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I'm not sure this is awful. These are public discords, no more private than newsgroups, or StackOverflow. Why is it awful to scrape this, but not that?

spencerflem 1y ago
they are "open invite" in the sense that its nice to have serendipitous encounters with people on the internet youd otherwise never meet. its for chatting, and the pace of things ensures whatever you say will be buried. the point isn't to make an artifact, like stack overflow. and certainly not be be experimented on.
- lolinder 1y ago
  The pace of things does not ensure that whatever you say remains buried. Discord has a search feature that isn't great but does work. If you want to ensure that what you say is ephemeral you need to use a chat app that has that as a feature, like Signal.
- pavel_lishin 1y ago
  > the pace of things ensures whatever you say will be buried. It very clearly does not.
ysavir 1y ago
A Discover server's status isn't permanent. Any invite-only server can be into a discoverable, public server, and any public server can be taken private. The public/private distinction isn't a permanent reflection of access but is just a reflection of the current permissions. There's no guarantee that users in a public server were in a public server when they joined and engaged.
- lolinder 1y ago
  That sounds like an enormous flaw in Discord's permission model, not something that should be patched over with "shame" on researchers for archiving data that Discord made public. The fact remains that if you post something in a private discord channel that someone takes public, it's now public information. All these researchers did is expose that fact—the fact that private messages can later be made public is Discord's responsibility and Discord's shame.
  - ysavir 1y ago
    Eh, depends on how you look at it. "Public" is a pretty vague term. Something might be public in the sense that anyone can come and view, but it can also be public in the sense that anyone can join and participate, but you still must be a joined member to participate (and that participation can be revoked, etc). Twitter and Reddit are the former, publicly visible communications avenues. Discord is ultimately a private communication channel where anyone can join, but must be joined, to participate. Unlike Reddit and Twitter, Discord was never meant to be a space where your contributions are intended to be publicly viewable. People forget that while Discord is oftentimes used as a replacement for forums, it is actually the spiritual successor to IRC, AIM, and similar chat services, where the data is typically ephemeral. Message history in these services is still a fairly recent addition, and what we're seeing now is the consequence of that data being available. Some people think that availability of historical data inherently puts it in the same camp as forums, Reddit, and Twitter, but I don't share that view. Discord data is still intended for present members of the given servers, not the public at large, even if anyone in the public space is able to become a present member. The distinction there is a meaningful one.
    - pavel_lishin 1y ago
      > Message history in these services is still a fairly recent addition Is it? Discord's been around for a decade; as far as I'm aware, it's always had message history, unlike IRC. > Some people think that availability of historical data inherently puts it in the same camp as forums, Reddit, and Twitter, but I don't share that view. Discord data is still intended for present members of the given servers, not the public at large, even if anyone in the public space is able to become a present member. The distinction there is a meaningful one. I definitely agree with this, although the fact that anyone joining can scroll back does sort of mean it's available to anyone who wants to look for it - it's just difficult to do so.
      - ysavir 1y ago
        > Is it? Discord's been around for a decade; as far as I'm aware, it's always had message history, unlike IRC. Almost a decade, yeah. And Slack had similar functionality in the few years before Discord arrived. But chat services have been around since, what, the late 80s or early 90s? Services like Discord are still the new kid on the block. Now we're seeing it being taken advantage of (or at least the first instance of someone publicly and proudly taking advantage of it), prompting curiosity of what comes next: Will this disregard for privacy simply become the default expectation, will people shift to more private spaces less susceptible to abuse, or privacy regulations protecting people?

spencerflem 1y ago

they are "open invite" in the sense that its nice to have serendipitous encounters with people on the internet youd otherwise never meet. its for chatting, and the pace of things ensures whatever you say will be buried. the point isn't to make an artifact, like stack overflow. and certainly not be be experimented on.

lolinder 1y ago
The pace of things does not ensure that whatever you say remains buried. Discord has a search feature that isn't great but does work. If you want to ensure that what you say is ephemeral you need to use a chat app that has that as a feature, like Signal.
pavel_lishin 1y ago
> the pace of things ensures whatever you say will be buried. It very clearly does not.

ysavir 1y ago

A Discover server's status isn't permanent. Any invite-only server can be into a discoverable, public server, and any public server can be taken private. The public/private distinction isn't a permanent reflection of access but is just a reflection of the current permissions. There's no guarantee that users in a public server were in a public server when they joined and engaged.

lolinder 1y ago
That sounds like an enormous flaw in Discord's permission model, not something that should be patched over with "shame" on researchers for archiving data that Discord made public. The fact remains that if you post something in a private discord channel that someone takes public, it's now public information. All these researchers did is expose that fact—the fact that private messages can later be made public is Discord's responsibility and Discord's shame.
- ysavir 1y ago
  Eh, depends on how you look at it. "Public" is a pretty vague term. Something might be public in the sense that anyone can come and view, but it can also be public in the sense that anyone can join and participate, but you still must be a joined member to participate (and that participation can be revoked, etc). Twitter and Reddit are the former, publicly visible communications avenues. Discord is ultimately a private communication channel where anyone can join, but must be joined, to participate. Unlike Reddit and Twitter, Discord was never meant to be a space where your contributions are intended to be publicly viewable. People forget that while Discord is oftentimes used as a replacement for forums, it is actually the spiritual successor to IRC, AIM, and similar chat services, where the data is typically ephemeral. Message history in these services is still a fairly recent addition, and what we're seeing now is the consequence of that data being available. Some people think that availability of historical data inherently puts it in the same camp as forums, Reddit, and Twitter, but I don't share that view. Discord data is still intended for present members of the given servers, not the public at large, even if anyone in the public space is able to become a present member. The distinction there is a meaningful one.
  - pavel_lishin 1y ago
    > Message history in these services is still a fairly recent addition Is it? Discord's been around for a decade; as far as I'm aware, it's always had message history, unlike IRC. > Some people think that availability of historical data inherently puts it in the same camp as forums, Reddit, and Twitter, but I don't share that view. Discord data is still intended for present members of the given servers, not the public at large, even if anyone in the public space is able to become a present member. The distinction there is a meaningful one. I definitely agree with this, although the fact that anyone joining can scroll back does sort of mean it's available to anyone who wants to look for it - it's just difficult to do so.
    - ysavir 1y ago
      > Is it? Discord's been around for a decade; as far as I'm aware, it's always had message history, unlike IRC. Almost a decade, yeah. And Slack had similar functionality in the few years before Discord arrived. But chat services have been around since, what, the late 80s or early 90s? Services like Discord are still the new kid on the block. Now we're seeing it being taken advantage of (or at least the first instance of someone publicly and proudly taking advantage of it), prompting curiosity of what comes next: Will this disregard for privacy simply become the default expectation, will people shift to more private spaces less susceptible to abuse, or privacy regulations protecting people?