1y ago

New Discord TOS binds you to forced arbitration - Opt-Out Now

Read about Discord's Terms of Service

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/17618684

Forced arbitration means any legal disputes you may have with Discord must be resolved through a single third party mediator, who 99% of the time is chosen by, and will rule in favor of, the corporation/Discord. This effectively removes all your legal rights as a consumer, because arbitration decisions are legally binding and non-appealable.
The new ToS goes into effect April 15th, 2024.
YOU CAN OPT OUT OF ARBITRATION. You must email arbitration-opt-out@discord.com BEFORE MAY 15TH (30 days after ToS effective date) with your username stating that you wish to opt out of the arbitration clause. Once May 15th passes you are bound to arbitration with Discord forever.

Opt-out before it's too late.

Technology @beehaw.org

New Discord TOS binds you to forced arbitration - Opt-Out Now

discord.com /terms

252 44

Technology @lemmy.world

New Discord TOS binds you to forced arbitration - Opt-Out Now

discord.com /terms

525 78

Discord @lemmy.world

New Discord TOS binds you to forced arbitration - Opt-Out Now

discord.com /terms

4 0

106 comments

I hate it’s not a button so much. They’re making opting out as big of a pain in the ass as possible -_-
- imagine if they said that they required a notarized certified letter sent via snail mail
  
  With a picture of your passport and buthole in two copies.
- Roku made you send a physical letter in their latest change forcing arbitration.
- Sending an email is much much better than sending a literal hand written letter.
  I had one opt out where you had to hand write the letter and envelope. Absolutely no way it was enforceable but didn't want to risk it at the time.
- And you just know that opt-out is going to ""mysteriously"" go missing.
- Not only that, but they also waive right for class action lawsuits and don't make it clear if you can opt out of it.

Even simpler: don't do Discord.
I was invited to some Discord chatroom once: when I hit the website, the list of blocked scripts in uBlock Origin was longer than my arm. That was all I needed to close the tab immediately. I don't need to run 500 trackers from sketchy advertisement companies to join a glorified IRC chatroom with enough emojis and color to put an epilepsy sufferer in danger.
- I'm not really sure what you did, but it certainly wasn't just opening discord.
  I just tried it and there isn't a single third party script in the browser version according to Ublock and noscript, there are only three scripts activ in total, all from different Discord subdomains. Maybe a few more if there are media links in the chat.
  If you look through the blocked connection requests they are also all made from the same source, namely the Discord science API, their internal data collector.
  The Discord homepage has a Google integration and a few embedded YouTube videos, but it's hard to find a website that doesn't have some form of Google scripts.
  Heck I don't even want to defend Discord here, but ia call bullshit on your story.
  
  Try uBlock Origin in hard mode. You'll see how much garbage needs blocking that you don't see in easy or medium mode.
- It's tough. Most gamers use it. I only recently was told about alternate clients but I don't know which yet.
  I was happy with Mumble and forums, but I completely get why it feels outdated to others.
- Imo the future is federated and self-hosted. Maybe not for everyone, but for me.

There's an even easier method, if you do not log in for a year or so, discord deletes your account
- along with our data? if so thats compelling.
  
  whoa whoa whoa let's not get carried away
  
  Expecting Discord to delete your data is like expecting a company to burn the money you paid them after you stop doing business with them.
- Seriously?
  
  Yes
- You can also just request them to delete your account. Takes 30 days from request i think.

For anyone who didn’t click into the original post and whose client didn’t include its text, here are the instructions for opting out:
Opt-out. You can decline this agreement to arbitrate by emailing an opt-out notice to arbitration-opt-out@discord.com within 30 days of April 15, 2024 or when you first register your Discord account, whichever is later; otherwise, you shall be bound to arbitrate disputes in accordance with the terms of these paragraphs. If you opt out of these arbitration provisions, Discord also will not be bound by them.
Note that the forced arbitration clause applies only to Discord users in the US. The class action waiver appears to apply regardless.
This is also not a new addition to their TOS, but it does appear to require opting out again even if you already did, and to grant an additional opt out opportunity if you didn’t.
- They also waive rights for class action lawsuits, one should also say to not agree with that.

