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1y ago

Can we please unpin the proprietary off-site/off-network promotion of discord

This is completely counter productive to growing Lemmy. I absolutely despise discord. Look at the network traffic it generates and tell me wtf they are doing. They won't tell you. Their business model will leave you completely dumbfounded as to how they exist. Everything shared on the platform is lost in a black hole unavailable to the outside world and everything shared is a privacy nightmare. Posting this, pinning it here, and locking it is one of the biggest trolls possible. It pisses me off every time I log in. "Everyone else does it" is the excuse of idiots. Discord makes absolutely no sense to anyone that actually cares to look into it, read the user agreement, and ask sane questions about what they are doing.

206 comments

Discord is horrible

Even Discord issues aside, it just seems strange to have a proprietary software used for a platform as open source as Lemmy.
It would be as strange as having a Twitter account for the instance.
- Especially since there is already a lemmy.world announcement community..
  
  Which is our main platform for announcements and the discord server is just to complement LW not to replace any of it.
- IMO that's being too fanatic. I love FOSS, but you don't have to use FOSS for absolutely everything. Making a FOSS product does not mean you need to use FOSS for everything. And sometimes the closed source options are simply the best. Eg, GitHub and Discord are widely considered the best options in their field.
  Also, at least before Twitter became such a shitty alt-right shit hole, many FOSS products did have twitter accounts! That's just part of promoting your product and providing an alternative place to contact and discuss. Eg, when Reddit went down, I'd usually check their twitter to get updates on it.
  
  Eg, GitHub and Discord are widely considered the best options in their field.
  Librewolf moved to Codeberg a few weeks ago, so I guess there are still alternatives.
  As said elsewhere, Mozilla uses Matrix.
  Following that logic, why do we bother using Lemmy in the first place? We could just go back to Reddit, using revanced apps with personal API keys, and call it a day.
  Also, at least before Twitter became such a shitty alt-right shit hole, many FOSS products did have twitter accounts!
  They did, but then Twitter went to shit. Reddit was fine, until it went to shit. If the Piped project were to use a subreddit instead of !piped@feddit.rocks , wouldn't that be a missed opportunity too? FOSS project should support each other, otherwise it questions their existence in the first place. Why would other organisations and companies bother with the FOSS alternatives if FOSS projects themselves don't?
  
  GitHub and Discord are widely considered the best options in their field.
  Git, sure, I seldom hear anybody complain about it, and git is literally the host for most FOSS, so supporting it isn't exactly hurting the cause. But suggesting Discord is the best depends on how you're judging that criteria. Best for who? Admins or users?
  Moreover, if we're going to start getting into the nitty gritty about what the "best" options are in any field, then FOSS dies in most cases. Volunteers simply cannot compete with a bunch of paid developers, but they will do their best.
  Plex, for example, blows Jellyfin out of the water in terms of polish and simplicity. If you're judging best on how easy it is, and how likely it is the average person's going to run into issues, Plex beats its FOSS competition by a mile. But that's not the whole story, is it? That doesn't take the enshitification factor into account, or the fact that forces you to pay for certain things that your computer is effectively doing on its own.
  But the other thing to remember is that what truly kills FOSS is people just simply not supporting it. The more you use these established, centralized, biggest names, the further you entrench them, and the harder it becomes for any serious alternative to justify its existence.
- It's because Discord provides a functionality Lemmy does not yet offer. Forums having a connected chatroom is not a new thing at all, and that was true with subreddits and discords. Back when I moderated forums, the mod teams had a private mod forum, but also hung out in the IRC chat. Easy, instant communication for the community, particularly it's management, is useful.
  The problem isn't the existence of a chatroom, it's that they used Discord. But I don't believe there's a fediverse alternative for chat functionality like that, at least not yet. So it's a matter of which centralized platform you choose: Discord, Matrix, etc
  But Discord is also a useful reference point for new users who may need guidance on how to use lemmy, but already know how to use discord. It's familiar, and popular. Call it onboarding if you like. It's using Discord's platform to help ease users into Lemmy and the fediverse as a whole.
  
  Why not just use IRC?
  
