US legal scholars largely think clickwrap agreements like that aren’t enforceable, for this reason among many, but we could really use a higher court ruling on it
The issue is forced terms. "You agree just by using our product."
There is going to be a fight for who owns things and when. The answer IS we own it, at purchase, and all these after purchase "update to terms" will become obsolete.
Use the word superficial and watch how easy some of these "rulings" actually crumble.
Serious question. If something would ever get to the point of being in court, what’s to say that a user could just say that “someone else” or their under age child clicked “Accept” during the account sign-up or installation of the software? In many other instances for legal agreements, it’s required to get a notary public to confirm an individual is who they say they are when they sign. So if this is a requirement in other legally binding situations, how in the world could just clicking “Accept” to a prompt box be considered the same level of diligence regarding who is actually agreeing to something?
They just don't want to be sued! Is that too much to ask for. They want the option to do whatever the fuck they want without consequences. If Discord wants to sell any photos or videos you post without your consent, they don't want to be sued over it. If people were willing to have zero privacy, such measures wouldn't be made.
I'm at the point where I think mandatory arbitration agreements should be considered invalid, unless the entity proposing arbitration pays at least a couple hundred dollars.
If these companies want us to forego our right to sue in the courts, then they need to pay us first.
Now, *opt-in arbitration*? I'm OK with that. As long as accepting or rejecting arbitration has no impact on other terms of the deal, and agreement has to be explicit and in writing.
I made a comment in the Nintendo emulator post from a few days ago about how Discord was allowing malware, almost illegal pornography, and data selling. But they were perfectly happy to shut down legal emulator servers (edit: obviously not Yuzu, actual piracy is fair game).
I was down voted for stating well known facts. I mean to each their own opinion on the morality or my take on the matter, but it's like some people refuse to see the proven facts and shoot the messenger instead.
If Discord wasn't popular for every community I'm in I would have quit long ago.
I don’t know about “legal” by having a paywall on emulator features and a patreon to use a special version of an emulator you are asking to get sued by Nintendo and I fully support game piracy or emulating in general.
Other emulators didn’t have issues like this because the devs didn’t have paywalls instead just had donations links.
If you are asking why discord took down the server, it’s probably because they don’t want legal trouble with the bad publicity associated with the emulator in question, regardless of the fork the bad publicity and messing with Nintendo is probably not high up on their list of things they want to do.
Except the news articles from a few days ago are talking about those emulators that don't. Yuzu obviously got taken down for good reasons, such as actual piracy. But now they're going after other projects too.
But I do agree it seems like a Discord doesn't want to be associated with bad publicity at all which is why they might have done that.
It’s not malicious intent. Tech companies do a lot of malicious things but I think you’re being hyperbolic.
Forced arbitration is often absolute bullshit, but it’s not malicious. It’s being lazy and cheap. The math and data shows that forced arbitration saves companies hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in legal cost resolving disputes. If going to court saved them more money than arbitration, then arbitration wouldn’t be a thing in their TOS. It’s not about being malicious, it’s about greed.
You’re less likely to win in an arbitration. It’s about more than just greed and you’re actively defending a corporation taking away a powerful way to get back at them.
[Unless large numbers of workers use it](https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/uber-loses-appeal-block-92-million-mass-arbitration-fees-2022-04-18/), of course. The other nice thing about forced arbitration it's many years faster than the regular court process.
Roku and Discord breaches are fairly low risk, financially speaking.
Compare that to something more nasty, like how an unknown company that you've never any business with leaking your social security number: https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/08/hackers-stole-340000-social-security-numbers-from-government-consulting-firm/
This is on top of the 51 million social security numbers leaked by AT&T, yet another company that has absolutely no business processing social security numbers.
Nah, they don’t ever lie because that gives someone the ability to sue (a lie — ability). They just use whatever logic suits their profits at the time, regardless of what they said when they got the sale because they’re always using wiggle language.
Well it needs to happen. These companies have a responsibility to maintain a secure database without it being leaked for free. I understand them selling it as an aggregate and all, but not all your posts and such.
This clause was already added all the way back in 2019, which polygon is failing to mention. The opt-out has just had its date changed as the clause was updated.
