From the Discord API server:

Discord has changed their Terms of Service!

Unfortunately, this change comes with a revocation of your legal rights. Discord has revoked your right to sue (you must go through an arbitrator) and to congregate as a class action lawsuit.

Luckily, there is an opt-out for the clause, in which you must email arbitration-opt-out@discord.com, but you must do it within 30 days or you can no longer opt-out.

YOU CANNOT DELETE OR DEACTIVATE YOUR ACCOUNT TO OPT-OUT OF THE ARBITRATION CLAUSE

You can see the added clauses for yourself here: https://gist.github.com/Rapptz/c93697c9d59ec2f0d8071b7d0e907632

I will attempt to answer some common questions.

Is this enforceable?

In the United States, yes. This was decided by the Supreme Court in 2011. See https://gc.gy/7538114

In Europe, no. There are many clauses, a relevant one is Article 77 of the GDPR ("Right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority").

Why does this matter?

Without the ability to congregate for a class action lawsuit, if Discord ever leaks your data or does something catastrophically bad to a large portion of the population you have no way to representatively sue together without each of you individually suing via the arbitrator.

Please see the following article: https://gc.gy/7538130

Essentially:

Your right to file a complaint in the court of law is removed.

The arbitration system tends to heavily favour the company rather than the consumer.

Since your right to pool similar complaints together is taken away, the amount of damage you can do to a company that has wronged you significantly is limited to those who are willing to arbitrate.

Why should I care? Other companies do it too!

By learning about this I hope that you will be more conscious about these arbitration clauses and how anti-consumer they are. You can't change the past, but you surely can't predict the future either.

Links:
Story: https://kotaku.com/you-should-opt-out-of-discords-new-policy-changes-1829867491
Discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/discordapp/comments/9p5uyp/latest_tos_update_revokes_your_right_to_sue/

SUGGESTED EMAIL TEMPLATE [thanks to APocketfulOfStars for noticing this in Heather Alexandra's article]:

To whom it may concern,

As stated in the Discord Terms of Service,

You have the right to opt out and not be bound by the provisions requiring arbitration by sending written notice of your decision to opt out to Discord by email to arbitration-opt-out@discord.com. The notice must be sent within 30 days of this Terms of Service taking effect, or your account creation on the Service.

I hereby exercise the aforementioned right to opt out and not be bound by the provisions requiring arbitration. This email is a written notice of said decision.

[Your IRL Name]

[Your User ID (with #)]

[Email Associated With Account]
5 years ago*

Comment has been collapsed.

Thanks for the heads up.

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Deleted

This comment was deleted 4 years ago.

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

[...] Discord has revoked your right to sue. [...] Is this enforceable? [...] In Europe, no. [...]

That sums it up for me since I live in Europe.

But, all in all, that's a scummy practice and a suspicious decision. Almost like they're preparing for something.

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

It's a "No, but..." type of thing. Don't immediately think that you're in the clear.

Edit: Yeah, I've looked into it and I'm wrong. I've misunderstood a specific law that I had been cited a few years back.

5 years ago*
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

No idea what you are talking about, it is a clear no and it couldn't be anything else than a no.

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Deleted

This comment was deleted 5 years ago.

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I was gonna write something, but then found your comment and that says it better than I think I would, so... +1 :)

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Thxs for the heads up. Discord is messed up for me anyway. It keeps scrolling up in chat or it doesn't scroll down. So freaking annoying.

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Total shitheads. Seriously. They screw up and now they can't be held accountable? 30 days to opt out through some inconvenient way. They don't let you know about it and remove your rights as quickly as possible.

Completely inexcusable in my opinion. Just because it's inexcusable though, doesn't mean that you have to stop using it. It's alright to be mad at them and still use their product to an extent. Soon it might reach a point where they can't turn back though.

I just want consumers to be less screwed over.

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

anti-gamer?

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

anti-gamer (the consumers in the gaming economy) and pro-corporation (the sellers in the gaming economy)

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

That sort of clauses are extremely illegal in Europa, so we are at least clear. Even if they wanted to screw up all their customer base, they can't, since the EU would be after them.

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

If anyone bothered to actually read the terms they'd see that they specifically state this applies only to US residents.

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I've had different reasons for not using discord but now it just feels like

View attached image.
5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I'm pretty much clueless regarding law (especially US law, which kinda looks like a suing festival from this side of the Atlantic), but how exactly can you legally opt out of their ToS and still have a right to use their products?

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

It's based on case law, especially a case involving Uber. US courts are likely to deem a forced arbitration clause to be coercive and non-optional (or "procedurally unconscionable" in legalese) and thus unenforceable if there is no opt-out.

