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.

  • frog 🐸@beehaw.org
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    8 months ago

    Yeah, good luck enforcing that contract in any country that has a legal concept of “automatically unfair contract terms”.

    • 0xtero@beehaw.org
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      8 months ago

      I think they’re only worried about U.S class action. Don’t think American companies really care about the legality anywhere else

      • jarfil@beehaw.org
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        8 months ago

        They do. See what happened with EU’s GDPR and DMA, or how they bend over backwards to make China-only versions.

        Companies operating in any “anywhere”, need to follow the law of the land, or close shop there.

        • 0xtero@beehaw.org
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          8 months ago

          Only reason Discord has “a shop” in EU is for tax evasion. It’s a P.O Box at Schipol airport. I really don’t think they care very much.

          • jarfil@beehaw.org
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            8 months ago

            Rather the opposite.

            Every business selling to EU citizens, is required to charge them the corresponding VAT, then forward it to the citizen’s country. Doing otherwise, would be tax evasion.

            If they closed shop, they’d risk getting hit with import duties, or directly get blocked in the EU. Not following EU’s rules, would get them hit with fines, which they’d have to choose to either pay, or get their shop closed down, with the same consequences.

            I know the US likes to tax its citizens even when they don’t reside in the US, but most countries like to tax anyone residing or doing business on their territory.

            • 0xtero@beehaw.org
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              8 months ago

              I meant NL is one of the top 10 tax havens in the world due to their exemptions that allow corporate tax evasion.

    • jarfil@beehaw.org
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      8 months ago

      That’s false.

      Any contract is legally binding… except for the parts that go against the law.

      I’d suggest consulting a lawyer knowledgeable of your particular jurisdiction, before deciding which part may or may not be binding.

      • Venia Silente@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        Any contract is legally binding

        Exactly. And a TOS is not a contract.

        If you go to law definitions, contracts have a number of requirements to be such, of which to my knowledge a TOS fails two (Negotiability and Certainty).

        • jarfil@beehaw.org
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          7 months ago

          IANAL, check with your local lawyer, but AFAIK…

          ToS are a “generic contract”, where a single entity proposes the same contract to multiple parties.

          Negotiability, or more precisely offer and acceptance, are achieved by the simple “take it or leave it”. The requirement is that there needs to be an option, it doesn’t need to be one to change parts of the document.

          Certainty is usually achieved by adding a partial nullifying clause, so any ambiguous parts get automatically trimmed.

          • Venia Silente@lemm.ee
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            7 months ago

            Negotiability, or more precisely offer and acceptance, are achieved by the simple “take it or leave it”.

            Maybe in the US, where that kind of this would honestly be expected. Here in more decent countries, Negotiability requires that both parties can exercise offer an acceptance to the contract. I consulted to our local digital ethics group about it and they are in accordance, at least to what pertains to my country.

  • Nora@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    We need a Federated FOSS Discord alternative built to work with the activity pub protocol.

    • BakedCatboy@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      Has anybody made a matrix app that looks like a discord clone? That sounds easier since the federated rich text chat is already made, the current clients don’t really appeal to the discord crowd.

      • rnd@beehaw.org
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        8 months ago

        Cinny is the closest to Discord in terms of UI, it even has a feature where you can show subspaces within a space as if they’re categories of a Discord server.

    • The Baldness@beehaw.org
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      8 months ago

      No we don’t. We need small instances, each with their own specific topics and communities that DO NOT share your information far and wide, like the fediverse does. I don’t think the fediverse model is the way forward.

      • EtzBetz@feddit.de
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        8 months ago

        But by not sharing anything, you’d loose users who don’t want to sign up for each instance individually. I think it would be a good way to be able to sign up once on one instance and then being able to use all other instances available, but the chats etc of one instance being private to the instance itself.

        • The Baldness@beehaw.org
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          8 months ago

          True, and then there’s the other side of the coin. Federation exposes you to trolls, nazis, and doxxing.

          • EtzBetz@feddit.de
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            8 months ago

            Well I guess if you wanted you could just run it defederated? And you could also build in that the instance/guild owner needs to accept joins, I guess?

      • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
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        8 months ago

        Or… how about we just treat the fediverse like it is a…. public forum…. and use different tools for having more private conversations?

        • flashgnash@lemm.ee
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          8 months ago

          Is open source though, federation can always come later

          That said I’m not sure why they didn’t use matrix from the start

          • anlumo@feddit.de
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            8 months ago

            Federation isn’t something that can be added later. This has to be part of the protocol from the start.

    • jarfil@beehaw.org
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      8 months ago

      So… Lemmy? Mastodon?

      Although I think Matrix is better suited for chat, just need a client with voice/video support.

  • flashgnash@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    Do I need to worry about this not being in the US? I’m wary of the way I word my opt out incase it causes me some issues down the line

    • Kuro@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      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

    • Ashley@lemmy.ca
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      8 months ago

      If you read the post, it says you can opt out by emailing your username to discord

  • Truck_kun@beehaw.org
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    8 months ago

    A few years ago, wasn’t there a company (maybe it was uber?) that was being overwhelmed by arbitration fee’s for a large number of arbitration cases? I forget the outcome, but it may be due to their agreement stipulating they would cover arbitration fees. Either way, forced arbitration needs to go.