cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/10799766

(Edit: Cross-posted OP (link above) was mod removed by the Discord forum ‘admin’ on 2024-01-19 as being “False claim, false interpreted”, so the above link will no longer work.)

Recently read this on a Steam game’s reviews section …

User Comment…

The game’s Discord REQUIRES your personal phone number to get access at all. This is a very intrusive, and 100% unnecessary requirement, in order to just be able to interact with others about the game, it’s content, player experiences, and many other things. It’s also intrusive in regards to being able to contribute any input to help other players in any way at all.

Dev Response…

It’s Discord that’s asking you for verification of the account. We’re not getting your phone number. This is standard practice on bigger servers that allows for a better user experience, filtering bots/ spam accounts, trolls, etc.

Could companies please STOP lying about it being Discord’s choice, its not, is the Discord server’s choice to ask for it.

Its a “Verification Levels” setting that the server op sets, and they have multiple options that they can choose from, its not an on/off switch. They can dial it back one notch and still have spam/bot protections.

The only difference between “High” and “Highest” verification levels is the addition of asking for a phone number, all other features of “High” is in “Highest”, and “Highest” has no other extra features besides asking for the phone number.

Makes it really hard to have an pseudonym account on the Internet, for gaming purposes, and then be asked for your real phone number. I don’t need to be tracked 24/7.

  • Cora! :D@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3315·
    11 months ago

    it sucks, and it is absolutely necessary for some communities. i work for a small game company and we have one or two people that have gone to extreme lengths to contribute hate and saltiness to everyone there. im talking dozens of alt accounts made over the course of years. discord provides the tools for these verification paths. its a choice on behalf of the discord managers to enforce the different levels of verification, but it is absolutely discord that stores and verifies that data. we’ve tried other methods before, like alt identifier bots, and ive been in communities that do personal ID verification, and neither of those are trustworthy. discord is doing their best, and the kinds of people that complain about these things either are ignorant of the challenges such communities face, or are themselves the problem.

    • philpo@feddit.deEnglish
      144·
      11 months ago

      As Discord is still unable to provide a GDPR compliant process for the phone number thing (and let’s not even start about personal ID), if I were a small game dev I would rather not make myself liable the way one does when using this - it’s simply fucking expensive.

      • thoughts3rased@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        103·
        11 months ago

        But it’s not the game dev that handles the information, so the game studio wouldn’t be at fault. The game dev never gets that info so isn’t storing anything. Discord would be liable for any GDPR infractions.

        • philpo@feddit.deEnglish
          62·
          11 months ago

          Nope, doesn’t work that way. The game dev is offering a networked service (community,support,etc.)in his name/trademark/brand and therefore is therefore liable for the data protection, it doesn’t matter at all if the dev is the data holder or not - that’s up to the dev to manage contractually with discord.

          The concept of “not holding the data, not liable for the data” has been turned down by various high court rulings by now - Amazon and Microsoft amongst others have tried it and lost.

          • thoughts3rased@sopuli.xyzEnglish
            33·
            11 months ago

            Except that’s not how it’s working here. The only “contract” is the EULA that the developer agrees to when creating their discord account.

            The developer doesn’t collect or store the data, nor have they entered an agreement with discord for them specifically to collect this data. The game developer does not sell access to the discord server (a violation of the EULA). All they have done is use a feature on Discord, available to every user and bound to the terms of both the EULA and Discord’s privacy policy.

            If what you said was true, then any individual that enables the highest level of protection on any server of any size would end up being liable. This simply is not true. It would also mean that the lowest setting would also leave them liable as an email is stored, which is also not true.

            It would also be incredibly hard to determine exactly what they’re liable for. Is it all the users who have Discord? All the members in their server? What if a user is in multiple servers with phone/email verification turned on?

            Discord collects this information as part of their service for their verification purposes, including 2FA. The implication for the developer is nothing more than a flag on an account.

            The difference between the developer and Microsoft/Amazon is that those two companies, while yes they don’t store it on their own servers, collect the data for use in their services for their profit for services they sell, run ads on, or collect more data to sell on. The game developer does not run discord, they do not sell discord, they have little agency over that server in discord, and is a service that discord provides. The game developer could pull out at any point and the service would still exist because it is not theirs.

