[searchcord]

> The sheer audacity here is quite something. You're stating people can't use your scraped data for commercial purposes "without permission," while your entire project is built on vacuuming up content from countless users without their permission, and in direct violation of Discord's ToS. That's not just a double standard; it's bordering on next-level cognitive dissonance.

Not really, it is not free to host and serve this data. If they want to get the data for free, they can get it directly from Discord. I did that work for them.

> And "privacy preserving"? With a one-click opt-out, that 99.999% of the affected users will never even know exists because they have no idea their conversations are now part of your archive, and you want it indexed by search engines? That's not "privacy preserving" - that's a bad joke. If privacy was a genuine concern, this project wouldn't exist in its current form. What you're offering is an opt-out fig leaf for a mass data harvesting operation.

Again, not really. It's impossible to search for users without already knowing what server they are in. This is functionally identical to Discord's in-built search feature.

> Most people using Discord, even on "public, discoverable" servers, aren't posting with the expectation that their words will be systematically scraped, archived indefinitely, and made globally searchable outside the platform's context. It's a fundamental misunderstanding (or willful dismissal) of user expectations on what is essentially a semi-public, yet distinctly siloed, platform. This isn't an open-web forum where content is implicitly intended for broad public consumption and indexing.

I believe that people need to realize that their messages were already being logged by many different moderation bots, just not publicized. This also happens on platforms like Telegram, look at the SangMata_BOT for example. Unless the messages are end to end encrypted, it was just a matter of time before they were scooped up and archived.

Thanks for your input, though, I really do want to build a platform that balances privacy and usability.

[belst]

> I believe that people need to realize that their messages were already being logged by many different moderation bots, just not publicized. Unless the messages are end to end encrypted, it was just a matter of time before they were scooped up and archived.

and that makes it ok for you to do aswell? Bots storing all the messages is also not ok, but they also don't publish it, so it is way less problematic

[sReinwald]

Okay, the "not really" and "I'll solve that problem if and when" responses are... something else. It feels like you're speedrunning how to get into a world of trouble while hand-waving away every legitimate concern. Let's try to unpack this again, because your justifications are frankly baffling.

> Again, not really. It's impossible to search for users without already knowing what server they are in. This is functionally identical to Discord's in-built search feature.

That's not quite correct, and frankly it borders on willful obfuscation. In your own words elsewhere in this thread, you're eager for search engines to index this archive. That "privacy preserving" barrier of needing to know both a user ID and a server/channel id evaporates the moment Google or any other search engine hoovers up your pages. At that point, any combination of keywords, usernames, aliases, or snippets could reveal someone's posting history, across contexts and years. How is that "functionally identical" to Discord's walled-garden search or "privacy preserving"?

> I believe that people need to realize that their messages were already being logged by many different moderation bots, just not publicized.

This is a disingenuous deflection.

  - Moderation bots operate within a specific server, for a specific purpose (moderation, utility) defined by the server admins. Their logs are typically for admin/moderator use, not for creating a global, publicly searchable archive.
  - Users joining a server often see these bots, understand their function, and server admins explicitly add these bots. It's a known quantity. What you're doing is orders of magnitude different - an external, uninvited entity scraping everything discoverable and making it universally public.
  - Just a matter of time" is a lazy, fatalistic excuse for unethical data harvesting. Just because something can be technically scraped doesn't mean it should be, or that you doing so is fine.
    

Your "I really do want to build a platform that balances privacy and usability" line sounds utterly hollow when the entire foundation of the project demonstrates a profound misunderstanding, or disregard, for basic privacy, consent, and intellectual property.

Speaking of which... have you actually thought about the legal Pandora's Box you're prying open? Your casual "I'll deal with Discord's ToS issues if they arise" attitude is quaint, because Discord's ToS is likely the tip of a colossal iceberg of legal trouble.

You're not just 'breaking ToS', you're potentially looking at:

  - Data Protection Law Violations (GDPR, CCPA, etc.) because you're scraping personal data of EU/California (and other) residents without any lawful basis. The fines can be astronomical. "Opt-out" after the fact for data you had no right to take in the first place isn't how this works.
  - COPPA Violations if you scraped any messages from a 12-year-old on a "public, discoverable" server before their account was deleted by Discord. Guess who's holding that data now without parental consent? You.
  - Every original, creative message is copyrighted by its author. Roleplay, detailed discussions, code snippets, even well-crafted tirades – you're republishing millions of these. While not every "lol" is copyrightable, a massive volume of content on Discord absolutely is. "Fair use" for wholesale, non-transformative republication on this scale? Unlikely.
  - And last but not least, CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material): This is the nightmare scenario. You are scraping public Discord. Some public, poorly moderated Discords inevitably contain links to or text-based CSAM. Even if you don't intend to host it, if your scraper picks it up and it becomes accessible via your archive (even just a link), you are in profoundly serious trouble. "But I don't re-publish attachments" is irrelevant if you're archiving and re-publishing the links. This isn't just fines; this is potential prison time.

Good luck with all of this.

I hope you have a good lawyer, ideally multiple. You might need them.

[IShowSlow]

The COPPA part is only if it was knowingly.

[areyourllySorry]

did you type this?