7 ms·

So, is there a reason they could be doing this? Like from Discord's perspective, what would this actually accomplish business wise? I'm kinda drawing a blank

by CM30 2y ago

So, is there a reason they could be doing this? Like from Discord's perspective, what would this actually accomplish business wise? I'm kinda drawing a blank here.

KZerda 2y ago
Demographics are used pretty heavily in market research, etc. This could be used both in targeting ads to specific people, and also in providing aggregate data to business and marketing partners -- being able to say they have approximately x 18-24s is valuable to pitching partnerships, etc.
- qmarchi 2y ago
  Market research and marketing. Given their rollout of "quests", it's probably another marketing dimension that someone could tailor their ads for. Ex, maybe don't show the "ad" during the day because they're likely at work if they're >24, or show a "quest" that's targeted towards nostalgia.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago
  > Demographics are used pretty heavily in market research, etc. This could be used both in targeting ads to specific people, and also in providing aggregate data to business and marketing partners I'm thinking about the workflow here. First, Discord profiles you based on your behavior. They conclude you are a 20-year-old male. Second, they show you ads appropriate for a 20-year-old male. Third, these ads do better than average because they match your behavior. We already have behaviorally-targeted ads. We've had them forever. How is introducing a level of indirection, where we infer age and sex from behavior and then decide on appropriate ads based on the age/sex construct, supposed to improve over deciding on the ads based on behavior?
  - kwhitefoot 2y ago
    I think the world is being segmented into those who are exposed to targeted advertising and those who never or almost never see any advertising because we use uBlock Origin.
    - LoganDark 2y ago
      Oh, you. Thinking uBlock Origin actually blocks advertising. It doesn't block sponsored blog posts, sponsored comments, paid reviews, conflicts of interest, marketing copy on landing pages, etc. Advertising is everywhere. And uBlock can't protect you from anything not in your web browser.
      - greenish_shores 2y ago
        I don't think I use any proprietary web services outside of either my web browser (90%) or command-line CURL (10%).
        johnnyanmac 2y ago
        I have 3 PC game platforms, Discord's desktop client, 4 cloud services, and probably some company hubs for drivers (Nvidia, Logitech, Razer, etc) that phone home. You can definitely access all these through a browser intermediary, but many don't. Steam sort of needs to stay on your device for DRM purposes anyway.
      - olyjohn 2y ago
        What? You mean it doesn't block billboards or radio ads either? It doesn't block my friends when they start talking about their iPhones or being Vegan?
        zugi 2y ago
        There's just no avoiding those astroturfed marketing campaigns being pushed by Big Vegan.
        LoganDark 2y ago
        Minimalism is a scam created by by big small to sell more less.
  - soared 2y ago
    Inferences have uses. I’ll always try to target marketing based on user segments that are deterministic and I’ve read how the data is collected. If I can’t find that, I’ll look for modeled/etc audiences that include inferred data points. It’s likely discord would have targeting/data for self-reported demographics at a smaller scale and higher price point. Then the inferred demographics at a larger scale and lower price point.
    - thaumasiotes 2y ago
      That means your strategy is to make some assumptions about where your marketing will be well received, and insist on only showing it there. This limits you to the quality of your assumptions. It's always going to be better to show your marketing where it actually works than to show it where you believe it works.
      - soared 2y ago
        Well yeah you start with an educated guess and optimize once it’s live. So budget/etc moves fluidly and if discord audience 1 performs well it gets more budget. DSP I use doesn’t have discord inventory (if it exists?) but pretty much everything is optimized by deep learning outside of moving branding budgets around.
- cratermoon 2y ago
  Selling ads for Red Bull to high school and collage age boys. Selling ads for paroxetine to women aged 40-50.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
Age and gender are super important for marketing but I'm not sure why it's a big deal. Your (inexact) age and your gender aren't private.
- kwhitefoot 2y ago
  The fact that your online behaviour outs you as gay to an algorithm might be something that you want to keep private though.
- notaustinpowers 2y ago
  I think the "big deal" about it comes from the fact that users did not give that information willingly to Discord. If I did not provide you that information, why would I expect you to know it? And in a state that California (where Discord is based), I have the right to know how my data is used/shared, and request it be deleted. But I can't request information to be deleted if I don't know you have it. I can't know how you're using/sharing my data if I don't know you have it.
  - ar_lan 2y ago
    I guess they are saying they don't need to ask you anymore - if you willingly give your actions (servers you browse, things you say, chats you react to, etc.), and they can infer from that, then where's the foul? I think it comes before that - the first pieces of data they are scraping. I don't buy that the problem is that they can and will infer your age/gender/etc. based on that.
    - notaustinpowers 2y ago
      The foul is that PII per California law the user has the right to know what information is collected, how it's used/shared, and request the data to be deleted. Discord is based in California and will be under subject to these laws. Looking through Discord's ToS and Privacy Policy, gender isn't mentioned once. And age is mentioned once in the Privacy Policy in regards to account creation. This practice circumvents the law by gathering this information without the user's express permission.
phone8675309 2y ago
In the best case it helps them identify under-18s to keep them away from adult content/creepers.
shostack 2y ago
This isn't just useful for their own marketing as some may imply. My guess is building out an ad network/platform for 3p advertisers to run ads on it.
- smolder 2y ago
  Discord has nearly finished killing IRC, so it must be time to enshittify!
  - MisterTea 2y ago
    Until Discord makes it impossible to run an IRC server or client I dont see IRC going anywhere.
    - tredre3 2y ago
      You, Me, and the 12 other IRC users remaining aren't going anywhere. But denying that Discord has effectively killed IRC is just self-delusion in my opinion.
    - smolder 2y ago
      Yeah, protocols are unkillable, but the interest in IRC was definitely hurt by Discord. Had they started putting ads in the client from the start, I doubt so many groups would have migrated to it.
Mindwipe 2y ago
Under the UK Online Safety Act pretty much every website going forward is required to figure out the age of every user - https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/childrens-information/childrens-code-guidance-and-resources/introduction-to-the-childrens-code/ https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-re... This is almost certainly a starting part of implementing that, designed to reduce the amount of users they have to ask for harder age checks for.
duxup 2y ago
Maybe finding out if you've got under aged users in order to prevent them from using the service or accessing resources they should not? The obvious answer is marketing but I think there "could" be a real use case for: "We want to know if we've got under aged users accessing what they shouldn't and they're not honest about their age so we have to figure it out somehow."
dotnet00 2y ago
I recall hearing that they added some sort of advertising into the streaming built into discord. Maybe they're intending to gradually expand that and make them more targeted. https://www.cnet.com/tech/discord-is-adding-ads-but-with-a-gamer-twist-what-we-know-so-far/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/discord-is-adding-ads-but-with-a-g...
xeromal 2y ago
A non-marketing answer is determining whether users are under age for regulatory purposes. Discord was and still is a gaming chat platform so the draw of young children can be dangerous. Could be used to trigger a verification workflow in the event certain municipalities start requiring it.
- nieve 2y ago
  How does that explain the focus on gender? Admittedly there are countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia where there might be laws about what you're allowed to show women.
  - soundnote 2y ago
    It'd be more remarkable for a Western company to not be focused on gender.
tick_tock_tick 2y ago
Does the EU require it to track for underage users?
- PurpleRamen 2y ago
  Not tracking, but EU and their countries have strong laws to protect children. And the Digital Service Act did raise the bar in all of EU. So figuring out users they are supposed to protect, might be beneficial to prevent high penalties. And DSA was finalized in October 2022, so the date matches.
bananenpubs 2y ago
> So, is there a reason they could be doing this? Ummm... like, business?
rchaud 2y ago
Ads. These apps have no other way to monetize.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

