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.

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]

I agree. I think arbitration should be limited to one-off cases, not class action lawsuits because you sell a faulty product.

That does help. While It adds an extra step to the reporting process (having the authorities identify the human behind the tag), it does at least nearly guarantee someone can figure out who is behind it.

I see this as both a win and a potential problem for the app’s reputation:

As soon as you take away a hard link to a real-life identifier, the sketchy people come out of the woodwork and trade images/video of child exploitation.

Signal has not had this problem like some platforms (e.g. Kik), and I suspect two reasons:

1. Lack of searchable chat rooms
2. Concrete link to a phone number that anyone who contacts you must know (and make it easy to identify you to authorities)

Up until now signal has been an excellent secure replacement for text messaging between parties that know each other. I hope they don’t go the “chat groups” route, though I doubt they will. But I suspect this change will make it a preferred way for abusers to exchange images and videos nearly anonymously

I see this as both a win and a problem:

As soon as you take away a hard link to a real-life identifier, the sketchy people come out of the woodwork and spread images of child exploitation.

Signal has not had this problem like some platforms (e.g. Kik), and I suspect two reasons:

1. Lack of searchable chat rooms
2. Concrete link to a phone number that anyone who contacts you must know (and make it easy to identify you to authorities)

Up until now signal has been an excellent secure replacement for text messaging between parties that know each other. I hope they don’t go the “chat groups” route, though I doubt they will. But I suspect this change will make it a preferred way for abusers to exchange images and videos nearly anonymously.