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Reasons not to use the Discord communications system

46 points by spking 6y ago

smnthermes 6y ago
It's sad that Stallman is citing a fake news website... /s
- wilsonfiifi 6y ago
  The last bullet point addresses that...
striking 6y ago
I understand that some people value their privacy above all else, but balancing this with decent anti-spam is really tricky. As someone who runs a (not large, not small) Discord guild, I personally would find it impossible to keep any public guild of any decent size running if the anti-spam were any less protective than it currently is. It's unfortunate that this excludes some users but I think those users end up being a vocal minority. I think the benefit here (conversations without spam) outweighs the cost of privacy. And could one not just get a burner phone or something to satisfy the phone requirement? Obviously there is a place in the world for FOSS services that preserve privacy or federate so you can manage your privacy effectively, but I think Discord eschews this for user convenience and it ends up being a tradeoff that a lot of people agree with. (note that I will be experimenting with Matrix bridging and such in the near term future, because I too don't absolutely love Discord. But I can at least say I understand and agree with the tradeoffs and the intentions behind them.)
- spking 6y ago
  Unfortunately no, burner and even prepaid phones will not work. https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000961212-Invalid-Phone-Number https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/articles/36000096121...
  - thatguy0900 6y ago
    Interesting. I have an att prepaid as my actual number, works fine.
- gladskdks 6y ago
  Burner phones are not available/legal in all parts of the world. It's not uncommon In Europe for phone numbers to be registered to a person using their national ID number.
  - magahacka 6y ago
    In lithuania(Europe) you can buy a sim card for 3 eur with some minutes and internet on it without needing to confirm your identity, the Sim card deactivates only if you havent topped it up in the last 2-3 months.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
gentleman11 6y ago
I found out accidentally that discord was broadcasting when I had OBS running and when I played games and the games names as part of my status. That is extremely invasive. The last thing I want is some chat app scanning all my activity. What do they do with the data they don’t broadcast to everyone I know?
- bzb3 6y ago
  Discord is for gamers, and that's a feature they expect. You can use the web version of discord if you want, which can't collect information like that.

46 points by spking 6y ago

smnthermes 6y ago

It's sad that Stallman is citing a fake news website... /s

wilsonfiifi 6y ago
The last bullet point addresses that...

striking 6y ago

I understand that some people value their privacy above all else, but balancing this with decent anti-spam is really tricky. As someone who runs a (not large, not small) Discord guild, I personally would find it impossible to keep any public guild of any decent size running if the anti-spam were any less protective than it currently is. It's unfortunate that this excludes some users but I think those users end up being a vocal minority. I think the benefit here (conversations without spam) outweighs the cost of privacy. And could one not just get a burner phone or something to satisfy the phone requirement? Obviously there is a place in the world for FOSS services that preserve privacy or federate so you can manage your privacy effectively, but I think Discord eschews this for user convenience and it ends up being a tradeoff that a lot of people agree with. (note that I will be experimenting with Matrix bridging and such in the near term future, because I too don't absolutely love Discord. But I can at least say I understand and agree with the tradeoffs and the intentions behind them.)

spking 6y ago
Unfortunately no, burner and even prepaid phones will not work. https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000961212-Invalid-Phone-Number https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/articles/36000096121...
- thatguy0900 6y ago
  Interesting. I have an att prepaid as my actual number, works fine.
gladskdks 6y ago
Burner phones are not available/legal in all parts of the world. It's not uncommon In Europe for phone numbers to be registered to a person using their national ID number.
- magahacka 6y ago
  In lithuania(Europe) you can buy a sim card for 3 eur with some minutes and internet on it without needing to confirm your identity, the Sim card deactivates only if you havent topped it up in the last 2-3 months.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

gentleman11 6y ago

I found out accidentally that discord was broadcasting when I had OBS running and when I played games and the games names as part of my status. That is extremely invasive. The last thing I want is some chat app scanning all my activity. What do they do with the data they don’t broadcast to everyone I know?

bzb3 6y ago
Discord is for gamers, and that's a feature they expect. You can use the web version of discord if you want, which can't collect information like that.