by CM30 2y ago

So, is there a reason they could be doing this? Like from Discord's perspective, what would this actually accomplish business wise? I'm kinda drawing a blank here.

KZerda 2y ago

Demographics are used pretty heavily in market research, etc. This could be used both in targeting ads to specific people, and also in providing aggregate data to business and marketing partners -- being able to say they have approximately x 18-24s is valuable to pitching partnerships, etc.

qmarchi 2y ago
Market research and marketing. Given their rollout of "quests", it's probably another marketing dimension that someone could tailor their ads for. Ex, maybe don't show the "ad" during the day because they're likely at work if they're >24, or show a "quest" that's targeted towards nostalgia.
thaumasiotes 2y ago
> Demographics are used pretty heavily in market research, etc. This could be used both in targeting ads to specific people, and also in providing aggregate data to business and marketing partners I'm thinking about the workflow here. First, Discord profiles you based on your behavior. They conclude you are a 20-year-old male. Second, they show you ads appropriate for a 20-year-old male. Third, these ads do better than average because they match your behavior. We already have behaviorally-targeted ads. We've had them forever. How is introducing a level of indirection, where we infer age and sex from behavior and then decide on appropriate ads based on the age/sex construct, supposed to improve over deciding on the ads based on behavior?
- kwhitefoot 2y ago
  I think the world is being segmented into those who are exposed to targeted advertising and those who never or almost never see any advertising because we use uBlock Origin.
  - LoganDark 2y ago
    Oh, you. Thinking uBlock Origin actually blocks advertising. It doesn't block sponsored blog posts, sponsored comments, paid reviews, conflicts of interest, marketing copy on landing pages, etc. Advertising is everywhere. And uBlock can't protect you from anything not in your web browser.
    - greenish_shores 2y ago
      I don't think I use any proprietary web services outside of either my web browser (90%) or command-line CURL (10%).
      - johnnyanmac 2y ago
        I have 3 PC game platforms, Discord's desktop client, 4 cloud services, and probably some company hubs for drivers (Nvidia, Logitech, Razer, etc) that phone home. You can definitely access all these through a browser intermediary, but many don't. Steam sort of needs to stay on your device for DRM purposes anyway.
    - olyjohn 2y ago
      What? You mean it doesn't block billboards or radio ads either? It doesn't block my friends when they start talking about their iPhones or being Vegan?
      - zugi 2y ago
        There's just no avoiding those astroturfed marketing campaigns being pushed by Big Vegan.
        LoganDark 2y ago
        Minimalism is a scam created by by big small to sell more less.
- soared 2y ago
  Inferences have uses. I’ll always try to target marketing based on user segments that are deterministic and I’ve read how the data is collected. If I can’t find that, I’ll look for modeled/etc audiences that include inferred data points. It’s likely discord would have targeting/data for self-reported demographics at a smaller scale and higher price point. Then the inferred demographics at a larger scale and lower price point.
  - thaumasiotes 2y ago
    That means your strategy is to make some assumptions about where your marketing will be well received, and insist on only showing it there. This limits you to the quality of your assumptions. It's always going to be better to show your marketing where it actually works than to show it where you believe it works.
    - soared 2y ago
      Well yeah you start with an educated guess and optimize once it’s live. So budget/etc moves fluidly and if discord audience 1 performs well it gets more budget. DSP I use doesn’t have discord inventory (if it exists?) but pretty much everything is optimized by deep learning outside of moving branding budgets around.
cratermoon 2y ago
Selling ads for Red Bull to high school and collage age boys. Selling ads for paroxetine to women aged 40-50.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago

