morphballganon, 10 months ago

Can’t you just hide the post and move on?

Rognaut, 10 months ago

I actually did that. Every single time I opened the app. It just came back.

morphballganon, 10 months ago

Which app?

Try blocking the user/community?

infyrin, 10 months ago

On one hand, I get it because Lemmy has been constantly bombarded with DDoS attacks to where, one moment you’re viewing something, next click and it’s back to that familiar screen of checking the browser, you and host. So it is annoying and I get why admins would want to announce and bring things elsewhere.

HOWEVER

What would’ve made it more fitting, is if they picked another federated platform, like Mastodon, to announce things.

Franzia, 10 months ago

I have hated discord so much and for so long. It collects all my data, controls and censors servers, and its run by shitty people who keep their shareholders close by.

I use Matrix and it has the potential to be a lot of fun (use a frontend that isn’t Element and it gets way better) but it has limited instances. Yeah, I’d be extremely grateful if Lemmy communities had Matrix Rooms as opposed to Discord Servers.

spikespaz, 10 months ago

What matrix app for Android and desktop Linux? In my experience they all have deal breaker bugs.

q47tx, 10 months ago

Yes! Fuck discord, embrace matrix.

ZeroXHunter, 10 months ago

Yeah, just use matirx!

Spacellary, 10 months ago

Discord is a horrible company, it should be avoided at all costs, why is it being advertised over Matrix?

In my opinion users should be made aware of those channels instead.

regalia, 10 months ago

Reddit or Twitter would even be more preferable then Discord.

BlazingFlames6073, 10 months ago

I just migrated to a different instance and now see this lol. I agree though that it is odd

TheKarion, 10 months ago

It’s the truth folks

CantSt0pPoppin, 10 months ago

Sure, Lemmy does not offer end-to-end encryption by default, which means that your messages could be intercepted by someone who is able to access your ISP’s network or the Lemmy server. A red flag for me is the fact that Lemmy stores some user data on their servers, such as your IP address and email address. This data could be used as breadcrumbs.

Lemmy may not sell user data to third parties, but what about the servers? There have been some security vulnerabilities found in Lemmy’s code. These exploits could result in servers being hijacked or user accounts compromised.

So, what does all this mean? It means that it is your personal responsibility to take steps to protect your privacy and security when using Lemmy. This includes using the encryption feature, being aware of the risks associated with using Lemmy, and carefully evaluating the privacy policies of any platform before you use it.

I know it’s a lot to keep track of, but it’s important. Your privacy is your business, and it’s up to you to protect it. So take these things seriously, and don’t let anyone take your privacy away from you.

About the concerns with Discord:

Creating a post saying, ‘everyone else does it’ and locking it is funky in my book. I, like you, I am all about transparency and understanding. I fully understand your anxiety, and it is a bit warranted. I am not trying to sound like an alarmist.

On the subject of Discord, it is amazing and disturbing how much data is curated and harvested. Their business model is quite mysterious. No one really knows what their real motives are. Discord shrouds itself and does not provide clear and concise privacy audits or statements on the subject.

You are concerned about your privacy, and rightfully so. Lemmy is designed for privacy from the ground up when used properly and only with encryption functions enabled. Discord, on the other hand, unfortunately has a stranglehold on the instant messaging backbone.

CVE-2021-29465: This vulnerability allowed attackers to overwrite any file on the system with the command results. This could have been used to steal user data, install malware, or take control of Discord servers.

CVE-2021-29466: This vulnerability allowed attackers to read local files from the server. This could have been used to steal user data, such as passwords or chat logs.

CVE-2021-34491: This vulnerability allowed attackers to bypass Discord’s rate limit, which could have been used to send spam or DDoS attacks.

CVE-2022-22936: This vulnerability allowed attackers to take control of Discord servers by exploiting a flaw in the Discord Token Generator.

These are just a few examples, but I would be lying if I said they were not patched. That being said there is no telling how many zero-day security risks are out there at this time, so it is important to stay vigilant and ask the hard questions to ensure that your privacy is protected.

Lastly, you could totally start a community here on .world for Discord alternatives. It’s a easy breezy lemon squeezy way to find people who are also into privacy and security.

brandon, 10 months ago

I just wanted to address a single point from your comment:

Lemmy does not offer end-to-end encryption by default, which means that your messages could be intercepted by someone who is able to access your ISP’s network

If the Lemmy server is using HTTPS, nobody at your ISP or anywhere else between you and the Lemmy server should be able to read your messages (they could see that you are exchanging data with a particular host, but not the contents).

ninchuka, 10 months ago

Glad someone mentioned this already, not so surprised OP hasn’t either updated their comment or replied

kttnpunk, 10 months ago

It’s a unabashed admission from the admin that this site isn’t taken seriously, nor the FOSS mindset that built the infrastructure + most of the userbase. Real disappointing for sure, but especially considering the other decisions that have been made recently on this platform -it’s gonna be a ghost town soon.

Blaze, 10 months ago

it’s gonna be a ghost town soon.

Curious to see how it will evolve. I guess more and more people disagreeing with this decision might leave, we’ll see how it goes.

Thedogspaw, 10 months ago

Why are we telling people to go somewhere else that makes no sense

FlyingSquid, 10 months ago

Not saying I agree here, because I don’t, but I think the idea is that lemmy.world is down so much that they wanted a stable platform for meta stuff.