  I get the need to have a chat, we also setup one for the moderators of one of my community
  Matrix is a pretty good alternative to Discord, with moderation possible via https://github.com/Gnuxie/Draupnir.
  It's not a perfect one to one match, but Lemmy is not one for Reddit either, still we are all here.

Fucking hell, this again.
Listen, you people need to realize a lot of people are here on Lemmy because Reddit screwed them over, not because Lemmy is open source or less of a privacy issue or whatever your reasons for using it are.
So you hate Discord. That's fine, you're allowed to! But pitching a fit because everyone else doesn't hate it isn't gonna convince anyone to stop using it.
- I don't hate Discord, but I do hate that they seem to require my phone number. I tried joining Discord over a year ago. Upon first log in they claimed that there was suspicious activity that required me to verify the account by giving them my phone number. This was from a computer, I never even visited the site on my phone let alone use the mobile app. I gave up and forgot about until a few months ago and decided to try again. They still wanted my phone number, email wasn't good enough. I contacted their support email and was told that there was no other option but to provide a phone number and that they couldn't override it. So I told them to delete my account and that I would never use their service. It took two weeks for them to do it.
  There are very few situations in which an app needs my phone number in my eyes. And a chat application is not one of them. Just like I refused to use the official Reddit app because it wanted access to my contacts and location. I am not a super privacy nut, but the whole hog approach of gathering my info is not acceptable. I would rather pay for the service. I would have paid for Reddit if they had gone that route rather than dropping 3rd Party apps. Instead I'm on Lemmy.
  So fucking hell yes, this again.
  There are alternatives to Discord.
  
  Must be server specific. I've used Discord for years and never had to add a phone number.
  
  Everyone wants your phone number now because it's a decent approach to combating spammers. Note that I said decent, not perfect. It's relatively easy for a company to determine if a phone number is owned by a specific person vs. a voip company that enables spammers to use hundreds of new numbers, so now we're asking everyone for theirs. SMS is also used for the lowest form of multi factor authentication, so they get to claim that it's a security decision, not one for marketing, etc and because of network effects, we all have to choose to either go along or miss out.
  Agree that it's super annoying and certainly not privacy-centric, but Discord is owned by Microsoft, what can we expect? Innovation?
  
  This is shitty, but not common.
  Certain channels will require a phone verified account, but most won't.
  Did you ever try on a phone or a different computer in a different location? With a different email?
  
  Your requirement to use software is based around whether or not it requires your phone number for verification?
  Man some people draw really weird lines.
- Yeah I'm here because I like the alternative to Reddit's bullshit.
  I couldn't care less about Foss. I mean it's cool, but it's not why I'm here.
  
  Reddits bullshit is the end case for ANY product or service that is not FOSS.
  https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys
  You should care, or else you will go through reddit all over again and again.
- I think at the very least we could have an open source alternative along with the discord. No reason to completely shutdown the discord.
  
  One already exists
  https://revolt.chat/
  
  matrix.org
  I've been using it for a very long time now. (Mostly) works really well.
- Reddit screw you over because it's closed source and centralized. You need to realize that discord it's just the same if not worst.
- Especially since this thread is about removing the pinned post. And a lot of the people downvoting are from other instances, they don't even see it pinned it's just 'discord bad'. Which is literally the top comment in this thread.
  
  If I may, we are all probably alt juggling at the moment, the fact that you see people interacting with account from other instances does not mean the people don't have an account on LW

Why are we telling people to go somewhere else that makes no sense
- Not saying I agree here, because I don't, but I think the idea is that lemmy.world is down so much that they wanted a stable platform for meta stuff.
  I might be more sympathetic to that idea if they made announcements on the Discord and on Lemmy at as close to the same time as possible, but they don't.
  
  They should make announcements on another instance of lemmy then thats the whole point if one instance is down you can use a different one
- It's not a replacement for lemmy.world , but rather a backup site for announcements when .world goes down.
  
  Doesn't have to be done specifically over Discord, does it

Can't we just have an IRC room on somewhere like Libera, please?
Or if we really need images and stuff, a Matrix room would be sufficient. Or an XMPP room..
- If they hosted their own XMPP server and that got taken down by the DDOS attacks the room/MUC would be down as well, not ideal, unlike matrix

I wonder whether matrix and/or matrix bridge has been mentioned before. Maybe discord + matrix bridge is a good enough compromise for reachability.
- To get the privacy benefits wouldn't you need to forego bridges?
  
