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 [email protected] 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.
Relevant instructions:
Opt-out. You can decline this agreement to arbitrate by emailing an opt-out notice to arbitration-opt-out<at>discord.com within 30 days of April 15, 2024 or when you first register your Discord account, whichever is later
I had to ask bing copilot how to write the opt out email. Here’s a template for everyone to use.
Subject: Opt-Out of Discord Arbitration Clause Dear Discord Legal Team, I am writing to formally opt out of the arbitration clause outlined in your Terms of Service. I do not wish to be bound by the arbitration provisions. Please confirm my opt-out status via email. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Sincerely, [Your Full Name] [Your Discord Username]Why did you have to ask copilot to write that simple email…?
In short, I don’t write formal documents often in my role as a software engineer.
There are any number of ways that an opt-out message could be too ambiguous to be legally interpreted. For example, if you just send the message saying “no thanks, I don’t want to use arbitration”, but forget to identify yourself in a way that is meaningful to the other party, it may not hold up in any proceedings.
For example, either your legal name or username may be required, or both, depending on whether you need to prove you are/were a user at the time of opt-out.
Specifying the confirmation is helpful as well in a normal document that someone reads.
Several other companies have made opt outs that you have to send paper mail for as a way to raise the barrier of rejection.
People are lazy. I am lazy. I asked a resource to do it for me and shared the results to help others like me. This helps reduce the barrier to people who would like to opt out but can’t be bothered to figure out how to write that email.
Citing the username alone should be enough. The email address is explicitly named for this use case only.
Also, eat shit and get fucked, tossers.
Am I right in thinking this only applies to US users?
It wouldn’t surprise me if that were the case, US doesn’t seem to be very consumer-friendly.
My “you cannot sue me for anything illegal ive done” clause is making people ask a lot of questions about illegal things that ive done that are answered by my “you cannot zue me for anything illegal ive done” clause
So Matrix exodus? Please?
Haha. I sent them an opt-out notice by email, and it bounced!
They are using Google email servers for discord .com and Google has apparently shadowbanned me. It gives an error message saying “The account [my email address] is disabled.” but I have never created a Google or Gmail account, and my email address is on a domain not associated with Google at all.
So I’ve completed my obligation to opt-out. Discord will have no record of it, but I have the email server logs to prove I sent it.
If, in the future, anyone needs to sue Discord and forgot to opt-out, feel free to use this same excuse.
Classic. Assuming that’s the email you registered your discord account works, wonder how that domain blacklist even works if it’s your primary login. It must have been added after you registered.
That’s a major problem with any non-standard email domain names… They’re always at risk of being blacklisted by the big names due to “spam” (which conveniently entrenches the power of the big player domains like google). It basically means you can’t ever self host email because many large sites will auto blacklist EVERY email server until approved.
Of course they do, anything to make it worse lmao
Super weird. I remember opting out of arbitration with them years ago… Like, 5+ years ago. Seems funky that they could just require me to opt out again.
I smell Discord about to do a Reddit thing.
Discord is such a cancer, happy to kill my account
Removed by mod
Serious question if you know you don’t engage with discord deeply why do you think anyone here should care about your pointless question?
deleted by creator
You just made that up.
