Why i left Discord (as a 4 year old user)
Hello, if you’re reading this its probably due to Medium recommending you this article or you scanned that QR Code that i left as my Discord profile picture.
If you don’t know me, my name is Leila and am what you would call an “Internet Person”. I do stuff from writing to music producing in my free time (aka all day).
During my stay on the lands of the Internet i came across a small app called Discord back in 2016. Discord wasn’t the huge app that it is now, we’re talking the days where Discord published an article about users making an Unofficial API and such. When i joined Discord i only joined to talk to some friends that either:
a) Moved to Discord from Skype
b) Met on something like Steam or Xbox Live
c) Or just wanted to try something new
And by joining Discord in that time there wasn’t a lot of servers as there are now, Discord was more focused for Gamers and just people who wanted to merge stuff like TeamSpeak and Skype into one platform (this was their marketing strategy from 2015 to 2020). During this time i joined a few servers like the /minecraft server or just servers that some Content Creators i followed created.
This cycle kept continuing until 2018 when due to some stupid security techniques i had i got locked out of my account due to losing the 2FA codes. (really stupid, i know). And i had to take a 9 month break of the app until November of 2019 when i got involved in a controversy with a content creator i shall not name for the sake of my public image and due to some other problems i got across.
In that time of me getting into the controversy i became more active on Discord talking in more public servers like the /discord-api server (which i thank them all for all the help and support i got while learning the in and outs of the API, Thank you peeps!) and programming language related servers (see /python) until the day the controversy let me to get doxxed and some other stuff that if i were to say i would probably restart a mess which i don’t want to get involved.
Now, you might say that all this isn’t enough to really quit a platform i’ve been part since pretty much the beginning of it, and to that I say Yes, Discord was an essential part of what i do now. But my main problem with Discord is the community and the Staff itself.
Discord started to decline in my opinion in 2019 when it became more mainstream and therefore they needed more employees to maintain stuff like Trust & Safety or simply internal management (specially for the API backend).
Due to this we got stuff like new ToS (Terms of Service) and Community Guidelines to keep the platform safe for everyone, which had to get stuff like employees working in the Trust & Safety division which is my main problem with the platform itself. Trust & Safety is a division/team of employees inside Discord that manages stuff like User Reports and as the name says, Safety of Users. But most of the employees in there are normally biased due to being part of certain groups (that i shall not name as am also a part of a few of them and i don’t want to get cancelled over this article) and therefore abusing their power by banning users that for example made a dumb joke about a minority the staff is part of. I’ve been in the platform long enough to see Friends and Users that i know get banned over saying a joke that would be considered *phobic or just because a staff member had a “bad” history with the user before.
This problem became even worse when a screenshot of a staff member replying to a user report about somebody sending Cub (a type of “Furry” pornography that portrays Minors [normally preadolescents]) by saying the following surfaced on the internet (apparently on Reddit or Twitter):
“Hello,
Generally speaking, we do not consider “cub” content to be a violation of our Terms or Guidelines on its own. That being said, you should be aware that such content can be considered shocking for some and it should be limited to channels marked NSFW and users should have an expectation of the content they will see in the channel before viewing it (i.e a very clear channel name)
You should read more about our Terms of Services and Community Guidelines here:
https://discordapp.com/terms
https://discordapp.com/guidelines
Sincerely,
[REDACTED]”
This reply sparked a heated argument across the community and caused various users to cancel their Nitro membership and/or their accounts.
Discord responded in a statement in the gaming news site “Polygon” but in my opinion their response is plainly just bullshit from their part as they know their team are part of the communities involved in this and they didn’t want to make employees quit and such.
Article by Polygon: https://www.polygon.com/2019/1/30/18203692/discord-nsfw-policy-furry-cub
This is just one of the few incidents that happened with the T&S team on Discord, i personally didn’t get affected by it but i still stand by that Discord’s response to this was plainly not appropriate (as from what i heard the employee just got suspended for like a week or something and did not face any repercussion even after they left the company).
Now for a tiny storytime i had with T&S personally:
During the “creator that shall not be named” controversy i managed to get admin permissions on the creator’s Discord, Due to they having a controversy at the time my “job” in the server was pretty much banning and muting users that just came to insult them or just post NSFW or Gore stuff on #general just to seek “revenge” on them.