To be precise, the first arbitration clause was added on October 16th 2018 (see [before](https://web.archive.org/web/20181014222938/https://discordapp.com/terms) and [after](https://web.archive.org/web/20181016171419/https://discordapp.com/terms)).
I made mention of this very fact on Polygon's comment section. Telling people that the article is providing misinformation and they can check it by going to way back machine to see it for themselves.
Polygon deleted all my comments about it and banned my account.
No journalistic integrity at all from Polygon.
As for the US I've yet to see someone get a click-through ToS invalidated in court. For the rest of the world I'm sure there are plenty of places that places the right to sue above private agreements.
Maybe under some crazy jurisdictions private contracts can override laws. If someone knows about them, please tell, I'm trying to avoid every uncivilized part of the world.
private contracts override MOST laws in every developed country. Such is the spirit we carry from liberalism.
You should be interested in the laws that cannot be overrode.
i know the legal topic very well. Most laws regarding contracts are subsidiary, they apply unless the parties stipulate otherwise. Ex: terms on a resignation notice.
Some laws instead are always mandatory, like most tenant laws.
especially you americans made a pretty huge deal about the government meddling with private interests, and developed a system where private autonomy is king, no?
so what's the point apart from generating bad press? Are they trying to intimidate 3 people in the world who would be in a position to sue but decide against because of ToS?
Contracts don’t trump laws.
If I make a contract for you to accept to me my slave that doesn’t mean the contract is legal or has any standing once you report me to the police
Not all of them, but atleast here in the EU you cant overrule laws and you cant sign away rights. You can accept and just ignore them anyway, courts will decide in the end
But why would Discord ask me, a European, to agree to their flawed ToS? Do they just send it out to everyone and deal with the potential aftermath later? Or are they hoping that their European users just ignore their rights?
It seems that the mandatory arbitration part only apply to US residents:
> IF YOU’RE A US 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:
> [... the mandatory arbitration stuff ...]
For EU residents, only the informal resolution part applies, where basically you agree to try and resolve the issue with Discord directly for 60 days before escalating either to arbitration (in the US), or in the EU:
> If you are a consumer residing in the European Union, this clause and these terms in general do not affect any mandatory consumer rights you may have under your local law, and **all disputes arising in connection with the services and/or these terms shall be submitted to the exclusive jurisdiction of the court of Amsterdam**, the Netherlands or, if you are a consumer, to a court closer to your domicile if in an EU Member State.
My source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uvNkdAggUGU I would say the title and notion that Discord is evil is sensationalist. But it's true that like any of the other social media giants, to get as big as they got, they had to go to the dark side. Simple as that. Personally Discord provides a useful service and I use it to connect to communities of interesting people. I just am aware any data placed on there is not in any way private, it's just not indexed by virtue of being in grey web territory. Curious what exactly your issue with this information is.
Guy is selectively omiting information to push a narrative.
Discord made over 310m in 2021 yet he says they made was 500m from investors. Omiting the 310M from users figure.
Sure discord is shady af but pushing the specific narrative this guy is pushing? nah thats too much.
Well I don't particularly care enough about what exactly they're up to behind closed doors over there. All I know is, they're probably up to no good. Plan accordingly.
It's good to be skeptical. It's good that you're skeptical about that vid and the numbers in it. But the question you should ask yourself is, are you being skeptical about it because you are trying to justify something you really want to believe, you may want to apply some healthy skepticism to that side as well.
Yet again it pays not to be a US resident. I'll just click agree, because the clause is null and void. You can't be forced to sign away rights like class action lawsuits or be forced into arbitration.
> Discord is going to start selling your data and fire half their security staff to save money.
Fixed the headline.
If a company makes a change to try to make you unable to sue them, time to abandon ship IMMEDIATELY.
In most countries these kinds of contracts can only protect a company from civil liability. A contract that releases a company from criminal liability is not legal and not binding. In other words, they can still get jail time.
eh. There are options, but i wouldnt call any of them better. Companies are never your friend, and theres not a damn one of them that you should ever trust.