  I have never hosted a bridge before so I may get things wrong. Please correct me where I do.
  I assume this channel may be public, so any privacy concern needs to take that into account.
  In terms of implementation, I was thinking that there would be 1 channel hosted on discord and 1 room on matrix being bridged together.
  The benefit is that users of matrix and users of discord can participate in the same conversation without having to create an account on the other service. That way, matrix users don’t have to create a discord account or download discord app, which would be a good outcome in terms of privacy.
  Edit: I have a faint memory that this is possible if the owners of the channel set it up on both ends. But I can’t find what the bridge is called, maybe it’s a different service from discord? Or I may have misunderstood things,

Discord is a horrible company, it should be avoided at all costs, why is it being advertised over Matrix?
In my opinion users should be made aware of those channels instead.

What people don't get is that self-hosting a Discord-like is not a solution. The idea is to have a fallback in case the server goes down, and Discord serves that role well.
- Uh He never said it has to be self-hosted though, so this already sounds like a strawman argument. Only one who has mentioned self hosting in this thread is you.
  People want something that is secure and respects privacy, they could simply use the Matrix channel, or create their own Matrix space specific to lemmy.world , both of these would be better options for the users than to try and get them to use Discord which is a proprietary corporate service that is not only prone to security problems but also has some serious privacy concerns due to being corporate owned.
- Snoo about to collect downvotes like pokemons
  
  Bring it on!
  
  An admin complaining about downvotes doesn't inspire confidence in the running of the instance.

I have hated discord so much and for so long. It collects all my data, controls and censors servers, and its run by shitty people who keep their shareholders close by.
I use Matrix and it has the potential to be a lot of fun (use a frontend that isn't Element and it gets way better) but it has limited instances. Yeah, I'd be extremely grateful if Lemmy communities had Matrix Rooms as opposed to Discord Servers.
- What matrix app for Android and desktop Linux? In my experience they all have deal breaker bugs.
  
  FluffyChat https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=chat.fluffy.fluffychat and Fractal https://flathub.org/apps/org.gnome.Fractal

Sure, Lemmy does not offer end-to-end encryption by default, which means that your messages could be intercepted by someone who is able to access your ISP's network or the Lemmy server. A red flag for me is the fact that Lemmy stores some user data on their servers, such as your IP address and email address. This data could be used as breadcrumbs.
Lemmy may not sell user data to third parties, but what about the servers? There have been some security vulnerabilities found in Lemmy's code. These exploits could result in servers being hijacked or user accounts compromised.
So, what does all this mean? It means that it is your personal responsibility to take steps to protect your privacy and security when using Lemmy. This includes using the encryption feature, being aware of the risks associated with using Lemmy, and carefully evaluating the privacy policies of any platform before you use it.
I know it's a lot to keep track of, but it's important. Your privacy is your business, and it's up to you to protect it. So take these things seriously, and don't let anyone take your privacy away from you.
About the concerns with Discord:
Creating a post saying, 'everyone else does it' and locking it is funky in my book. I, like you, I am all about transparency and understanding. I fully understand your anxiety, and it is a bit warranted. I am not trying to sound like an alarmist.
On the subject of Discord, it is amazing and disturbing how much data is curated and harvested. Their business model is quite mysterious. No one really knows what their real motives are. Discord shrouds itself and does not provide clear and concise privacy audits or statements on the subject.
You are concerned about your privacy, and rightfully so. Lemmy is designed for privacy from the ground up when used properly and only with encryption functions enabled. Discord, on the other hand, unfortunately has a stranglehold on the instant messaging backbone.
CVE-2021-29465: This vulnerability allowed attackers to overwrite any file on the system with the command results. This could have been used to steal user data, install malware, or take control of Discord servers.
CVE-2021-29466: This vulnerability allowed attackers to read local files from the server. This could have been used to steal user data, such as passwords or chat logs.
CVE-2021-34491: This vulnerability allowed attackers to bypass Discord's rate limit, which could have been used to send spam or DDoS attacks.
CVE-2022-22936: This vulnerability allowed attackers to take control of Discord servers by exploiting a flaw in the Discord Token Generator.
These are just a few examples, but I would be lying if I said they were not patched. That being said there is no telling how many zero-day security risks are out there at this time, so it is important to stay vigilant and ask the hard questions to ensure that your privacy is protected.
Lastly, you could totally start a community here on .world for Discord alternatives. It's a easy breezy lemon squeezy way to find people who are also into privacy and security.
- I just wanted to address a single point from your comment:
  Lemmy does not offer end-to-end encryption by default, which means that your messages could be intercepted by someone who is able to access your ISP's network
  If the Lemmy server is using HTTPS, nobody at your ISP or anywhere else between you and the Lemmy server should be able to read your messages (they could see that you are exchanging data with a particular host, but not the contents).
  
