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

[C:Amie]

Quote

On April 15, Discord’s new Terms of Service changes went into effect, and there’s one major addition: an arbitration clause. What does it mean for users? It’s an important change easily lost in the fine print for anyone on Discord — and those in the know have a chance to opt out of the new agreement before May 15.

Basically, arbitration is a way of handling legal disputes outside of the court system. In terms of this new clause, it means that if you have any kind of dispute to settle with Discord, you can’t sue them or join a class-action lawsuit of other affected users. (Note: this only applies if you’re a U.S. resident.)

Based on what’s now laid out in the TOS, any disputes between a user and Discord will be handled privately, in meetings with the company. If those meetings fail, the dispute goes to arbitration. This process is private, which means the public has no way to review the evidence or results, it’s expensive, and there’s no guaranteed right to an appeal process. Whatever the arbiter decides, is the end of it. The process almost objectively privileges companies, which have a lot of power and resources, over individuals.

Source: https://www.polygon.com/2024/4/20/24134970/discord-arbitration-how-to-opt-out

TLDR. Send an email before 15th May to:
[email protected]
"I am confirming that as of the date of this email, I am choosing to opt out of binding arbitration to settle disputes with Discord".
Make sure to send it from the email you use for your Discord account.

If you search for "[email protected]" here: https://discord.com/terms you'll be able to see that it is legit.

Tell everyone on all of your communities!

[_neutrino Veteran]

Email sent, will probably never need it but it does not hurt.

[C:Amie]

The thing everyone needs to understand about this wave of forced arbitration that is washing through US tech companies is that:
1) if you are not in the US, the lawyers are going to be starting to try to find the same loopholes in non-US law to apply the same nonsense, so the consumer needs to push back.
2) if you find yourself thinking "well I don't really see the need to care here". Understand that it is the tech company who appoints the arbitrator, they're not an impartial third party. They are literally on the payroll of the tech company. You just need to look at how well Boeing doing its own FAA inspections has worked out for the consumer and travel sector in recent months to realise that this isn't a good thing.

If one of your kids, brothers, sisters, nieces or nephews is using the services of one of these tech companies and they wind up abused, hurt, damaged because of abuse suffered on their platforms. You can't seek compensation, in fact you can't do anything. The arbitration will never side against its paymaster in any significant way. If you get a company pushing these terms on you - push back. This is scum lawyers manipulating legislative loopholes to give companies with poor social reputations a blank cheque to at best do nothing and at worst do even more harm in the interest of profit.

 

We should all send a clear message about this sort of thing IMHO.

[Tech Intellect]

This is a warning to consumers to read all the fine print within terms of service. This is just a perfect example of the shady practices companies, not least Big Tech, use. 

 

I hope Discord (and any other organisation) are held accountable for such misleading policies to serve as a deterrent. It’s essentially an attempt at subtle bullying IMO. I have no doubts that Discord will likely be questioned on this just as Meta are currently being investigated for their “consent or pay” model.