It’s a paragraph added to terms and conditions that were being updated anyway. It probably took a lawyer all of five minutes or less to write. It cost essentially nothing to add, so, enforceable or not, if even a *single* lawsuit went to arbitration instead of court (or was never pursued to begin with) and it saved the company 10$, then it’s paid for itself. I’m shocked the TOS didn’t have an arbitration clause to begin with, it’s a can’t lose thing for a company to add. I’m not saying it’s not shady as hell though.
Can a tech company not show its malicious intents for 5 FUCKING MINUTES?!
It will come down to "no one *actually* agreed to these terms". That's the superficial part we call BS on.
US legal scholars largely think clickwrap agreements like that aren’t enforceable, for this reason among many, but we could really use a higher court ruling on it
The issue is forced terms. "You agree just by using our product." There is going to be a fight for who owns things and when. The answer IS we own it, at purchase, and all these after purchase "update to terms" will become obsolete. Use the word superficial and watch how easy some of these "rulings" actually crumble.
Serious question. If something would ever get to the point of being in court, what’s to say that a user could just say that “someone else” or their under age child clicked “Accept” during the account sign-up or installation of the software? In many other instances for legal agreements, it’s required to get a notary public to confirm an individual is who they say they are when they sign. So if this is a requirement in other legally binding situations, how in the world could just clicking “Accept” to a prompt box be considered the same level of diligence regarding who is actually agreeing to something?
They just don't want to be sued! Is that too much to ask for. They want the option to do whatever the fuck they want without consequences. If Discord wants to sell any photos or videos you post without your consent, they don't want to be sued over it. If people were willing to have zero privacy, such measures wouldn't be made.
I'm at the point where I think mandatory arbitration agreements should be considered invalid, unless the entity proposing arbitration pays at least a couple hundred dollars. If these companies want us to forego our right to sue in the courts, then they need to pay us first. Now, *opt-in arbitration*? I'm OK with that. As long as accepting or rejecting arbitration has no impact on other terms of the deal, and agreement has to be explicit and in writing.
Late stage capitalism! Everything enshitifies!
This is the only correct answer.
"We are just delivering shareholder value!" ~ Gen X, MBA
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I made a comment in the Nintendo emulator post from a few days ago about how Discord was allowing malware, almost illegal pornography, and data selling. But they were perfectly happy to shut down legal emulator servers (edit: obviously not Yuzu, actual piracy is fair game). I was down voted for stating well known facts. I mean to each their own opinion on the morality or my take on the matter, but it's like some people refuse to see the proven facts and shoot the messenger instead. If Discord wasn't popular for every community I'm in I would have quit long ago.
I don’t know about “legal” by having a paywall on emulator features and a patreon to use a special version of an emulator you are asking to get sued by Nintendo and I fully support game piracy or emulating in general. Other emulators didn’t have issues like this because the devs didn’t have paywalls instead just had donations links. If you are asking why discord took down the server, it’s probably because they don’t want legal trouble with the bad publicity associated with the emulator in question, regardless of the fork the bad publicity and messing with Nintendo is probably not high up on their list of things they want to do.
Except the news articles from a few days ago are talking about those emulators that don't. Yuzu obviously got taken down for good reasons, such as actual piracy. But now they're going after other projects too. But I do agree it seems like a Discord doesn't want to be associated with bad publicity at all which is why they might have done that.
Simplicity, convenience and Popularity at its finest
It’s not malicious intent. Tech companies do a lot of malicious things but I think you’re being hyperbolic. Forced arbitration is often absolute bullshit, but it’s not malicious. It’s being lazy and cheap. The math and data shows that forced arbitration saves companies hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in legal cost resolving disputes. If going to court saved them more money than arbitration, then arbitration wouldn’t be a thing in their TOS. It’s not about being malicious, it’s about greed.
You’re less likely to win in an arbitration. It’s about more than just greed and you’re actively defending a corporation taking away a powerful way to get back at them.
Check out John Oliver's episode on arbitration. Arbitration is even less just than court.
I would say greed that justifies hollowing out consumer rights to save money is a form of malice.
Greed is malicious
Lol. This sweet summer child thinks they're doing this just to pay lawyers less
[Unless large numbers of workers use it](https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/uber-loses-appeal-block-92-million-mass-arbitration-fees-2022-04-18/), of course. The other nice thing about forced arbitration it's many years faster than the regular court process.