But, if there is a limited window where users (or customers, or employees, etc) are able to opt-out, then the courts consider the binding or forced arbitration to be unproblematic ("they voluntarily consented to it!") and thus enforceable because you weren't "required" to accept it (even though the vast majority of people either will be unaware of the option or won't undertake the burden of opting out).

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I understand this, but AFAIK when you refuse to agree on the ToS of an app, usually you can't use it (like, they have these "accept our ToS to use our app" pop-ups, and they won't let you use it until you click "I agree"). Why is it different for Discord?

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

It's up to company to write their terms of service. Most of the companies write it in obligatory tone, either you use our product and accept tos or you don't, but if one company wants to (or must) have "optional" clause, then by all means they have full rights to offer users option whether they want to respect that clause or not.

Luckily I live in Europe and I couldn't care less what conflicting clauses they put in their ToS, every time something like this pops up it only ensures me how anti-consumer USA law is and how crazy sh**fest is going on there. Pay and shut up, and if you don't like that then pay more and shut up next.

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Can I just delete my discord account? I'm not even using it anymore...

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Probably easier to just leave it, but if you want to
http://backgroundchecks.org/justdeleteme/#discord

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

It says:

YOU CANNOT DELETE OR DEACTIVATE YOUR ACCOUNT TO OPT-OUT OF THE ARBITRATION CLAUSE

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

From a poorly functioning non-user-friendly chat program to a digital store that won't allow you to have rights.
I'm sure nothing can go wrong here.

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

well the best way to make sure they won't get sued is to chase away all of their users before they have a reason to sue, it's genius

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Latest news!

People hate what discord is doing, but they will keep using it

View attached image.
5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Deleted

This comment was deleted 4 months ago.

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

So much this. People gonna yell left and right, write petitions but under no circumstance they'll simply stop using software they don't like.

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Happy cakeday

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

happy cakesay! 🍰

View attached image.
5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Happy Cakeday!

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Has anyone received a reply from Discord to confirm that you are opted-out from the new ToS?

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

This is Bad! Seems now its affecting NA. If there's not enough negative voices, I am pretty sure it will spread to the rest of the world. I do not understand the need to opt out of the clause having to send an email. They should provide an opt-out option in their application. Seeing how shady this has been, not surprise they are trying to hide the clause from common eyes.

What should I write in the email though? Hmm, although I am from Asia but I use Discord to keep in touch with my Twitch friends. :/ I am not a reddit user hopefully more negative voices there. I am gonna let my discord friends know. Thank you very much @va3victis :D

Discord has always given me a positive image, this really dealt a heavy punch in the face to their image. Just imagine if the TellTales employees were told to sign a contract with the fine print against Class-act. They would have been so screwed now . . .
Regards, Cruse~

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

From my understanding it doesn't change much for you, if you are not living in US/you're not US citizen. See the reply below from TatsuyaHiro.

United States Exclusivity

As we stated above in “Why did we change it,” our motivation for this change is because of the legal climate in the United States. To protect our users outside the United States, we’ve decided to modify this clause so that it only affects users in the United States. If you are outside of the United States, this clause does not apply to you. This means users outside the United States do not need to opt out if they were wanting to.

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Deleted

This comment was deleted 5 years ago.

5 years ago*
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

We think that people can disagree on whether or not arbitration is good in general or whether or not the class action system is one that is beneficial; we don’t think it’s completely black and white.

You're right--if you're a corporation it's white, and if you're a consumer it's black. But it's all relative, so who can really tell whether it's black or white?

"And just in case our Official Press Release didn't convince you, we dug up the one guy who's on the fence about it so we can use him as a fig leaf! PLEASE please pls read this one section on this one Wiki page so our position looks like a reasonable disagreement and not the obvious naked trading of your rights in exchange for our not having to ever face accountability in an open court or in front of a jury or with multiple plaintiffs."

"So, in conclusion, is it good? Is it bad? Who knows? We hope by now you're thoroughly confused so that you think it's too complex and don't do anything about it!"

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Deleted

This comment was deleted 5 years ago.

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Agreed.

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

That's a piss-poor attempt to dodge the issue.

I mean, really, why pick "going in circles" as you excuse when you gave up at half-circle?

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Weird of you to complain about buzzwords and then immediately reference a buzzword-laden damage control piece.

community feedback is incredibly important to us
thank you for voicing your opinions, we do appreciate it
we’ve changed some things based on your feedback

This is corporate PR lingo for "We know that what we're doing is not in the best interests of our users, so we're gonna spin it to look like we're doing what they want".

