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Ask HN: Discord banned me with no recourse

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Re: Ask HN: Discord banned me with no recourse

#121

Post by pjc50 »

LanceH wrote: post #91
macspoofing wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We keep seeing these dystopian stories again and again and again. Does anybody really believe it will ever stop? I don't think it can. The problem is that these companies are trying to solve the problem of highly sophisticated attackers, at scale. >I could sleep way better if I knew that two have to mess up for me to lose my digital life. Me and the platform. You're trying to solve a cultural, legal, and regulatory…

> I don't think it can. A nominal payment for the purpose of verification could allow someone to "prove" ownership of a number/email/identity.

Works for Metafilter. Surprised it's not more popular.

Re: Ask HN: Discord banned me with no recourse

#122

Post by TakeBlaster16 »

cloudwalk9 wrote: post #66
quikoa wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it's worth to consider taking them to a small claims court. I don't know what the odds of winning are but it's quite the hassle for a company.

I've considered it. But they have a right to refuse service for any reason. Only damages I could claim is 10 dollars from my last month of Nitro. Not sure what they're doing counts as disability discrimination either. Probably don't have a case.

I would claim the total amount you've spent on Nitro since you first made your account. That was an investment into your account and its history, and now it's gone. You sound like a sympathetic plaintiff. You have a shot. Best case, you get an actual human to look at your situation. Worst case, you're out filing fees and end up back where you started.

Re: Ask HN: Discord banned me with no recourse

#123

Post by [deleted] »

mavhc wrote: post #113
unethical_ban wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instantaneous creation of a server with an RBAC GUI, multiple text and voice chat rooms, voice chat, screen share, app share(game streaming), and for clients, a GUI that allows people to view the status of other servers while participating in one. Again, it's made for voice/screen/streaming share, not primarily text.

Weirdly, every server I'm on is primarily text. I'm in multiple text chat rooms on multiple servers in irc though.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Discord banned me with no recourse

#124

Post by ChoGGi »

anoonmoose wrote: post #51
moss2 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another idea would be legislature. Have these online public spaces serve under the same laws as real-life public spaces (museums, parks et cetera). If a town banned you from the train station because you refuse to give them your phone number, that would open them up to being sued. That should absolutely apply to Discord, Google Mail and Amazon AWS.

That should absolutely not apply to Discord, Google Mail, or Amazon AWS, because those are all private companies restricting the use of their private property. You may call them "public spaces" or "public services" but that is an abuse of the word "public".

Hate to break it to you, but Facebook is the biggest public square in the world.

Re: Ask HN: Discord banned me with no recourse

#125

Post by conradfr »

qzx_pierri wrote: post #70
kemiller wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are but that’s precisely the problem. More and more of our vital communication channels are owned by single private entities. IOW public discourse is being replaced by “public” discourse. The promise of blockchain solutions is that they can return us to the status quo ante of the internet where there were open protocols that operated in a decentralized way. Whether it can fulfill that promise, I don’t know. But…

The internet is not real life. It seems a lot of people who hold your opinion are in the 18-24 age range. Those people who grew up thinking the internet is the only way to communicate or “make things happen”. But I assure you these private companies do NOT have to let you use their services, and common excuses such as “Online communication is like a public square!” is not rooted in the desire for free speech, but is…

Losing my gmail account would have way more effect on my "real life" than if I had suddenly no letter box.

Why can't it be regulated? Phone is and it's provided by private companies. The law even allows me to port my number between them.

Re: Ask HN: Discord banned me with no recourse

#126

Post by andrewinardeer »

unethical_ban wrote: post #99
mavhc wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typing to people you don't really know on the internet? Seems the same use case

Instantaneous creation of a server with an RBAC GUI, multiple text and voice chat rooms, voice chat, screen share, app share(game streaming), and for clients, a GUI that allows people to view the status of other servers while participating in one. Again, it's made for voice/screen/streaming share, not primarily text.

I respect your view and can see your point.

May I counter that Discord effectively proprietarised the open standard that is IRC and then put all the bells and whistles such as shared screen streaming, voice chat etc on top? Similar to how WhatsApp proprietarised XMPP.