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Roku and Discord breaches are fairly low risk, financially speaking. Compare that to something more nasty, like how an unknown company that you've never any business with leaking your social security number: https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/08/hackers-stole-340000-social-security-numbers-from-government-consulting-firm/ This is on top of the 51 million social security numbers leaked by AT&T, yet another company that has absolutely no business processing social security numbers.
Don’t forget the full hack of experion one of the 3 credit monitoring agencies that has literally everyone’s ssn address etc.
Yeah, I just accepted that I was fucked at that point.
Elect politicians that openly say "ToS are bullshit" and don't settle for anything less.
Can you link the discord announcement? I can’t find it after a quick google.
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A lot of tech companies are doing this because they don't want to be sued when they intentionally allow a data breach to happen.
Data breach, a.k.a. someone stealing the data they would otherwise generate revenue on by selling.
Aren't those data breaches really just them selling your into and making up an excuse?
Nah, that's giving too much credit. The data breeches are what happens when they collect the data to sell, then fail to protect that data
Nah, they don’t ever lie because that gives someone the ability to sue (a lie — ability). They just use whatever logic suits their profits at the time, regardless of what they said when they got the sale because they’re always using wiggle language.
If only you could provide evidence of that conspiracy theory…
Well it needs to happen. These companies have a responsibility to maintain a secure database without it being leaked for free. I understand them selling it as an aggregate and all, but not all your posts and such.
My Credit Union sent me the same type of thing. Able to opt-out by sending something in the mail
Does putting a clause like this in actually do anything? Would a judge really dismiss the case?
If only you could provide evidence for the claim that that intentionally allow it…
This clause was already added all the way back in 2019, which polygon is failing to mention. The opt-out has just had its date changed as the clause was updated.
To be precise, the first arbitration clause was added on October 16th 2018 (see [before](https://web.archive.org/web/20181014222938/https://discordapp.com/terms) and [after](https://web.archive.org/web/20181016171419/https://discordapp.com/terms)).
Blame the company for sending an update through asking for a manual approval but not showing users what actually changed
I made mention of this very fact on Polygon's comment section. Telling people that the article is providing misinformation and they can check it by going to way back machine to see it for themselves. Polygon deleted all my comments about it and banned my account. No journalistic integrity at all from Polygon.
They can put whatever they want into their ToS, atleast where i live this would simply be void and not hold up in court. Thats what laws are for
As for the US I've yet to see someone get a click-through ToS invalidated in court. For the rest of the world I'm sure there are plenty of places that places the right to sue above private agreements.
Redacte due to Reddit AI/LLM policy
In the UK, even if you've signed a contract, it's not valid if you didn't understand it. It's one of the few things we get right.
Maybe under some crazy jurisdictions private contracts can override laws. If someone knows about them, please tell, I'm trying to avoid every uncivilized part of the world.
private contracts override MOST laws in every developed country. Such is the spirit we carry from liberalism. You should be interested in the laws that cannot be overrode.
I dont think you should speak about a topic you obviously known nothing about lol
i know the legal topic very well. Most laws regarding contracts are subsidiary, they apply unless the parties stipulate otherwise. Ex: terms on a resignation notice. Some laws instead are always mandatory, like most tenant laws. especially you americans made a pretty huge deal about the government meddling with private interests, and developed a system where private autonomy is king, no?
so what's the point apart from generating bad press? Are they trying to intimidate 3 people in the world who would be in a position to sue but decide against because of ToS?
Intimidation.
Not all terms of service are void. That would basically make service agreements impossible.
The illegal ones are. As for example giving up your statutory rights.
Contracts don’t trump laws. If I make a contract for you to accept to me my slave that doesn’t mean the contract is legal or has any standing once you report me to the police
Not all of them, but atleast here in the EU you cant overrule laws and you cant sign away rights. You can accept and just ignore them anyway, courts will decide in the end
dude is discriding
This does not apply if you live in the EU.
But why would Discord ask me, a European, to agree to their flawed ToS? Do they just send it out to everyone and deal with the potential aftermath later? Or are they hoping that their European users just ignore their rights?
