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!
The bug is definitely known; and a fix is probably being worked on.
But I will say that it does in fact turn on the setting.
The “Sync Contacts” setting is weird. You can toggle it on, but it doesn’t gain or ask for the OS permissions on Android. There’s a brief message saying you have to give it the permission. No idea why they didn’t just use the built in SDK to ask for the permission.
Just to clarify, it’s not just that there’s an Android API to ask for permissions that apps use to show a consistent UI: that’s the way that apps actually get access to whatever feature they’re requesting, and if they don’t go through that API they don’t get access. An app can’t just decide in an update that it wants access to contacts without asking. The Android API to get contact info checks the app requesting the info and won’t give it anything if the user hasn’t explicitly granted that permission to that app. Most commonly when something like this comes up it’s a permission that was granted in the set of permissions requested when the app was installed and the user just skipped through the prompt and they don’t realize they granted access to contacts.
For the curious, here’s the Android developer guide page that describes how Contacts permissions work for app authors. And the page describing permissions in general, how to request, etc.
Edit to add: You can go into the settings for the app (not in the app itself, but in the app manager under your device settings, usually also accessible by holding on the app’s launcher icon and going to Info) and you can remove permissions that you’ve granted previously. So if you’re worried about this you can yank the Contacts permissions at the OS level and it doesn’t matter what the Discord settings are, they won’t be able to access your contacts anymore.
This whole thing is weird. Two people have commented saying it’s not enabled for them, but I feel certain I didn’t enable it myself, and it was enabled for me after the latest update.
Edit: Someone in a discord server said it wasn’t enabled for them either so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It was enabled for me and I’m very glad I saw this post so I could disable it. I would have never known it existed.
It was disabled for me.
Stranger still, the other screenshot you posted did have the “Allow contacts to add me” checkbox checked, but it only appears when you tap “Add Friends.” When you leave that screen and return, the checkbox is always checked. It makes me think it’s a setting solely applicable to that screen, like just for the “Find Friends” button, and not to your profile as a whole. IDK if that even makes sense.
This is making my head hurt, but the checkbox hasn’t re-checked itself after I left and returned. That is so odd.
Did Discord hire Google’s laid off UX designers or something? Jesus Christ.
Weird inconsistencies aside, this whole new design is pretty terrible imo. It feels pretty out of touch with how people actually use and navigate the platform.
Yeah, I just checked after updating yesterday and didn’t have it enabled.
I wonder if this difference in experience might have something to do with privacy laws in different countries. I’m in the US.
I’m in Washington State. Perhaps it’s something else. I had Nitro and canceled it this year. I don’t remember turning off this specific setting but maybe I did and it’s kept it since? My phone is a S21. I’ve had my Discord account since Dec 2015. The only thing I can think of is that I’ve used my Discord account in California which has slightly different privacy laws than the USA.
My phone’s a S21 as well (well, S21 FE), and I’m in South Dakota. I’ve had my account since 2017.
Someone from the EU itt reported that they had the settings enabled like I did, so I now think the location hypothesis is wrong. Must be just A/B testing or whatever it’s called, or possibly something more nefarious.
Just to throw in my two cents… I’m on iOS version 207 (which appears to be the latest) and this setting was not on for me.
Thanks for this. It was on for me and I am the same as you with regards to apps getting to read my contacts.
For context I am in the EU and am using an iPhone.
Thanks for letting me know! I was starting to feel like I was alone, although clearly it’s happening to some of us, based on our experience and the tumblr post.
I also unticked the two things below, which told me I can’t get experimental features if I do so. Who knows how they label stuff internally, maybe they have something new in regards to contact scanning and we got „volunteered for testing“?
Am also with you in the situation that discord isn’t my first choice, but one big community I engage in is there.
It never gave me a message about experimental testing when I disabled it lol. Discord must be doing some real deep testing right now because so many users are having slightly different experiences.
Mine didn’t have this enabled
Mine also didn’t have this enabled
Do you have the latest version? This is 207.23 on Android.
Both settings were enabled for me.
I did not have it updated! I was on 192 something. However, I just updated it now and checked and the settings are still not enabled. So it did not change my settings on me. I previously had them disabled and they are still disabled after update.
Someone in my discord server also said it wasn’t enabled for him. This is messing with my mind because I feel confident I would never have enabled such a thing! I’m always so mindful of not letting apps access my phone contacts.
Tinfoil hat time, but there’s a possibility it does flip the setting for some users but not all. If they unilaterally changed a privacy setting to just take and share data it would get SLAMMED. But if it’s just like… 1/3 of the users and everyone else says no, that’s not happening then they can get away with a lot. Not saying that’s what’s happening. But I’m not saying it’s not what’s happening.
I wouldn’t be terribly surprised! This makes me feel that perhaps it was good to post this. The more people check this setting, the less discord would be able to benefit from such a strategy. In any case, it never hurts to review one’s privacy settings from time to time.
Same. I just got the update the other day. This setting is not enabled for me.
This was enabled because you enabled it. Nobody else is experiencing this my guy.
If you didn’t give it permission it can’t read contacts. That’s an explicit permission request on both iOS and Android: You can’t just scrape someone’s contacts.
Suuuure, and the people on tumblr, and the other people in this thread who’ve had it enabled.
This is some weird, rude, reddit-tier gaslighting arrogance, mY gUy. Totally unchill and uncalled for.
Don’t believe me, idgaf, and don’t ever speak to me again.
I agree. You’re wrong.
And you’re rude. Username does not check out.
Hope my blocklist brings you joy.
This thread is way more toxic than it needs to be, but this isn’t helping. And you’re like, actually from this instance.
he literally disagreed with you, ur the one being condescending. also pretty sure he’s right…
This is literally my job.
