Comment by jhanschoo

3 years ago

> Discord unfortunately doesn't have any native chat export feature so the best that can be done are third-party exporters, copy-pasting or screenshots which aren't ideal and don't end up being indexed as desired even if communities wanted them to be.

Server owners have the option for message logging bots. If communities wanted logging, they do have that option with server owner buy-in.

Arguably, difficult-to-archive by default if you aren't a server owner helps foster a safer chat experience.

37 comments

jhanschoo

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alwayslikethis  3 years ago

No, it fosters a less safe experience, when the behavior is hidden. For someone willing to spend just about 30 minutes, it isn't hard to have a script log in to your own account to record messages without anyone noticing.

  • jhanschoo  3 years ago

    That's against TOS, and my line of reasoning is that it helps against opportunistic and casual abuse, and there aren't really mitigations against more determined abuse.

    e.g. your relationship with someone has soured. Your IRC client has your private messages with them saved in a backlog. You can access them at any time. vs. you normally wouldn't save a backlog of messages because Discord remembers your message history, and if their relationship with you has soured, they have the option of nuking their messages.

    • Brian_K_White  3 years ago

      You like that it's easy for an abuser to hide proof of their abuse? I know what you're actually trying to say and I'm saying in reality you picked the wrong side bud, ignoring a very bad problem to protect against a comparatively trivial problem.

      If I were in a relationship that went bad, and the other person was as vengeful and irrational as you can imagine, and had access to everything I ever said, and did their best to cherry pick and strip context, sure, that would be annoying for me.

      And it would be no worse than annoying. I'll take that hit considering the kinds of things that other people do to other people.

      I'm clairvoiant, so go ahead and say it's about protecting gays in gay-murderering states. Perhaps you assume the only reason I take this stance is that I have nothing that I think could be weaponized against me.

      What kinds of things have you done in your relationships that you fear your past relations so much?

      Any way you slice it, wrong victim.

    • matheusmoreira  3 years ago

      > That's against TOS

      Nobody even reads those things anyways. What they "allow" doesn't matter either. As users we should be able to do whatever we want. If we want to log messages, that's our prerogative.

      3 replies →

    • giantrobot  3 years ago

      If the data ended up on someone else's system you need to assume they can store it. Pretty much every IRC client ever has the option to save logs, everything from channels to private messages. Assuming someone can't save conversations is not wise.

    • Dylan16807  3 years ago

      TOS doesn't matter. Select discord, windows+alt+R to start screen recording, middle click and drag to start scrolling slowly, walk away from computer.

    • philippejara  3 years ago

      the messages are rendered client-side and there's no way discord will bother messing with detection of client-side bot "tampering" that scrapes the output, and that's assuming it would be even necessary to do it this way. It's entirely pointless, if someone wants to do harm with the information its trivial to get it regardless of TOS, and those that don't get the short end of the stick.

      At the end of the day the last thing discord cares about realistically is keeping their users "safe" anyway (and rightfully so in my opinion).