  Glad someone mentioned this already, not so surprised OP hasn't either updated their comment or replied

Yeah, just use matirx!

As a tech-ignorant person who uses Discord with multiple gaming groups, what is so bad about it?
- How they monetize is unknown, but they are big and well funded.
  I keep my workstation behind a whitelist firewall. It is a pain, but this means I have a device that filters all network traffic and only lets websites I have added to the list to transmit and receive messages. So like, if I download something sketchy or accidentally write some buggy code, it won't have internet access to unapproved locations.
  All legitimate commercial websites have their human readable web address. So on my whitelist, I can add Lemmy.world:443 and it will allow connections to Lemmy over port 443 aka https.
  Discord doesn't do anything conventional like this. If you try to connect to discord with a whitelist firewall, and look at the blocked connection logs, all you will see are random raw IP addresses. This alone is super weird. Then you will find these addresses are trying to connect to odd ports with no documentation about what they are used for or the protocol. Discord does not provide any details whatsoever that I could find.
  Okay so a few super weird connections on super sketchy ports, with no idea what they are doing, and no documentation. Hmmm. But it gets worse. I can jot down some notes for a couple of random raw IP addresses. At this point I really don't like it, but might just grumble past it like just before reddit died. But no, trying to connect to discord after punching these holes, lead to two more random raw IP addresses and different ports, and after that it happened again. Now I'm at 6 random undocumented holes in a firewall, and it still doesn't work and is trying for more. Fuck that bullshit. Reading their terms agreement is basically legalese for you have no rights to anything. It is totally insane that people just run this shit and don't take 5 minutes to ask where is the money exchanging hands to fund this. Who knows, maybe it is legitimate. I fully expect to hear about it in the news one day, and I expect this one to be a giant nuclear bombshell when it happens. I keep popcorn reserves on standby.
  
  They monetize using nitro. Discord servers use multiple different servers based on location to host the actual chat services. I'm not an expert on the inner workings but it's actually rather complex and fascinating. If you don't like using discords clients then maybe try an open source alternative discord client, if nothing else it will give you insight into the back end and help you better understand what's going on behind the scenes. Technically using alternative discord clients goes against their TOS but considering your feelings on discord I doubt that will matter to you.
- https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/discord
  https://stallman.org/discord.html
- Nothing. But it's not free and someone owns the code so they are the devil.

I just migrated to a different instance and now see this lol. I agree though that it is odd

Yeah, I was wondering what that was doing up still.

Can't you just hide the post and move on?
- I actually did that. Every single time I opened the app. It just came back.
  
  Which app?
  Try blocking the user/community?

Reddit or Twitter would even be more preferable then Discord.

It's a unabashed admission from the admin that this site isn't taken seriously, nor the FOSS mindset that built the infrastructure + most of the userbase. Real disappointing for sure, but especially considering the other decisions that have been made recently on this platform -it's gonna be a ghost town soon.
- it’s gonna be a ghost town soon.
  Curious to see how it will evolve. I guess more and more people disagreeing with this decision might leave, we'll see how it goes.

Asking everyone to follow the gospel of FOSS isn't going to bring you the all the flock you desire.
Either way the Discord is just a backup solution because of all the DDoS/blackouts, you are not required to touch it.

Don't care, tbh. I would prefer if people would be less uptight on these things. Let people have Lemmy and Discord, if they want. They'll get there, if we stop being dicks to people who are still finding out.