I’m a professional app developer.
it was enabled on my phone and it never asked me
There are 2 possibilities:
UI bug or you’ve given it access to your contacts. There are 0 other possibilities.
You know a weirdly large amount about something you can’t possibly know about or have sources for.
This is my job. I’m a staff level software engineer who previously worked at Google. My entire career has been writing Android apps.
Permissions are integral to phone app development and contacts is a specific permission that is heavily locked down.
So yes: I can possibly know and I have literally read the source code.
Unless you’re trying to insist that Discord developed a new 0 day that lets them bypass both Android and iOS operating system locks and then decided to use it to scrape contacts while giving you an option to turn it off?
Cause if that’s your supposition you’ve got a bad case of magical thinking.
So yes: I can possibly know and I have literally read the source code.
Discord, to my knowledge, is closed source, and has not had a source code leak. So taking your word for it, if you’ve seen Discord’s source code, then you work for Discord?
Access to Contacts has to go through the Android API, which means the user has to explicitly grant permission for Discord to access that specific functionality. That’s what the comment you’re replying to meant: access to permissions is protected at the operating system level and they’ve seen the source code on the OS side. Permissions might have been granted by the user reflexively, just muscle memory, when setting up Discord, but it absolutely had to have happened if Sync Contacts was enabled. Unless there’s some kind of bug where Discord enables the in-app setting without actually having the permissions to access contacts–I guess that could be possible. It couldn’t actually see any contact info in that instance, but it would try. If I go into Discord settings and try to enable the Sync Contacts option my phone displays the built-in Android permissions prompt with the text “Allow Discord to access your contacts?”
Thanks for the reply. I wouldn’t have thought OP meant Android source code but that makes sense lol.
Unless there’s some kind of bug where Discord enables the in-app setting without actually having the permissions to access contacts
That’s the bug exactly. It’s kind of a UI glitch; but I found out through Samsung bungling my permissions preferences through a One UI (OTA System) update, that it actually does enable the in-app setting by accident and that this is going to access your contacts if the permission is presently GRANTED, but not throw up a prompt asking for permission if the permission is already DENIED.
Same exact experience for me!
Mine didn’t have it enabled, but I think it’s because I denied its contacts permission request on iOS. That’s probably why some people don’t have it.
I checked my discord, and i think this is a case of discords shitty ui, not changing privacy settings. Yes, my checkbox in that exact location was allowing other people to find based on phone number contamination. However, when i visited the privacy page that i did know existed, that permission was still turned off for me.
Ugh I hate when that kinda shit happens
What the hell did you guys do to OP to make him throw a fit and delete a post over… discord?
Though I can confirm that sync contacts was enabled and I do not recall ever having done so, so there’s my two cents
Presumably this comment. OP has some back and forth which I can’t see for myself because it was deleted.
But that comment was correct and not offensive. What happened? Was there some kind of argument / rudeness, which I am not seeing?
I saw the comment before it was removed. It was along the lines of OP saying,
“This is the type of reddit response that I moved to Lemmy to avoid” and then continued on a few more sentences antagonizing the person for making a dissenting comment. Essentially finishing with “just because you aren’t having the issue doesn’t mean tumblr and I aren’t”.
IMO the commenter wasn’t out of line by any means. It may not have been insightful or additive, but the response it received was tonally angry and not very nice. “My guy” isn’t instigatory by any means, IMO at least. However, other comments OP responded to didn’t all have this same inflection so it may have just been getting tired of the same kind of responses.
Either way, I think it was an overreaction overall. OP has no way of knowing with certainty that this setting had been disabled by them before and subsequently re-enabled by Discord, obviously we have no proof either, and given the litany of comment saying it was disabled without user interaction we quickly fall into speculative territory. Which is meaningless and easily becomes what we see here in this thread, very very quickly.
And of course, it doesn’t help that the closing comment of the thread is “Apparently we can’t have a civil discussion here without arrogant assholes inserting themselves into the conversation so they can gaslight us. This has become as bad as reddit.”
So effectively doubling down on the “I moved here away to get away from reddit opinions”, calling anyone who has a tone arrogant and uncivil? Further fueling the fire.
Wow, op got pissy!
Yep. I can’t even see why, probably something in the stuff they deleted. How bizarre!
Seems like they really thought they were right and argued with people. If only they realized it takes 2 people to argue.
This particular OP tends to be fairly contentious, I’m surprised Beehaw didn’t ever take action on his account.
Beehaw doesn’t ban you for having an opinion loudly.
What it does address typically is when users are horrifically disrespectful or rude…which usually the OP was not.
I guess they just reached their limit of patience.
So like, while we’re here.
I feel like this style of leaving closed or abandoned threads like this up is… not great.
The front page is slow enough when it’s just Beehaw that one post like this really kinda sticks out. I feel like as a smaller community it might be better when something like this happens to like, delete the thread after a certain length of time so it doesn’t show up at all.
It’s there but not enabled for me, all 3 were disabled
Didn’t switch on for me but I only launched the new UI once. After I realized it was different and animating page transitions (which I have disabled in my android settings, meaning it felt super slow), I had a little bit of a reee moment and uninstalled their client and downloaded an alt client.
animating page transitions
That’s why it seems so slow! I couldn’t put my finger on it, but you’re right. Ugh, how annoying.
I know ideally one wouldn’t use Discord at all
Why? What have they done that I am unaware of?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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
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.
I don’t think there have been any major leaks have there?
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.
well I just checked and while “sync contacts” did not turn itself on, “allow contacts to add me” did. there’s definitely something going on
