My source is this Tumblr post, which caused me to check my settings because I just got the latest major update.
I found these settings enabled in my discord app:
I know ideally one wouldn’t use Discord at all, but so many of the nice little people in my phone are on Discord.
BTW it’s never a good idea to allow apps access to your contacts, other than your actual phone and SMS apps.
Stay safe!
Why? What have they done that I am unaware of?
Largely owned by tencent afaik, putting things that are QoL and somewhat accessibility behind paywalls (like themes are a nitro only thing), do nothing against the spam bot malware thing (and they can scan the messages, since you can set the nsfw filter on them), not searchable outside of the app so things can get lost easily, their audio function is somewhat known to be problematic (for me it „catches“ the full audio out without software in between, so game sound or Netflix or whatever gets cut off completely). Those are what I can think of quickly. I am also not knowledgeable enough to accurately judge their software in terms of performance, but it feels very bad to me.
I’m not 100% in the loop on things they’ve done, but I think the main thing is that there are better alternatives out there such as Signal for keeping in touch with friends and family, but oftentimes those friends/family just don’t want to have yet another messaging app so it leaves you needing Discord to keep in touch.
They’re not very privacy friendly, and they’re a closed-source app. They haven’t done anything outrageously bad afaik, but there are much better platforms, such as Signal/Molly, especially for those of us who basically use it as a chat app.
I use servers extensively, for several communities (some small like my weekly RPG game servers and my book club, some much bigger like the AI art servers I’m on), all of which have multiple channels which are used for different things. Correct me if I’m wrong but afaik Signal (and Molly which I’d previously not heard of) doesn’t do that
It being closed source is unfortunate, not being very privacy friendly is certainly not good but I don’t think there have been any major leaks have there?
No. Signal doesn’t have that as a feature. It works pretty well though, especially for smaller groups of people who are focused on a shared interest.
I don’t understand all the technicalities, but Molly is a hardened fork of Signal. It’s the recommended way to use Signal in most privacy communities.
Not that I know of, but the leaks aren’t the point. Much like other platforms such as Facebook, they’re using our data for profit. Their privacy policy is pretty concerning, and moreover since it’s closed source we don’t even have an effective way to verify that our data isn’t being misused. If I could convince everyone I know on discord to sacrifice some convenience, such as having multiple channels, for the sake of a more privacy-focused FOSS platform, I would. But I value my time with some of the users I’ve come to know on Discord enough that I’m not willing to just cut them off.
Another problem with Discord is that there is virtually no support or follow-through when some pretty dark stuff starts to pop off. For example, I was a mod on a pretty large gaming discord. Was. Beyond kicking people, I reported threats of violence, racist/genocidal rants against entire ethnicities or sexual identities (including calls to violence), scam accounts, virtual CSAM being posted, and oh-so-many cases of users grooming minors. Not once did I see anyone’s account suspended for these things, or any action taken beyond my kicking them from the server. I know Discord has been involved in such scandals before, and from what I’ve observed, nothing ever changed. I wouldn’t be surprised if it eventually takes down Discord. There are so many problems there, and none of them ever get properly addressed.
both of those alternatives are missing so many features Discord has that i wouldn’t really call them alternatives, especially many of the core features that make Discord Discord.