Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Discord Applying Forced Arbitration - opt-out before it is too late!

bsky.app

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 99 posts

Re: Discord Applying Forced Arbitration - opt-out before it is too late!

#71

Post by john-radio »

lolinder wrote: post #56

This feels like a giant waste of energy that could be put into better causes. The number of people who are eligible to opt out now (those who already opted out in previous iterations) is microscopic compared to Discord's wider user base, and I would be absolutely shocked if a single person involved in this actually ends up suing Discord either individually or as part of a class. Whether or not you believe forced arbi…

> Whether or not you believe forced arbitration is bad, it seems like there have to be higher value causes to get up in arms about right now.

Yes indeed, but resistance against unfairness is not like a coin purse; it is like a muscle. When exercised, it seems like it increases its capacity.

Re: Discord Applying Forced Arbitration - opt-out before it is too late!

#72

Post by safety1st »

wnevets wrote: post #70

Is there a good reason why the FTC (or other federal agency) shouldn't ban this practice?

For the life of me I cannot understand how forced arbitration is legal. For the most part, you can't sign away your fundamental rights: if you sign a contract in which you forfeit your right to vote or to practice a particular religion, for example, that contract is invalid. Surely if your right to due process doesn't have this type of protection, it should.

Re: Discord Applying Forced Arbitration - opt-out before it is too late!

#73

Post by hakfoo »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #26
teeray wrote: post #12

It really would be nice for some legislation to restore access to the justice system.

This is what we need, yeah. I don't have a problem with binding arbitration if parties with equal leverage agree to it, but it should be flat out illegal to require it as terms of employment or part of ToS.

Modern civil law seems to revolve around this quaint fiction of contracts being some sort of "meeting of the minds" of relatively equally resourced parties.

This might have been viable in 1795, but it feels ill suited to a world where we have billion dollar firms, legal staff on retainer, and contracts that have been revised like a codebase... versus consumers with no formal legal training.

Even if there wasn't an inherent inequality of field, the high cost of litigation also encourages a tendency to ask for the unreasonable. The people presenting the contract know there's probably not enough money in it for anyone but the wealthy and begrudged to try to challenge the contract, so there's little risk to asking for more permissions, less liability, and tighter binding on the consumer. In the worst case, the cost serves as an effective bludgeon for abusive behaviour: they'll go along because they can't afford to get a favourable judgement.

I dream of a world where there's no surprises in contracts-- basically there'd be a book of standard contracts filled out in a Mad Lib fashion. This would collapse a lot of the possibilities courts would have to deal with, resulting in a faster, predictable, almost deterministic legal system. If someone actually wanted to bring out a new clause, it would have to go through a highly-visible, paperwork-intensive vetting and discussion process. The Discords of the world then have to face very public scrutiny of their actions and motives: what makes your needs so special that they can't be dealt with using the standard contract for data services?

Re: Discord Applying Forced Arbitration - opt-out before it is too late!

#74

Post by chatmasta »

Animats wrote: post #25

Discord hasn't yet obtained approval for their contract from the American Arbitration Association. They're not on the list.[1] Until a company gets on that list, which has a fee, the AAA will refuse to run arbitrations involving contracts specifying AAA arbitration. The AAA does this to prevent companies from adding additional unfavorable terms to arbitration agreements. At least Discord specified AAA arbitration. Th…

I’m sure Discord spends more money on lawyers than I do, so I’ll take any edge I can get.

Re: Discord Applying Forced Arbitration - opt-out before it is too late!

#76

Post by MiguelX413 »

willcipriano wrote: post #51
teeray wrote: post #12

It really would be nice for some legislation to restore access to the justice system.

If the justice system prevents access to itself like this, can it really call itself a justice system anymore?

I've always thought that it should be called “(the) legal system”, not “(the) justice system”.

Re: Discord Applying Forced Arbitration - opt-out before it is too late!

#77

Post by lolinder »

john-radio wrote: post #71
lolinder wrote: post #56

This feels like a giant waste of energy that could be put into better causes. The number of people who are eligible to opt out now (those who already opted out in previous iterations) is microscopic compared to Discord's wider user base, and I would be absolutely shocked if a single person involved in this actually ends up suing Discord either individually or as part of a class. Whether or not you believe forced arbi…

> Whether or not you believe forced arbitration is bad, it seems like there have to be higher value causes to get up in arms about right now. Yes indeed, but resistance against unfairness is not like a coin purse; it is like a muscle. When exercised, it seems like it increases its capacity.

My sense looking at the last few years is that resistance is more like a habit than a muscle. It's not that your capability to resist gets stronger each time, it's that it becomes a reflex.

The upside to having the reflex is that you stand up against unfairness more often. The downside is that it becomes a simple response to a stimulus rather than a conscious choice, which means you end up constantly caught up in the cause du jour without ever stopping to think about whether this particular case warrants your limited time or even whether it's actually a case of true unfairness.

Re: Discord Applying Forced Arbitration - opt-out before it is too late!

#78

Post by Animats »

j-bos wrote: post #59
Animats wrote: post #25

Discord hasn't yet obtained approval for their contract from the American Arbitration Association. They're not on the list.[1] Until a company gets on that list, which has a fee, the AAA will refuse to run arbitrations involving contracts specifying AAA arbitration. The AAA does this to prevent companies from adding additional unfavorable terms to arbitration agreements. At least Discord specified AAA arbitration. Th…

Seems they can register at the last minute: >If a business has not registered its consumer clause prior to the filing of a consumer case, the AAA will require that the business registers its clause at that time. I

Right. Not being on that list, though, indicates that nobody actually went to arbitration rather than going to small claims court. Small claims court is always an option with AAA arbitration. Either party can take that route.

Re: Discord Applying Forced Arbitration - opt-out before it is too late!

#79

Post by lostdog »

tzs wrote: post #58
xyst wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the state of SCOTUS, doubtful.

Isn't it the Federal Arbitration Act from 1926 that is largely responsible for the current state of forced arbitration in the US? If Congress wants to remove that I don't see how the Supreme Court would be able to find a way to say that they cannot.

The Supreme Court reinvented the FAA under Roberts, giving it more power than was ever intended. True that Congress could override their interpretation, but people blame the Supreme Court because they created the mess in the first place.
Post reply on HN