Discord Introducing Arbitration Clause - America - Land of the Free until you sign a contract

[SiccDicc]

https://www.reddit.com/r/discordapp/comments/9p5uyp/latest_tos_update_revokes_your_right_to_sue/

Discord has changed their Terms of Service!

Unfortunately, this change comes with a revocation of your legal rights. Discord has revoked your right to sue (you must go through an arbitrator) and to congregate as a class action lawsuit.

Luckily, there is an opt-out for the clause, in which you must email arbitration-opt-out@discord.com, but you must do it within 30 days or you can no longer opt-out.

YOU CANNOT DELETE OR DEACTIVATE YOUR ACCOUNT TO OPT-OUT OF THE ARBITRATION CLAUSE

You can see the added clauses for yourself here: https://gist.github.com/Rapptz/c93697c9d59ec2f0d8071b7d0e907632

I will attempt to answer some common questions.

Is this enforceable?

In the United States, yes. This was decided by the Supreme Court in 2011. See https://gc.gy/7538114

In Europe, no. There are many clauses, a relevant one is Article 77 of the GDPR ("Right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority").

Why does this matter?

Without the ability to congregate for a class action lawsuit, if Discord ever leaks your data or does something catastrophically bad to a large portion of the population you have no way to representatively sue together without each of you individually suing via the arbitrator.

Please see the following article: https://gc.gy/7538130

Essentially:

1. Your right to file a complaint in the court of law is removed.
   
   
2. The arbitration system tends to heavily favour the company rather than the consumer.
   
   
3. Since your right to pool similar complaints together is taken away, the amount of damage you can do to a company that has wronged you significantly is limited to those who are willing to arbitrate.
   

Why should I care? Other companies do it too!

By learning about this I hope that you will be more conscious about these arbitration clauses and how anti-consumer they are. You can't change the past, but you surely can't predict the future either.

TL;DR: You have thirty days from this announcement or account creation to e-mail: arbitration-opt-out@discord.com if you wish to keep your rights to class action lawsuit and avoid going through an arbitrator. This is pretty much Discord covering their asses if they get hacked and data is accessed. Lines up nicely with their store's launch.

 

[Dreamland]

Feels good to be a eurofag, getting taxed out of the ass finally pays off.

 

[Ruin]

To be fair at least they're asking politely to violate your rights instead of violating them anyway and then laughing then you complain like Google does.

 

[Khayyam]

LAAAAAND OF THE FREEEEEEE

*Canned European laughter*

 

[Haramburger]

Might as well go back to ventrilo then, at least admins have an excuse to be smug when they're paying for the server but discord admins & mods are powertripping over nothing like redditors.

 

[Kirito]

That shit won't hold up in court

 

[Luigi]

That shit won't hold up in court

Hopefully yes but the OP brings that point up so I would be cautious. Opt-out is only valid for 30 days and apparently doesn't remove anything from your account for doing so, may as well send them a quick e-mail.

 

[Takayuki Yagami]

I’m pretty sure that’s not enforcable.

 

[AF 802]

I’m pretty sure that’s not enforcable.

In the European Union and certain parts of Canada (Quebec, etc), I'm pretty sure it isn't.

As part of AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion however, it's allowed in the US.

 

[Anonymus Fluhre]

Thankfully Steam all but cloned their messenger other than bots I believe so people will start going back there.

 

[datway]

This only effects citizens of the USA as far as I can tell. The rest of the world has legal protections for consumers

 

[Poiseon]

Hmm. Discord being sneaky fucks. The way Discord is being used by more and more people for things other than gaming, (Like Kraut and his Gay OPs Server.) has really inflated the go of these guys, hasn't it? "So many users, so many possibilities... Oh fuck if something happens we could get our asses fucked in court!"

 

[Slap47]

That shit won't hold up in court

But will the anybody be willing to challenge the might of China?