Even the niche Discord servers have managed to replicate the community feel of the early to mid 1990's IRC channels.

That's how I see it. You are welcome to disagree.

Re: Ask HN: Discord banned me with no recourse

#127

Post by cloudwalk9 »

steanne wrote: post #54
cloudwalk9 wrote: post #28

Discord Trust and Safety in particular is downright useless. I feel I should share my story. It's a personal hell I've been stuck in for a while. I'm disabled from severe depression resistant to first line treatments, bedridden a lot of the time, and I rely on the platform for most of my social interaction and resources for my hobbies, as far as I can pursue them of course. Discord is invaluable and is basically a mo…

you may be able to participate in servers that have bridges, like to irc or matrix. that's a minority, though.

As much as possible, I've done this, but then it's Discord server after server for every single new thing of interest.

I'm a budding programmer and I maintain(ed) the DarkPlaces engine. In August 2020, I created a Discord server for it with LadyHavoc's blessing, creating a community that brought together professional developers making commercial games using the engine.

...only for me to not be able to participate unless I can poke someone to make time to set up a bridge. Even then, if I'm banned from Discord, who is to say they won't see me talking through a bridge as ban evasion and wipe the bridge, or even the whole server out?

I certainly have my regrets.

Re: Ask HN: Discord banned me with no recourse

#128

Post by gigaflop »

ctrlmeta wrote: post #14

The popularity of Discord always surprises me! It takes hard work and time to create an active community. Why put all that hard work and time into a corporate-controlled platform that can lock you out of it anytime they want? How do people feel ok taking such a big risk? Why not use an open protocol like Matrix (or IRC if you're savvy) to form your community?

Discoed does a lot of things 'right' for a lot of people.

For gamers, Discord became a no-brainer after not much time. Click to create a server for some friends, send out some invites, and that's pretty much all you need. Built-in game overlay settings, voice chat, and screen sharing. Text and voice channels.

Compare this to the old TeamSpeak/Ventrilo/Mumble era, where you'd need to actually manage the installation, and tell people how to connect.

Discord makes it braindead-easy to get started, and the risks you're talking about affect less than 10% of the userbase, probably. Until a more-open platform provides a better experience, Discord will be here to stay among the masses.

Re: Ask HN: Discord banned me with no recourse

#129

Post by drekk »

rglullis wrote: post #72
viraptor wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wrote this like the ideas are mutually exclusive. They're not. I want both regulation of massive internet services and for mastodon and others to become more common choices. > based on free software where such type of arbitrary rulings are impossible. Software license has nothing to do with what rulings are possible. If you're found to be doing something illegal, it's on you to figure out how to deal with that. I…

> You wrote this like the ideas are mutually exclusive. No, I am writing like one of them has shown to be completely useless in effecting any type of real change, while the other is an equalizing force. > Software license has nothing to do with what rulings are possible. The software license has nothing to do with it. It is the economic and social forces that differ.

I wouldn't consider the abolishment of child labor or enforcement of the 40 hr standard workweek as "completely useless"

If government is supposedly accountable to the people it should serve public ends. If it doesn't it should be replaced. I thought that was the entire "Amwrican experiment"? Huh, guess it's a generational thing

Re: Ask HN: Discord banned me with no recourse

#130

Post by Buttons840 »

superkuh wrote: post #97

Stop depending entirely on corporate systems for your personal communication and recreation (I say on HN...). And absolutely stop calling for the use of violence (regulations by government) in these situations. Just because Bob says you cannot come over to the weekly neighborhood BBQs in his backyard does not mean it is ethical for you to call up your police friend to threaten Bob and to make sure you can go. It does…

I have sympathy for the regulation is violence philosophy but it doesn't sit well with me. It seems very focused on individual ownership, putting individual ownership above the rights of everyone collectively. Is the argument that it is not violence for an individual to control his own property, but it is violence for the people the control their collective property (the nation and it's resources)? Did I understand that correctly? Again, it seems like a philosophy that places individual ownership very highly, which I definitely sympathise with, but we shouldn't be too surprised when those who are unlikely to ever have individual ownership form a different philosophy, which I also sympathise with. As with most politics, there needs to be a balance.
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