We want to provide some context around these changes.

Context. A soft way of saying "we're about to bullshit you".

The current legal landscape in the United States is such that class action lawsuits can be abused.
Like many other companies, we are now a target for entities who wish to abuse the class action lawsuit.

This is a paper-thin attempt to distract from the fact that they're switching from a system where they might actually be held responsible for any anti-consumer practices to a system where they're practically guaranteed to win every dispute.

We think that people can disagree on whether or not arbitration is good in general or whether or not the class action system is one that is beneficial.

This is intentional muddying of the issue. Literally no one thinks arbitration is better for the consumer.

We don’t think it’s completely black and white. In fact, we’re very interested in how Europe is approaching implementing class action lawsuits, as their approach may mitigate the issues that the United States faces with them.

More muddying. Praising Europe plays into their "hostile legal landscape in the US" narrative while costing them nothing, since they can't take away class action right in the EU anyway.

Because we don’t think it’s black and white, one of the things that we’ve implemented (which some of our competitors do not), is to allow you to opt out of this clause completely.

Translation: "We found out it's illegal to do what we're doing even in the US. But we obviously can't admit that. So let's spin it as us going above and beyond for our users, when in fact we're barely doing the minimum required by law."

We encourage you to opt out if you wish. You won’t be penalized in any way if you do so. At no point will we ever gate any features or take any action on users because they’ve opted out of arbitration.

More of the above. They're legally required to do this, but they spin it as doing their users a favor.

As we stated above in “Why did we change it,” our motivation for this change is because of the legal climate in the United States. To protect our users outside the United States, we’ve decided to modify this clause so that it only affects users in the United States.

Translation: "We found out this shit is illegal everywhere else. But again, we obviously can't admit that. So let's recycle that "legal climate" excuse from earlier. Hell, we can even claim we're doing non-americans a favor!"

That said, much of the feedback we’ve received is that our community was not aware of these changes.

How much of the feedback? I'm betting not anywhere near as much as actual complaints they can't weasel out of.

To provide more opportunity for those who wish to opt out and for those who may have overlooked the notification bar, we’ve extended our opt out period from the initial 30 days to 90 days.

This is how they appear to do something while actually doing nothing. The number of people who will opt out in the extra 60 days is negligible. The overwhelming majority won't even read the notification. Almost no one has the time to read the bazillion walls of legalese they need to "accept" in order to go about their daily lives. And companies know this. They know they can put whatever they want in their EULAs and ToSes and get away with it.

Overall, this is such a boilerplate corporate PR damage control statement that I can't imagine why you thought posting it here would somehow counter people's concerns.

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

TUTURU! Not good timing at all. Ah well, RIP XD

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I don't use Discord.

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I use and love Discord. Better than anything I've used in years. I don't use nor give to cents about the store.
GOG, Steam, Uplay - it all seems like Blonde, Brunette, Redhead to me.

Like the saying does - if you don't like, don't use it.

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

GOG, Steam, Uplay - it all seems like Blonde, Brunette, Redhead to me.

In other words, you're part of the undiscerning masses that allow game companies to keep getting away with anti-consumer practices?

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Look, I probably agree with you in principle but your contentiousness is doing nothing to help the cause, quite the opposite.

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

To Europeans thinking the GDPR will protect them, and doing nothing; let me remind that the law must be put in practice, in order to defend your rights.

This could take a long time, or the law could stay dead letter. There's no shortage of laws that should protect us from so many abusive practices, whose effects never materialize in practice.

So if you care about this, better take 3 minutes out of your day to send that email, than to hope for the EU to do something about it, some time.

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

going along with it is the worst error you can do. with that you show them they can go further and further... because that is what you state doing nothing.
beside that this is aimed specify only to America as it states.

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Deleted

This comment was deleted 5 years ago.

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

The Kotaku article covering this had a comment that provides an email template for opting out:

To whom it may concern,

As stated in the Discord Terms of Service,

You have the right to opt out and not be bound by the provisions requiring arbitration by sending written notice of your decision to opt out to Discord by email to arbitration-opt-out@discord.com. The notice must be sent within 30 days of this Terms of Service taking effect, or your account creation on the Service.

I hereby exercise the aforementioned right to opt out and not be bound by the provisions requiring arbitration. This email is a written notice of said decision.

[Your IRL Name]

[Your User ID (with #)]

[Email Associated With Account]

5 years ago*
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

ty sent

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

lets keep this thread bumped untill its past the deadline

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

and again

5 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Sign in through Steam to add a comment.