Why I don't like Discord
Discord as a program
- Discord is proprietary software
- Discord is privacy-invasive
- Discord is centralised
- Discord is bloated
While many popular chat applications are proprietary (e.g., WhatsApp), Discord is particularly strict due to its Terms of Service that seemingly prohibit things for no reason. For example, Discord prohibits the use of third-party clients, even though this doesn't harm other users.
An article from Spyware Watchdog goes into more detail, but there are a few things the article doesn't mention.
For example, Discord recently rolled out AI features that scan your messages for harmful content that can automatically dish out warnings and bans. Many Discord users are required to give out their phone number to register an account, and using Discord through Tor or I2P is very difficult, if not impossible.
Discord also makes no claims about end-to-end encryption. Even if Discord had end-to-end encryption, it's unprovable because there are no settings to manage keys and it's a proprietary program.
Unlike GNU Jami (which is peer-to-peer) and Matrix/XMPP (which support self-hosting and federation), Discord is centralised - this means the infrastructure that allows it to function is entirely operated by Discord themselves.
If Discord went out of business, shut down for whatever reason, or were hit with a major cyberattack, everyone who uses the platform would be affected, and that could mean losing contact with people you only have added through Discord. This was proven true at a smaller scale when it was banned in Russia and Turkey in October 2024.
Not the end of the world, but it is very annoying.
Discord as a company
- Moral Problems
- Poor customer support
A Discord Moderator by the name "allthefoxes" got into some hot water a few years ago for claiming "cub" content (cub is CP depicted through furry art) is not a violation of their ToS/Community Guidelines. This wasn't just a mod in a private server, but someone literally employed by Discord.
It's very easy to get banned on Discord as someone can defame you by taking screenshots of your messages out of context. On Discord, you can literally get banned for no reason if you're in a server that gets banned and do not associate with said server.
The worst part is Discord's customer service is a complete joke. If you're unjustly banned and you submit a support ticket, most of the time you will either be ignored or they'll just reply telling you they won't unban you.
Discord as a platform
- Disturbing Content
- False sense of connection
Despite all the Orwellian surveillance Discord employs, the platform still has a major problem with CP, predators, shock content, doxxing & blackmailing, and a number of other crimes.
While by no means unique to Discord, a lot of people end up joining Discord servers out of loneliness in an effort to make new friends, but the problem is although these relationships feel emotionally real, they are very volatile.
I had a group of Discord friends when I was a teenager. They were nice people, but over time I started to feel more and more distant from them until one day I just had to let them go. It wasn't easy as I genuinely saw them as my friends for a long time, but that awkwardness honestly felt more lonely than having no friends at all.