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.
There’s an even easier method, if you do not log in for a year or so, discord deletes your account
Seriously?
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.
Funny thing is- a very tiny amount of users would even know about the button’s existence anyway.
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.
Wait to you read other software TOS. Like it or not, forced arbitration is pretty standard.
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.
Eh, mostly true but there are good ones. From Software has a great track record, for example.
Definitely an exception to the rule tho
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.
lmao no way in hell this is legally binding
Welcome to America. New here?
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.
Why is forced arbitration legal
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.
Even my 60 year old mother who needs tech support for her iPhone every other month had no problems setting up a matrix account when I asked her to use it instead of sms.
What are your issues Matrix?
How is it user unfriendly? The default client Element looks exactly if not better than discord and there’s servers where you don’t even need to verify your mail to register.