            TL;DR - The developer is not liable in the same way that X users aren’t liable for people who verify their phone number following them. It’s not their service, and the Discord EULA and Privacy Policy apply.

            • planish@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              41·
              11 months ago

              But if the developer makes a Discord “server” for their game community, they are telling Discord to set up a service. If the developer encourages people to join it and retains moderation rights, they’re taking that service they ordered from Discord and providing it to other people. If the developer failed to get some legally required in their jurisdiction contractual terms from Discord about what Discord can and can’t do with data on the people who use the service, the developer could get in trouble when they provide that service to people without the service following local laws.

              • thoughts3rased@sopuli.xyzEnglish
                42·
                11 months ago

                In that case, is a YouTuber liable for the GDPR failings of Google? Of course they aren’t. It’s the same here.

                Is McDonald’s liable for the GDPR failings of X? They have an account with their name and brand on it. They even pay X for a golden checkmark.

                Is Taylor Swift or UGM liable for the GDPR failings of Spotify?

                Are individual eBay sellers liable for the GDPR failings of eBay.

                I could go on, but you don’t quite seem to realise what the implications of what you’re saying are if they are true. You’re basically making every user liable for any GDPR on any service that collects any data. This isn’t the case, or businesses wouldn’t use these services.

                • planish@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                  2·
                  11 months ago

                  As long as what is going on here is basically comparable to what is going on when a company uses a third-party service as a peer to individuals, then yes, the company probably isn’t somehow responsible for what the service is doing. Government Twitter pages have been found to legally constitute public forums, but that was in the context of restricting the government from blocking people. The person whose page it is still don’t really run the place and probably isn’t responsible for the actions of the platform.

                  But if a company hires another company to build and operate a communication platform for it (more of a Mailchimp or Invision Community situation), then you probably have a data controller-data processor style relationship.

                  So, is Discord more like Spotify or is it more like Mailchimp?

              • sirfancy@lemmy.worldEnglish
                22·
                11 months ago

                I’m sorry, but it’s probably in your best interest to do some research and actually read the discord Terms of Service and Privacy Policy before arguing about something you lack knowledge in. Creators of a Discord server are not responsible for members’ data that they send to Discord. That relationship is between Discord and the Member, not the creator of a server. Any “contractual agreement” you are talking about is covered when you click “I agree” when creating an account, the devs’ accounts included.

                This is a ridiculous argument that has a correct answer that Discord themselves will tell you.

                Source: CASP+ Certified

                • planish@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                  2·
                  11 months ago

                  Does the server operator avoid any responsibility for data protection by just having the actual physical copies of all the data they do have access to (user names, post contents, etc.) physically live over at Discord? If the company president’s PC is hacked and someone steals copies of all the personal information in support chats that were conducted over Discord, or the contents of private channels where people posted their home addresses for Secret Santa, or whatever, can the company get out of having any sort of data breach disclosure obligations because the data was really Discord’s data?

                  • sirfancy@lemmy.worldEnglish
                    1·
                    11 months ago

                    I’ll be honest, I don’t even know what you’re asking. Discord owns all data on Discord. Server “owners” do not own anything from a data security standpoint. If you are asking a question in good faith, please rephrase it into smaller sentences. If you are arguing in bad faith, I have no desire to continue this thread.

    • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      33·
      11 months ago

      discord is doing their best, and the kinds of people that complain about these things either are ignorant of the challenges such communities face, or are themselves the problem

      Did you really have to end a decent comment on a personal attack?

      Have you not considered that people just want to keep their anonymity for other reasons?

      That asking for such a personal piece of information, that has ramifications if it gets out in the wild, for such a minor thing like a discussion of a video game website, wouldn’t want to give their phone number? (Lots of server hacks these days on the news where people’s personal information gets out on the dark web, etc.)

      I can’t prove a negative, that I’m not something, but for what it’s worth, I’m not the kind of person you described. I’m a retired computer programmer who is a decent human being.

    • chalupapocalypse@lemmy.worldEnglish
      725·
      11 months ago

      Or you could just ban people when they get out of line like we’ve done since the dawn of time, dont act like modding a discord is a high level job