Age and gender are super important for marketing but I'm not sure why it's a big deal. Your (inexact) age and your gender aren't private.

kwhitefoot 2y ago
The fact that your online behaviour outs you as gay to an algorithm might be something that you want to keep private though.
notaustinpowers 2y ago
I think the "big deal" about it comes from the fact that users did not give that information willingly to Discord. If I did not provide you that information, why would I expect you to know it? And in a state that California (where Discord is based), I have the right to know how my data is used/shared, and request it be deleted. But I can't request information to be deleted if I don't know you have it. I can't know how you're using/sharing my data if I don't know you have it.
- ar_lan 2y ago
  I guess they are saying they don't need to ask you anymore - if you willingly give your actions (servers you browse, things you say, chats you react to, etc.), and they can infer from that, then where's the foul? I think it comes before that - the first pieces of data they are scraping. I don't buy that the problem is that they can and will infer your age/gender/etc. based on that.
  - notaustinpowers 2y ago
    The foul is that PII per California law the user has the right to know what information is collected, how it's used/shared, and request the data to be deleted. Discord is based in California and will be under subject to these laws. Looking through Discord's ToS and Privacy Policy, gender isn't mentioned once. And age is mentioned once in the Privacy Policy in regards to account creation. This practice circumvents the law by gathering this information without the user's express permission.

phone8675309 2y ago

In the best case it helps them identify under-18s to keep them away from adult content/creepers.

shostack 2y ago

This isn't just useful for their own marketing as some may imply. My guess is building out an ad network/platform for 3p advertisers to run ads on it.

smolder 2y ago
Discord has nearly finished killing IRC, so it must be time to enshittify!
- MisterTea 2y ago
  Until Discord makes it impossible to run an IRC server or client I dont see IRC going anywhere.
  - tredre3 2y ago
    You, Me, and the 12 other IRC users remaining aren't going anywhere. But denying that Discord has effectively killed IRC is just self-delusion in my opinion.
  - smolder 2y ago
    Yeah, protocols are unkillable, but the interest in IRC was definitely hurt by Discord. Had they started putting ads in the client from the start, I doubt so many groups would have migrated to it.

Mindwipe 2y ago

Under the UK Online Safety Act pretty much every website going forward is required to figure out the age of every user - https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/childrens-information/childrens-code-guidance-and-resources/introduction-to-the-childrens-code/ https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-re... This is almost certainly a starting part of implementing that, designed to reduce the amount of users they have to ask for harder age checks for.

duxup 2y ago

Maybe finding out if you've got under aged users in order to prevent them from using the service or accessing resources they should not? The obvious answer is marketing but I think there "could" be a real use case for: "We want to know if we've got under aged users accessing what they shouldn't and they're not honest about their age so we have to figure it out somehow."

dotnet00 2y ago

I recall hearing that they added some sort of advertising into the streaming built into discord. Maybe they're intending to gradually expand that and make them more targeted. https://www.cnet.com/tech/discord-is-adding-ads-but-with-a-gamer-twist-what-we-know-so-far/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/discord-is-adding-ads-but-with-a-g...

xeromal 2y ago

A non-marketing answer is determining whether users are under age for regulatory purposes. Discord was and still is a gaming chat platform so the draw of young children can be dangerous. Could be used to trigger a verification workflow in the event certain municipalities start requiring it.

nieve 2y ago
How does that explain the focus on gender? Admittedly there are countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia where there might be laws about what you're allowed to show women.
- soundnote 2y ago
  It'd be more remarkable for a Western company to not be focused on gender.

tick_tock_tick 2y ago

Does the EU require it to track for underage users?

PurpleRamen 2y ago
Not tracking, but EU and their countries have strong laws to protect children. And the Digital Service Act did raise the bar in all of EU. So figuring out users they are supposed to protect, might be beneficial to prevent high penalties. And DSA was finalized in October 2022, so the date matches.

bananenpubs 2y ago

> So, is there a reason they could be doing this? Ummm... like, business?

rchaud 2y ago

Ads. These apps have no other way to monetize.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]