Due to this i had to report incidents to Discord quite a lot like of people posting Gore or pornography and such, this wouldn’t seem like a problem but it had to over complicate due to Discord’s T&S team taking ages to respond and them normally just not giving a fuck or them just replying with “The evidence was deleted and Screenshots don’t count as evidence” and such. During this i had to be on the constant cycle of reporting an issue to them, getting ignored for days, get a reply and then close the thread with no consequence to the aggressor. All this lead to the server having to close down after a certain Raid Group (THAT IS NOT BANNED FROM DISCORD STILL) basically destroyed everything.
After all this i just made a new account and had a fresh start where i made friends in various servers like the DAPI server or the Debian Unofficial Server.
All this fun and enjoyment i had would soon come to an end after i had some depressive episodes over GD and other mental conditions i had where i would normally post stuff that was “over the line” according to some friends. All this had a not so nice end after i got banned off some servers and such due to my mental stability being “negative to other users” and such. While this was happening the idiots at the T&S didn’t take the time and bother in banning Pedophiles. And then a pedophile tried to groom me by saying that they were just trying to “help me with my mental state”. All of this leaded up to a failed suicide attempt in early 2021. All this ended up with me taking a break of the entire internet (for my own sake and for stuff like my mental state and body to recover) for 2 weeks, during this time i realized how nice life was without Social Media and specially Discord.
And now to wrap things up on why am leaving Discord forever.
Discord is a for-profit company that doesn’t give a damn about privacy and security, leading to even Richard Stallman writing an article on why should you avoid Discord. All of this mixed into me wanting to switch to more “libre” alternatives like Matrix and Keybase just to take care of my privacy and security, due to this am leaving Discord forever after being part of it for 4 entire years.
To the Discord Staff (except the T&S team):
Thank you for creating such an amazing app that leaded me to meet cool friends and plainly change my life by helping me start to socialize more and even start to question my gender identity. Thank you
To the T&S team:
You expected a negative comment didn’t you? Welp, i’m not that kind of person and instead am gonna give constructive feedback.
Your job can decide on people’s well-being and future, you shouldn’t be biased on decisions that can change people’s public/social profile over being part of a community, doesn’t matter if you’re part of a Furry or a Gaming community, being biased over it and affecting people’s public life is just wrong and you should probably step in their shoes. Think what are their situation, are they passing through a breakup and such? Then just suspend their account for like 3 days or even send them an email to cheer them up. Or what if the person has been passing through a mental health deteriorating period? Try to cheer them up and direct them to a Mental Health Institution, don’t ban their account indefinitely just because of that.
You should change people’s lives for good and not change theirs to your “portrayal” of a “normal respecting” person. You can always improve and do the right thing, Iknow you can do it as i’ve witnessed with some of you. Keep up the good work!
To everyone i met in Discord and doesn’t want to switch to Matrix and such:
I understand it, not everyone will install a separate messanger just to talk to 1 person and i get it. My DM’s in Matrix are always open and you can find my contact information in my about page of my website. Please take care of you’re self.
To the /microsoft server staff:
I’ve hadn’t found a way to reach you guys but i hope this letter might help y’all to find it.
Thank you, even though you made me almost kill myself am always gonna be grateful of all the memories i’ve lived with you guys. I’ve met my best friend in there and i will always be grateful of y’all. Thank you.
To the /discord-api members:
Thank you for helping me learn some new stuff and welcoming me into the community under my new account. You’re the best and i hope the server gets re-partnered lol. Thank you.
To the WTT members (except Noah, i hate you Noah):
Thank you, just, Thank You. You’ve helped me discover my true self and just have a “refuge” server when i can talk about stuff that kinda affects me. Just, Thank you.
To the Uncharted staff and members:
I didn’t chat a lot in there but thank you, that night i was high on my meds and started to list all the Minecraft Items cheered me up. Thank you to all involved. Specially Dragon.
And specially to all my friends:
You can always contact me in Matrix @citizensixtynine:matrix.org.
I hope the best for y’all. Thank you.
And that wraps it up. My name is Leila and thank you for reading this article.
You should probably check me out @ kritterhouse.xyz
