actions towards users.
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jowea 1049 days ago
Well, in fairness, I believe the guy that got caught posting classified docs in a small private discord server would appreciate privacy, even if I myself and a lot of people almost exclusively use public servers and would prefer if they were even less private so internet search would work.
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lolinder 1049 days ago
His friends passed the documents along to their friends, and they eventually got the attention of the New York Times. At that point tracing the documents back to him would probably have happened regardless of whether he used IRC or anything else.

Do you have any evidence that him using a centralized platform like Discord played a role in him getting caught?

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mmercedes 1049 days ago
Discord handing over his billing details certainly made it quicker at least https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattnovak/2023/04/14/fbi-used-d...
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MildRant 1049 days ago
Every company will hand over your data if subpoenaed by a law enforcement agency in the country they operate in.
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mmercedes 1049 days ago
you don't need a company in the country you reside with your billing address on file to run an irc server though
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MildRant 1048 days ago
The Buffalo shooter organized on a public Discord and unfortunately that had no effect in preventing him. But, this is getting back to my initial point, you are using Discord because you are hoping for private communication then you are using the wrong product.
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jowea 1048 days ago
Hypothetically speaking if instead of using Discord normally and using his real info for billing Discord only accepted Monero and was only accessible via Tor it would be harder to identify him.

But that's not really my point, just picking a random famous example of someone who would want Discord to be private.

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