Think what you want about Discord, but it has a different purpose than Lemmy or Matrix. It's mainly a real-time chat application (with voice on top if you want). Nobody chatting on Discord will create a Lemmy post instead, two totally different forms of communication. That's like complaining back in the day why the forum you use has an IRC room pinned.
Their business model will leave you completely dumbfounded as to how they exist.
Does it? Look up Discord Nitro, they charge a lot of money for basic functionality (like being able to share your screen above 720p, use custom emojis on other servers, promote your own server, ..). They rake in plenty of money, no need to sell your data for that (which they at least say don't do based on the terms and conditions).
Currently there is no good alternative to Discord for actual chatting. Lemmy doesn't offer a chat function (Though the chat on Reddit was crap too). Mastodon is not a chat, it's a Twitter alternative. And IRC has always been crap where 9 out of 10 people just idle and you don't have a chat history.
- Matrix itself works fantastically for chat, we use it to coordinate conversations for kbin. It's like a non shit version of discord (minus the video / audio support I guess)
- Currently there is no good alternative to Discord for actual chatting.
  Matrix?
  
  Moderation?
- I feel pretty confident OP would prefer an IRC instead of Discord because it is an open standard.
- where 9 out of 10 people just idle and you don’t have a chat history
  You just described Discord, lol.
  
  No matter what niche Discord server I join, if I write something in the general channel I usually get a reply in seconds to a few minutes.
  IRC? Has always been a dumpster where I might not get a single reply in an hour.
- Show me the numbers, against non paying users, infrastructure, and overhead. I don't see this as valid. I also don't agree with your tale on collecting and sharing data. What I read a couple of years ago was extremely vague and verbose. It also had the fuck you we can change this at any time without telling you clause. AKA, the points don't matter so lube your butt plug because this is proprietary and you should know better clause. They are another company built on exploitation with no transparency or documentation. "Trust me" is garbage. Show me exactly what you are doing with full transparency, or you are a criminal. This is real world 21st century common sense. Discord is garbage.
  
  They have 203 million dollars of revenue in a year from Nitro alone (the small subscription they sell): https://www.usesignhouse.com/blog/discord-stats
  Then they have server boosts, which is another big pot of money on top.
  And revenue share with content creators.
  And Discord merch.
  Tons of users too, evaluation is based on their platform + potential user base, not the actual money they pull in.
  https://www.datasourse.com/how-discord-makes-money/
  Maybe inform yourself first.

You sound very angry at a piece of software. You don't have to use it, and you can block the community/user that posted the thing you don't like.
Take a breath and don't worry about it, for real. Not everything in life is for you, and you won't like everything you see, and that's fine. It doesn't make your feelings invalid, but you can't let it get to you < 3
- This is an admin post. A mod blocking admin is unsustainable misalignment

Why care so much. Nobody forces you to do anything, don't like it don't use it and you can still enjoy Lemmy World. The entitlement is a bit much honestly.
Edit: for some perspective. This comment currently has 23 downvotes, only 5 of them are from Lemmy World users that actually see the local pinned post.
- But this means that the community chat will be in discord. If I want to chat with other members in this community, I need to join discord.
  So it would be better if another option would be advertised
  
  Sadly to manage Matrix is more difficult and harder to moderate ( there is no mod bot and developing is a mess )
- If you're so upset about out-of-instance interaction, just defederate altogether from all other instances. Turn into Truth Social. Or close the server. Jesus, just take criticism with grace.
  
  This thread is about unpinning a local thread. Something that does not affect people from another instance at all.
  
  criticism
  Which has no merit at all to begin with, since out-of-instance users do not see the pinned posts of Lemmy.world. He's right to call out most of you for simply concern-trolling.
- Yup! Its not a forced thing. Where you get "special" news or so. Its just a off site platform where LW can tell whats wrong if the site goes offline. For the casual user, its the easiest to join.
  
  Its just a off site platform where LW can tell whats wrong if the site goes offline.
  Hello,
  Thank you for your work!
  For that specific use case, would it be possible to set-up a Mastodon account posting heads-up about incidents?

206 comments

Bring it on!