Thankfully no TOS is legally binding here since pressing agree doesn't count as signing a document.
- Do you have anything to prove that? I'm serious, This feels like it shouldn't be binding but I can find no legal reasons or information that it wouldn't be, and I would really like to find that.
  Seems ludicrous that a company can be like "OK STARTING IN 30 DAYS NO SUING US ALLOWED. IF YOU DON'T SPECIFICALLY TELL US WITHIN THOSE 30 DAYS THAT YOU MIGHT SOMEDAY NEED TO SUE US THEN YOU NEVER CAN FOREVER." But then a lot of stuff here is ludicrous.
  
  It depends on where you live. In Germany, forced arbitration in general TOS is invalid and has to be separately negotiated and agreed to. In general, what you can put into your TOS is pretty restricted, anything you put in there that a consumer wouldn't reasonably expect is not gonna be legally binding.
  https://law.stackexchange.com/a/82748
  
  That is the case for all of Europe and most of the rest of the world. That's why that ToS change is only for US customers.
  My country only considers electronic signatures made by our national ID cryptographic signature system to be legally binding in contracts. A ToS without that and just an agree button can only be used to set rules within that platform here. In a court a ToS is basically meaningless.
  Fun fact: Our online voting system works on the same principle.

It has to be noted that this applies to US citizens. For EU citizens the arbitration rules do not apply (that at least is how I read the ToS). Instead, they get an EU body that handles disputes:
If you reside in the European Union, you may also be entitled to submit your complaint to the European Commission’s Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) Platform or the Out-of-Court Dispute Settlement (“OCDS”) mechanism under DSA Article 21.
- European countries don't really have class action suits, issues are usually resolved through all kinds of government agencies and without court involvement. Why bother with court when The Consumer Ombudsman in the UK can fuck any company sideways in a fraction of time and for free?
  
  European countries don’t really have class action suits
  You mean they don't get their $0.55 check in the mail when some lawyer successfully sues a company on their behalf and walks out with $50M?
  Gee, that's truly a loss.
- What the means actually? Does that mean I sent an email to ODR/OCDS to opt-out or suggesting instead of suing them, submit a complaint to ODR/OCDS?
  
  To my knowledge, you don't need to opt out of anything.

Inb4 people who opt out start finding themselves getting randomly banned for vague, obscure TOS reasons.
- I'll update if it happens.
- oh good lord i hope not.

We need a Federated FOSS Discord alternative built to work with the activity pub protocol.
- ...Matrix...?
  
  Honestly, matrix is incredibly user unfriendly. It needs to stop being held up as an option for these sort of things.
  
  We don't need a completely decentralized system. Matrix is not efficient, its bloated and overly complicated compared to what you could have. A federated system with minimal overhead would be nice. This is the reason I went with XMPP over matrix for self hosting a discord alternative. I just wish we had something like XMPP that interacted with activitypub.
- revolt.chat?
- The what?

I'm sure that this won't stop the idiots who argue in support of using Discord as a support channel for FOSS projects.

I'm NO LAWYER but it seems to apply to US residents only? EU has their own provisions written down where discord begrudgingly follows the laws there. But for non-eu non-us people this doesn't seem to apply to us. "‍IF YOU’RE A U.S. RESIDENT, YOU ALSO AGREE TO THE FOLLOWING MANDATORY ARBITRATION PROVISIONS. PLEASE READ THIS SECTION CAREFULLY – IT MAY SIGNIFICANTLY AFFECT YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS, INCLUDING YOUR RIGHT TO FILE A LAWSUIT IN COURT:"
For folks who will continue using discord, and that's probably most folks, it would be a good time to change your account email to an alias if you haven't already. They have clearly stated they are about to get sketch AF.
- That's good to hear. Everyone else was only talking about the US and EU, and I'm like... "what about me, who doesn't live in either?" 😐
- I'm not sure what most of this means or how it could affect me, but you're saying that as an EU citizen, this is not something I should be overly concerned with?
  
  It means that the forced arbitration provisions do not apply to you if you're in the EU, so you can still sue them by other means and with people not paid by them.

I was skeptical about all the hate Discord has been getting recently, but this settled it for me
- It's ALL companies...be skeptical of every single company out there. None of them have their products, or customers care and safety in mind. You are literally disposable to them all...treat them the exact same way.
  
  Like when McDonalds offered free fries or something for everyone who used the app, but then quietly changed the terms of service for the app to include forced arbitration.
  
  Eh, mostly true but there are good ones. From Software has a great track record, for example.
  Definitely an exception to the rule tho
  
  Capitalism
- https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/discord

this is pretty funny. dickcord lives so far up its own ass that it believes it is above the law. sorry but this wont fly. typical corporation lmao.

