No one reads the fine print - Discord quietly tries to block your ability to sue them

[TVwazhere]

Summary

On April 15th, Discord put out an update which included a clause in the Terms of Service to get users to agree to waive their right to sue Discord for any legal reason.

 

Quotes

Quote

Based on what’s now laid out in the TOS, any disputes between a user and Discord will be handled privately, in meetings with the company. If those meetings fail, the dispute goes to arbitration. This process is private, which means the public has no way to review the evidence or results, it’s expensive, and there’s no guaranteed right to an appeal process. Whatever the arbiter decides, is the end of it. The process almost objectively privileges companies, which have a lot of power and resources, over individuals.

 

My thoughts

Unfortunately, this is legal in the United States (do not turn this into a political discussion) but users have 30 days from April 15th or the day you sign up for discord (though at this point, why would you?) Personally I've used it a lot since it's introduction, but perhaps its time to slowly move back to teamspeak or mumble.

 

If you want to send an email, there's already a good template for it.

Quote

Dear Sir or Madam,

 

I am writing to opt out of the arbitration clause in your new Terms of Service agreement on the date April **, 2024.

 

In your ToS under the section "Settling disputes between you and Discord" an opt-out subsection notes this as a possibility.

 

If you have any questions, you may reach me at this email address.

 

Thank you,

[NAME]

Discord user [USERNAME]

 

Sources

https://www.polygon.com/2024/4/20/24134970/discord-arbitration-how-to-opt-out#

[Dedayog]

2 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

Summary

On April 15th, Discord put out an update which included a clause in the Terms of Service to get users to agree to waive their right to sue Discord for any legal reason.

 

Quotes

 

My thoughts

Unfortunately, this is legal in the United States (do not turn this into a political discussion) but users have 30 days from April 15th or the day you sign up for discord (though at this point, why would you?) Personally I've used it a lot since it's introduction, but perhaps its time to slowly move back to teamspeak or mumble.

 

If you want to send an email, there's already a good template for it.

 

Sources

https://www.polygon.com/2024/4/20/24134970/discord-arbitration-how-to-opt-out#

Okay but why would we sue Discord as a medium for people to talk to each other?

 

Does Discord take any responsibility for what all the people post and say?  Are we putting it on Discord to stop said people from posting and saying bad things?

 

If so, then Discord's clause is empty.  If we hold them not accountable, then the clause can stay but we won't need it anyway.

 

Just like here, can we sue LTT for things on the forums?

[TVwazhere]

Just now, Dedayog said:

Okay but why would we sue Discord as a medium for people to talk to each other?

Perhaps for ongoing suits such as...
https://dot.la/discord-child-harm-lawsuit-2658407533.html

From the source:

Quote

You are not going to get third-degree burns from Discord. But having legal recourse in case something happens is important. It doesn’t matter if you’re thinking, “well I probably won’t sue Discord ever so who cares.” But right now there’s a group of parents who are suing Discord, alleging that predators are exploiting their kids on the platform. As legal scholars have noted for decades, the arbitration clause is a hindrance for so much of what we don’t see coming.

[Dedayog]

4 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

Perhaps for ongoing suits such as...
https://dot.la/discord-child-harm-lawsuit-2658407533.html

From the source:

Thanks, appreciate the added context and info.

[Donut417]

This is pretty much standard practice for all companies in the US. If they piss me off or do stupid shit I will just close my account and move elsewhere.

[MS-DOS]

All these big companies think they can put anything on their ToS. It's like how YouTube abuses their monopoly power to milk creator's traffic and reserve the right to kick them out of the platform at any time, don't give them their income etc, WHILE they keep milking the same traffic they claim it isn't fit to put ads in. It's all a big joke.

Maybe not in the land of the free, but elsewhere eventually we will see this stopped with the right case.

[manikyath]

13 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

Perhaps for ongoing suits such as...
https://dot.la/discord-child-harm-lawsuit-2658407533.html

From the source:

in other news, a public park can cause minors to be exposed to criminals.

 

are you gonna sue the post office when someone sends you dick pics trough the mail?

 

---

i agree that this is a TERRIBLE thing to be in a TOS (and in the EU is considered void afaik) but the stated example is something where discord essentially cant be a party to the problem unless they do creepy levels of snooping on PM's.

[podkall]

2 minutes ago, manikyath said:

in other news, a public park can cause minors to be exposed to criminals.

 

are you gonna sue the post office when someone sends you dick pics trough the mail?

yeah but those parks could have police patrol, Discord has essentially nothing outside of reports I guess

[Motifator]

There is only a matter of time before some undercover street cop will come and whoop your ass if you tried to do a crime in a public park. Well, as long as it's not the NYC park at 3 AM... you know.

This is different cause you can get in custody over hitting somebody in the head with a Hyzer on parks lol. There are rules IRL against crime...

Discord is a fuck all platform when it comes to talking big, insults, etc. Worst part of it is, Discord gives none of a shit about any of it. Just look at the sheer amount of pron servers laying on it.

[porina]

Only skimming the details, the forced arbitration clause only applies to US residents. Which is a lot of people for sure, but people in the rest of world are not affected by this. Even if you are affected in the US, and if you do not opt out, there are still exceptions that may apply.

[wanderingfool2]

18 minutes ago, manikyath said:

i agree that this is a TERRIBLE thing to be in a TOS (and in the EU is considered void afaik) but the stated example is something where discord essentially cant be a party to the problem unless they do creepy levels of snooping on PM's.

