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Discord Is Threatening to Shutdown BotGhost

update.botghost.com

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Re: Discord Is Threatening to Shutdown BotGhost

#71

Post by koakuma-chan »

add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #54
koakuma-chan wrote: post #3

Sorry for your loss. I too virtually stopped using Discord in favor of, mostly, Reddit (lesser of two evils).

I can't think of any way to look at this where Reddit is the lesser evil. I respect the position but I don't understand it. Reddit and Twitter reached the floor of enshittification with their respective 2023 actions. Discord and others may follow the precedent and get there, but my usage hasn't been affected yet. The Discord official client, unlike Reddit/Twitter, is still ad-free except for the occasional icon highl…

> is still ad-free

I use an adblock, so I don't see any ads on Reddit.

> I can't think of any way to look at this where Reddit is the lesser evil.

Reddit is the lesser evil for my personal use case because more and more Discord servers require a verified phone number to send messages. I can't get help if I can't send a message.

Re: Discord Is Threatening to Shutdown BotGhost

#72

Post by throwaway7679 »

out-of-ideas wrote: post #57
throwaway7679 wrote: post #48

There are lots of details about the technology, license agreements, service history, comparable platforms, and whatnot, which all form reasonable support for botghost. None of that matters in the slightest. They're dealing with an indifferent, capricious, unaccountable company. And trying to do it without enough leverage to even get a response. It seems like it's about to end the way it was always going to.

yup, agreed- worth going over the non tl;dr (sufficient to say the tl;dr misses some good juice, but thats what the page in full is for). i was sorta curious on the policy changes over time, since botghost has been around since '18. all i can say is good luck to botgost histories of policies-ish: - from the tl;dr (they also explain #4 as well in the non-tl;dr): > Discord issued a breach notice to BotGhost, claiming t…

> NEITHER DISCORD NOR ITS AFFILIATES, SUPPLIERS, OR DISTRIBUTORS MAKE ANY SPECIFIC PROMISES ABOUT THE APIs, API DATA, DOCUMENTATION, OR ANY DISCORD SERVICES.

The existence of terms like this make any discussion of the other terms look pretty silly.

Their policy is simply that they do whatever they want, and that hasn't changed.

Re: Discord Is Threatening to Shutdown BotGhost

#73

Post by out-of-ideas »

throwaway7679 wrote: post #72
out-of-ideas wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yup, agreed- worth going over the non tl;dr (sufficient to say the tl;dr misses some good juice, but thats what the page in full is for). i was sorta curious on the policy changes over time, since botghost has been around since '18. all i can say is good luck to botgost histories of policies-ish: - from the tl;dr (they also explain #4 as well in the non-tl;dr): > Discord issued a breach notice to BotGhost, claiming t…

> NEITHER DISCORD NOR ITS AFFILIATES, SUPPLIERS, OR DISTRIBUTORS MAKE ANY SPECIFIC PROMISES ABOUT THE APIs, API DATA, DOCUMENTATION, OR ANY DISCORD SERVICES. The existence of terms like this make any discussion of the other terms look pretty silly. Their policy is simply that they do whatever they want, and that hasn't changed.

> Their policy is simply that they do whatever they want, and that hasn't changed.

yup! and don't forget they can change their policy whenever they want too

also they rank D on this site: https://tosdr.org/en/service/536

Re: Discord Is Threatening to Shutdown BotGhost

#74

Post by apt-apt-apt-apt »

This same story plays out with every monopoly platform e.g. Apple.

Basically, you are likely in competition with something they are making, or are otherwise bad for business. The specific policy violation they choose doesn't matter– you are getting dicked down because they want it to be so.

Re: Discord Is Threatening to Shutdown BotGhost

#75

Post by toast0 »

colesantiago wrote: post #5

Repeat after me and frame this. Never build your main business on somebody else's platform. Always assume that you will get shutdown / rugged when you do so.

The problem with building everything without dependencies on other peoples' platforms is that it's a lot of work to build your own chip fabrication machines when you just wanted to sell chat bots.

Chat bots on your own hosted platform which has no users isn't something people will want to buy. I mean, some people will want to buy it for click to chat on their websites or something. But if there's a market for chat bots in general spaces, you have to address that market where people are chatting, which is Discord, apparently.

Re: Discord Is Threatening to Shutdown BotGhost

#76

Post by gagik_co »

anonym29 wrote: post #9
koakuma-chan wrote: post #3

Sorry for your loss. I too virtually stopped using Discord in favor of, mostly, Reddit (lesser of two evils).

The lesser of two evils is still evil. Make Forums Great Again!

Agree! I finally set up my own NodeBB forum for my app support and I'm very excited to move in this direction. It was a nicer experience than expected.

Re: Discord Is Threatening to Shutdown BotGhost

#77

Post by meepmorp »

apt-apt-apt-apt wrote: post #74

This same story plays out with every monopoly platform e.g. Apple. Basically, you are likely in competition with something they are making, or are otherwise bad for business. The specific policy violation they choose doesn't matter– you are getting dicked down because they want it to be so.

> every monopoly platform

discord ain't a monopoly in any relevant sense of the word

Re: Discord Is Threatening to Shutdown BotGhost

#78

Post by everforward »

merb wrote: post #22

The biggest problem is that discord has no way to authorize these platforms without the user giving them credentials. It’s really stupid because it would be so easy to fix.

I think that's because Discord doesn't want them to do it this way. I suspect Discord wants BotGhost to operate their own bot with their own credentials, and have users invite the bot to their servers (similar to how many existing bots work). BotGhost could tell which no-code workflows apply based on server and/or channel ID.

I think Discord has a fair argument that if BotGhost "writes the code" (read: translates workflows to actual execution), and BotGhost operates the bot, then really it's BotGhost's bot and they should own the bot and have it be visible to users as their bot.

Re: Discord Is Threatening to Shutdown BotGhost

#79

Post by lsaferite »

markasoftware wrote: post #61
paxys wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An end user creates an application in Discord. They create a bot within that application, and Discord generates a token for the bot. They then copy the token into BotGhost, and BotGhost "operates" the bot. The application itself is still owned by the user, and BotGhost has no access to it.

botghost should still theoretically be able to serialize and export the bot's logic

They could export a DSL that captures the workflow at least.

Re: Discord Is Threatening to Shutdown BotGhost

#80

Post by nxrabl »

> A recent security breach on our platform brought BotGhost to Discord’s attention.

The breach in question is documented here: https://youtube.com/watch?v=lUiLBBab1RY

I don’t think there’s a text write-up, but tl;dw a combination of missing input sanitization and no-code UI trickery made it possible to leak other users’ bot tokens, and despite patching the exploit pretty quickly on exposure, BotGhost’s developer tried to cover it up and refused to reset potentially affected tokens.

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