Can I ask how this is going to affect other countries outside the US? I do not want to accept something that I do not really know how to handle because it doesn't really apply to my country.
- Just a reminder for me to check this thread later.

What is forced arbitration and why is it bad?
- If a company does something bad, you can sue to fix it.
  Suing sets legal precedent and forces all companies to abide by the ruling, more or less.
  But now if a company tricks you out of your right to sue by putting arbitration clauses in everything, then you can't sue. You can only have a (hopefully) impartial third part tell the company to stop doing something specifically to you. The company is still free to keep doing the thing to everyone else, and their arbitration doesn't affect any other companies also doing bad things.
  There are other issues too.
- https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/arbitration/what-is-arb.html
  Essentially, arbitration waives your right to sue the company in any capacity and instead requires all legal disputes to be resolved by a 3rd party mediator hand picked by the company.
  You can guess how often these arbitrators rule against the companies that pay them (Spoiler: it's not often)
  It's used as a get-out-of-jail-free card for companies to basically have legal immunity from any kind of consequences, as all their customers must arbitrate and get told to suck eggs. Arbitration is legally binding and not appealable. It also conveniently keeps the corporate dirty laundry out of the court systems, because arbitration is private, confidential and closed-doors.
  You can also watch one of Louis Rossmann's latest rants about ToS changes and arbitration being forced down users' throats suddenly without warning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AddtrV6UFFs
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  https://www.piped.video/watch?v=AddtrV6UFFs
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
- ToS and the like are legal documents that people/customers 'sign' or agree to before using a service or product, usually agreed or signed AFTER a purchase has been made. Arbitration causes in these documents mean that you agree to not sue the company for any reason, like a class action lawsuit. Basically if you feel like you have been scammed or taken advantage of by that company, you cannot sue for damages. ToS are not the law though and can be superceded by legal means, like a lawsuit ironically. Correct me if I'm not 100% correct, as I'm not a lawyer and this is just my understanding of this.

‍Opt-out. You can decline this agreement to arbitrate by emailing an opt-out notice to arbitration-opt-out@discord.com within 30 days of April 15, 2024 or when you first register your Discord account, whichever is later; otherwise, you shall be bound to arbitrate disputes in accordance with the terms of these paragraphs. If you opt out of these arbitration provisions, Discord also will not be bound by them.
- I can't opt out if its a chat like the graphemeOS discord bridge that feeds my data to discord without consent.

Wait to you read other software TOS. Like it or not, forced arbitration is pretty standard.
- didn't see it when i sign up to lemmy

Um this is not going to hold up in the Ontario Consumer Protection Tribunal due to this: Ontario's Consumer Protection Act, 2002 (“Consumer Protection Act”) prohibits mandatory arbitration clauses and class action waivers in consumer agreements.
- The fact that they're even trying thus needs to trigger an exodus.friends don't let friends use discord.
  
  Just give me a snippet to file a consumer protection application. It'll get struct down

lmao no way in hell this is legally binding
- Welcome to America. New here?

is it 30 days BEFORE april 15th, or 30 days AFTER april 15th?
- You have until May 15. The announcement just went out today; if they tried to make it retroactive, it wouldn't hold up in court.
  Opt-out. You can decline this agreement to arbitrate by emailing an opt-out notice to arbitration-opt-out@discord.com within 30 days of April 15, 2024 or when you first register your Discord account, whichever is later; otherwise, you shall be bound to arbitrate disputes in accordance with the terms of these paragraphs. If you opt out of these arbitration provisions, Discord also will not be bound by them.

Is anyone still using discord? 🫠
- Many, many people. It can be very hard to avoid. You must live in a foss bubble to think that no one does.
  
  Isn't everyone living in a Foss bubble already? 🥲
- It's hard NOT to use it when every damn project uses it for announcements and discussions.
  
  Be me.
  Playing game. Custom mod.
  New release! Much excite. Find bug.
  Investigate bug. Find replication steps. Take several screenshots.
  Go to report bug. No git. Only discord links.
  Delete screenshots and go back to playing.
  
  For me it's matrix, very rarely can see anyone advertising discord

Does that applies to accounts registered in the US but now I'm not physically lived in?
- Innocence is no protection, truth is no defense.
  It will if they can make it. Ditch this shit in every way you can.

Fun, so you cant sue over them selling your data to ai

Nice one 😁

Why is forced arbitration legal

106 comments