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I don't think Discord has anymore shady activities than any other large scale social media platform. When I helped moderate a very large server, we had access t

I don't think Discord has anymore shady activities than any other large scale social media platform. When I helped moderate a very large server, we had access to Discord Trust and Safety team and they were trying against what is a massive flood. Automated moderation is extremely difficult even with all AI tools unless you 100% block any NSFW content and sexual messaging and even then, you will get false positives. I do find it interesting that we hold these platforms liable but not the phone/pager/mail service. If this doctor had called this girl on her cell phone, no one would be mad at Verizon. Part of the problem is most parents have no clue about social media/communication tools outside what they use. At my church, I gave presentation about Discord and it was shocking to see how clueless parents were.

FireBeyond 2y ago
Disboard is the biggest Discord search engine. It is trivial to find servers with adult topics (BDSM) targeted at minors. It is trivial to find servers that combine those topics with problematic age ranges (like BDSM-themed servers with no ID verification, 'ages 14-28 welcome'). It is trivial to find servers with minors openly selling "content". Disboard isn't Discord but these things aren't even being remotely "hidden", it is these servers' sole 'purpose'.
abdullahkhalids 2y ago
> I do find it interesting that we hold these platforms liable but not the phone/pager/mail service. Phone and mail networks in letter and spirit obey the law: they don't listen to people's private conversations and they give up complete user info on request by law enforcement. There is nothing more they can do. Discord has built the capability to read every message, public or private, that any user sends. So they are ethically obligated to stop bad things happening on their platform. Whatsapp/Signal have built their platforms so they can't read user private messages, so they have no ethical obligations to stop bad things happening on their platform, beyond banning users in response to legal orders.
- protocolture 2y ago
  >Discord has built the capability to read every message, public or private, that any user sends So they need to get rid of that capability
- hiatus 2y ago
  > Whatsapp/Signal have built their platforms so they can't read user private messages, so they have no ethical obligations to stop bad things happening on their platform Why draw the line there? Why don't those platforms have an ethical obligation to build the features that would allow them to stop bad things happening on their platform? Especially if they knowingly developed the current implementation specifically to avoid ethical culpability?
  - abdullahkhalids 2y ago
    That's a political statement. The position is that one should have the right and ability to communicate with other people in a secure fashion. If you deny this right, and build structures to monitor all communication, when "bad" people take over the government, you end up in a dystopia. Then building any sort of anti-government political movement become very difficult because they can hear whatever you say. So I am glad that software like Signal/Whatsapp exist that allow secure communication [1]. And I would take the harms causes by them being unmonitored rather than the harm of future dystopian governments. Due to how crypto works, I don't think there is much middle ground here. [1] I would prefer open source, more community owned platforms take over than these two.
    - Capricorn2481 2y ago
      Sorry but you were arguing that Discord should snoop even more into what we're doing for ethical reasons, and now you're saying privacy is a virtue. Do you have a reason to think Discord doesn't already do these things and just doesn't get it right every time? Phone and email aren't more private than Discord either. Arguably less. Difficult to get a phone these days without buying it on camera. And a phone company will give up all your messages.

FireBeyond 2y ago

Disboard is the biggest Discord search engine. It is trivial to find servers with adult topics (BDSM) targeted at minors. It is trivial to find servers that combine those topics with problematic age ranges (like BDSM-themed servers with no ID verification, 'ages 14-28 welcome'). It is trivial to find servers with minors openly selling "content". Disboard isn't Discord but these things aren't even being remotely "hidden", it is these servers' sole 'purpose'.

abdullahkhalids 2y ago

> I do find it interesting that we hold these platforms liable but not the phone/pager/mail service. Phone and mail networks in letter and spirit obey the law: they don't listen to people's private conversations and they give up complete user info on request by law enforcement. There is nothing more they can do. Discord has built the capability to read every message, public or private, that any user sends. So they are ethically obligated to stop bad things happening on their platform. Whatsapp/Signal have built their platforms so they can't read user private messages, so they have no ethical obligations to stop bad things happening on their platform, beyond banning users in response to legal orders.

protocolture 2y ago
>Discord has built the capability to read every message, public or private, that any user sends So they need to get rid of that capability
hiatus 2y ago
> Whatsapp/Signal have built their platforms so they can't read user private messages, so they have no ethical obligations to stop bad things happening on their platform Why draw the line there? Why don't those platforms have an ethical obligation to build the features that would allow them to stop bad things happening on their platform? Especially if they knowingly developed the current implementation specifically to avoid ethical culpability?
- abdullahkhalids 2y ago
  That's a political statement. The position is that one should have the right and ability to communicate with other people in a secure fashion. If you deny this right, and build structures to monitor all communication, when "bad" people take over the government, you end up in a dystopia. Then building any sort of anti-government political movement become very difficult because they can hear whatever you say. So I am glad that software like Signal/Whatsapp exist that allow secure communication [1]. And I would take the harms causes by them being unmonitored rather than the harm of future dystopian governments. Due to how crypto works, I don't think there is much middle ground here. [1] I would prefer open source, more community owned platforms take over than these two.
  - Capricorn2481 2y ago
    Sorry but you were arguing that Discord should snoop even more into what we're doing for ethical reasons, and now you're saying privacy is a virtue. Do you have a reason to think Discord doesn't already do these things and just doesn't get it right every time? Phone and email aren't more private than Discord either. Arguably less. Difficult to get a phone these days without buying it on camera. And a phone company will give up all your messages.