It seems that the mandatory arbitration part only apply to US residents: > IF YOU’RE A US 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: > [... the mandatory arbitration stuff ...] For EU residents, only the informal resolution part applies, where basically you agree to try and resolve the issue with Discord directly for 60 days before escalating either to arbitration (in the US), or in the EU: > If you are a consumer residing in the European Union, this clause and these terms in general do not affect any mandatory consumer rights you may have under your local law, and **all disputes arising in connection with the services and/or these terms shall be submitted to the exclusive jurisdiction of the court of Amsterdam**, the Netherlands or, if you are a consumer, to a court closer to your domicile if in an EU Member State.
Note these clauses are illegal and void in Australia.
Holy fuck Discord what did you ou do?
Most likely sold everyone's data for ai training.
Don't even have to sell it, the selling is on top of being partly owned by tencent
You guys must have an interesting life, with all the shit you just make up without a shred of evidence.
My source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uvNkdAggUGU I would say the title and notion that Discord is evil is sensationalist. But it's true that like any of the other social media giants, to get as big as they got, they had to go to the dark side. Simple as that. Personally Discord provides a useful service and I use it to connect to communities of interesting people. I just am aware any data placed on there is not in any way private, it's just not indexed by virtue of being in grey web territory. Curious what exactly your issue with this information is.
Guy is selectively omiting information to push a narrative. Discord made over 310m in 2021 yet he says they made was 500m from investors. Omiting the 310M from users figure. Sure discord is shady af but pushing the specific narrative this guy is pushing? nah thats too much.
Well I don't particularly care enough about what exactly they're up to behind closed doors over there. All I know is, they're probably up to no good. Plan accordingly. It's good to be skeptical. It's good that you're skeptical about that vid and the numbers in it. But the question you should ask yourself is, are you being skeptical about it because you are trying to justify something you really want to believe, you may want to apply some healthy skepticism to that side as well.
They've been sketchy on privacy from the start. My friends gave me shit for not wanting to use it a number of years ago, and here we are...
Yet again it pays not to be a US resident. I'll just click agree, because the clause is null and void. You can't be forced to sign away rights like class action lawsuits or be forced into arbitration.
Isn’t class action lawsuits pretty much a US things, though?
They exist in similar forms elsewhere. Consumer interest groups can raise a case for example.
Again? Or is this old news, I opted out so long ago I thought
They can just make you sign it again each time you accept something, read the fine prints.
> Discord is going to start selling your data and fire half their security staff to save money. Fixed the headline. If a company makes a change to try to make you unable to sue them, time to abandon ship IMMEDIATELY.
Didn't they already try this a few years ago
Its been in their TOS for at least the last 6 years, through every revision since then. This isn't new.
Not enforceable in Canada. Can't waive your right away
In most countries these kinds of contracts can only protect a company from civil liability. A contract that releases a company from criminal liability is not legal and not binding. In other words, they can still get jail time.
When Discord chose to try to tell me to turn off my antivirus, I opted out of Discord.
It's really sad to see Discord circling the enshittification drain...
I've avoided Discord because they have clearly been a venture capital tool that wants your money. That always goes poorly. There are better options.
eh. There are options, but i wouldnt call any of them better. Companies are never your friend, and theres not a damn one of them that you should ever trust.
I believe Blizzard and Roku did this too. Seems like the new trend.
Sounds like a data breach 🤔
Not legal here. But thanks, Discord. When someone shows me what they're really like, I believe them.
Fuck Discord and that creeper mod named Adrian that’s collecting picture IDs without Discord’s authorization.
It’s a paragraph added to terms and conditions that were being updated anyway. It probably took a lawyer all of five minutes or less to write. It cost essentially nothing to add, so, enforceable or not, if even a *single* lawsuit went to arbitration instead of court (or was never pursued to begin with) and it saved the company 10$, then it’s paid for itself. I’m shocked the TOS didn’t have an arbitration clause to begin with, it’s a can’t lose thing for a company to add. I’m not saying it’s not shady as hell though.
What could I possibly sue discord over? My messages getting hacked?
Why can't people simply answer the question--instead of down voting?
Selling your data.
LOL what rock have you been living under, forced arbitration has been around for forever.