While I do kind of agree with what you said, there are still other aspects like the fact if they know about particular users/activities and choose not to enforce policies to kick them off the platform [it happened on Twitter a lot...like the time that they got a report and essentially decided that the child wasn't abused so the video remained up]

 

42 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

Okay but why would we sue Discord as a medium for people to talk to each other?

The biggest thing is that it protects them from class actions if everyone has to go through arbitration...and often times arbitration can become a lot more lopsided as the party can often pick where and who are the arbitrators.

 

e.g. If Discord were to decide snoop on everyones calls and sell it to advertisers, everyone would have to go through the arbitrator and prove it over and over again making it not worth the costs for effectively a few dollars.

[Mark Kaine]

2 hours ago, TVwazhere said:

this is legal in the United States

yeah, but almost certainly not in EU, so i wonder if they included these terms there as well...? i just remember there was a recent tos update here too... 

 

edit: oh, kinda answered by @porina but I'd still be interested in if these terms are included in EU as well, or nah (and about the legal ramifications if they were obviously) 

[OhioYJ]

1 hour ago, Donut417 said:

This is pretty much standard practice for all companies in the US. 

Yeap, at this point if you buy or do business with pretty anybody in the US you can guarantee they have one these forced arbitration clauses somewhere in the fine print. Even smaller businesses and publishers do this nonsense at this point. 

[manikyath]

28 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

yeah, but almost certainly not in EU, so i wonder if they included these terms there as well...? i just remember there was a recent tos update here too... 

afaik the EU doesnt specificly disallow those things to be in a TOS, they just have rules for what a TOS can or cannot enforce. so they can claim your first born in the TOS, but that is not something enforcable by TOS so it is essentially void even if it is there and agreed to.

[porina]

44 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

edit: oh, kinda answered by @porina but I'd still be interested in of these terms are included in EU as well, or nah (and about the legal ramifications if they were obviously) 

If you really care about it, don't wait for someone else to do the work. Look at the TOS yourself. The section specifically says it only applies to US residents. Surrounding it, there are specific mentions for EU residents but it doesn't include the arbitration clause.

[Mark Kaine]

17 minutes ago, manikyath said:

afaik the EU doesnt specificly disallow those things to be in a TOS, they just have rules for what a TOS can or cannot enforce. so they can claim your first born in the TOS, but that is not something enforcable by TOS so it is essentially void even if it is there and agreed to.

yeah, that's probably about right i guess, huh.

[Salted Spinach]

Its exclusive to (for now) and perfectly legal, in the country that champions freedoms, rights and justice

 

Although to their benefit, there are much larger online platforms that various regulators have been milking for cash under the pretense of justice

 

If you have a problem with the cow producing methane, then milking it isn't going to solve the problem

[Fetzie]

23 hours ago, manikyath said:

in other news, a public park can cause minors to be exposed to criminals.

 

are you gonna sue the post office when someone sends you dick pics trough the mail?

 

---

i agree that this is a TERRIBLE thing to be in a TOS (and in the EU is considered void afaik) but the stated example is something where discord essentially cant be a party to the problem unless they do creepy levels of snooping on PM's.

Discord could leak (intentionally or not) your personal information (credit card and address if you have nitro, email address, 2FA phone number etc.) and you might want to sue them for restitution (for example if people use that information to stalk you IRL).

[jagdtigger]

Oh boy, im very sure it has nothing to do with their breach..... /s

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/discord-starts-notifying-users-affected-by-march-data-breach/

[RejZoR]

Idiotic EULA's and TOS documents with 350 pages of lawyer level unreadable bullshit should never be a basis of anything expected from users. People don't read user manuals for devices that have 5 pages of which 3 are images and they expect us to seriously read that crap? GTFO! Literally NO ONE does that.

[Godlygamer23]

On 4/27/2024 at 10:30 AM, TVwazhere said:

Perhaps for ongoing suits such as...
https://dot.la/discord-child-harm-lawsuit-2658407533.html

From the source:

This is in my opinion a dumb lawsuit - basically a nonstarter from my standpoint. Any platform where users can communicate with each other can result in abuse of that platform - there are multiple issues, but none of them have anything to do with the platforms, but rather properly teaching children the dangers of online interactions(parents' job). 

 

Any platform has the potential to be abused, and it's important for the users, no matter how old, to be educated about the potential(and very real) dangers, and for children specifically...to be supervised by guardians/parents about who they're interacting with, and any required procedures. 

 

Quite frankly, it's no different than anything else that exists - pretty much everything that humans have created have the potential to be abused. Blindly blaming the manufacturers, creators of platforms, distributors of services, etc. takes away all responsibility from the individuals utilizing those items/services.

 

Better ban poles because I can hit someone over the head with them! And sue the manufacturers of poles while we're at it!

 

Companies not allowing users to pursue them legally is really scummy, but lawsuits need to be created with logic, reasoning, and proper forethought.

[Mark Kaine]

3 hours ago, Fetzie said:

Discord could leak (intentionally or not) your personal information (credit card and address if you have nitro, email address, 2FA phone number etc.) and you might want to sue them for restitution (for example if people use that information to stalk you IRL).

im turn... they're now also allowed to officially sell that data, because,  hey, you can't sue them, remember!  Freedom baby!!! ❤❤❤

[Dedayog]

I say we sue Discord just cuz...

 

I got nothing to do tomorrow.

[Motifator]

1 hour ago, Dedayog said:

I say we sue Discord just cuz...

 

I got nothing to do tomorrow.

Good, adaptation, improvisation... but you weakness, is spending time on Discord.

[Dragonwinged]

Sry, didn't see this was already on here.

 

As it turns out, this forced arbitration clause is illegal in the US. The seventh amendment protects the rights of civil lawsuits.