I might be more sympathetic to that idea if they made announcements on the Discord and on Lemmy at as close to the same time as possible, but they don’t.

Thedogspaw, 10 months ago

They should make announcements on another instance of lemmy then thats the whole point if one instance is down you can use a different one

qevlarr, 10 months ago

Don’t care, tbh. I would prefer if people would be less uptight on these things. Let people have Lemmy and Discord, if they want. They’ll get there, if we stop being dicks to people who are still finding out.

AlmightySnoo, 10 months ago

What people don’t get is that self-hosting a Discord-like is not a solution. The idea is to have a fallback in case the server goes down, and Discord serves that role well.

antik, 10 months ago

Snoo about to collect downvotes like pokemons

AlmightySnoo, 10 months ago

Bring it on!

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/d5ea5a38-1ec9-4573-97c6-3d231f2ed006.png

deweydecibel, 10 months ago

An admin complaining about downvotes doesn’t inspire confidence in the running of the instance.

Thekingoflorda, 10 months ago

it’s a joke, if you didn’t notice

NathanielThomas, 10 months ago

A fallback for what? Discord is a chat program that usually devolves into garbage memes and off-topic nonsense instantly.

Jaded, 10 months ago

It’s so the admins can communicate when the server is down. Would you rather they use Twitter?

Blaze, 10 months ago

Mastodon?

AlmightySnoo, 10 months ago

which instance?

Blaze, 10 months ago

Why does it matter?

joinmastodon.org/servers lists a lot of options.

AlmightySnoo, 10 months ago

Why does it matter?

Because it needs to be DDOS-resistant and be able to handle at least 128k users. Otherwise it’s not a fallback in case lemmy.world is targeted again. There are groups who hate LW and still want to take it down, if they know that their alternative communication channel is also some other self-hosted service they’re going to target that one too.

So please list one instance which would satisfy these criteria.

Blaze, 10 months ago

Isn’t content from Mastodon federated across the instances? Meaning that LW could just open an account on any Mastodon server (not their own, to avoid to handle both at the same time in case of issues)?

Or are you saying that Mastodon is as DDoS vulnerable as Lemmy, making the server that would host the LW account a DDoS target?

Edit: you edited in the meantime, but I guess our exchange still makes sense

AlmightySnoo, 10 months ago

So what I understand is that you’re proposing to play cat and mouse with DDOS attackers then?

Or are you saying that Mastodon is as DDoS vulnerable as Lemmy, making the server that would host the LW account a DDoS target?

Exactly.

Blaze, 10 months ago

Just to clarify, if someone is targeting LW, and Mastodon is as DDoS vulnerable as Lemmy, why wouldn’t they attack mastodon.world as well?

Mastodon.world has 99,97% uptime: status.mastodon.world

AlmightySnoo, 10 months ago

why wouldn’t they attack mastodon.world as well?

Because it’s not being advertised as LW’s alternative communication channel, hence they likely don’t see the need to target it.

AnUnusualRelic, 10 months ago

Why not use IRC in that case, like normal Internet persons?

Draconic_NEO, 10 months ago

Don’t we already have a Matrix Channel for that? Even if they wanted a lemmy.world specific Space it’s still Far better than proprietary Discord. I mean isn’t it already encouraged to link Matrix for secure messaging, why not just use a Space on Matrix for lemmy.world support and communication.

douglasg14b, 10 months ago

Discord is a chat program that usually devolves into garbage memes and off-topic nonsense instantly.

This… Is somehow different from Lemmy other than the chat vs forum aspect?

NathanielThomas, 10 months ago

Are you asking me if night is different than day?

Draconic_NEO, 10 months ago

Uh He never said it has to be self-hosted though, so this already sounds like a strawman argument. Only one who has mentioned self hosting in this thread is you.

People want something that is secure and respects privacy, they could simply use the Matrix channel, or create their own Matrix space specific to lemmy.world , both of these would be better options for the users than to try and get them to use Discord which is a proprietary corporate service that is not only prone to security problems but also has some serious privacy concerns due to being corporate owned.

AphoticDev, 10 months ago

Fucking hell, this again.

Listen, you people need to realize a lot of people are here on Lemmy because Reddit screwed them over, not because Lemmy is open source or less of a privacy issue or whatever your reasons for using it are.

So you hate Discord. That’s fine, you’re allowed to! But pitching a fit because everyone else doesn’t hate it isn’t gonna convince anyone to stop using it.

antik, 10 months ago

Especially since this thread is about removing the pinned post. And a lot of the people downvoting are from other instances, they don’t even see it pinned it’s just ‘discord bad’. Which is literally the top comment in this thread.

Blaze, 10 months ago

If I may, we are all probably alt juggling at the moment, the fact that you see people interacting with account from other instances does not mean the people don’t have an account on LW

dan, 10 months ago

Agreed. I am posting from my personal Lemmy instance but I also have a lemmy.world account. I don’t like the direction lemmy.world has been moving in and I am opposed to the way they use and promote Discord.

shertson, 10 months ago

I don’t hate Discord, but I do hate that they seem to require my phone number. I tried joining Discord over a year ago. Upon first log in they claimed that there was suspicious activity that required me to verify the account by giving them my phone number. This was from a computer, I never even visited the site on my phone let alone use the mobile app. I gave up and forgot about until a few months ago and decided to try again. They still wanted my phone number, email wasn’t good enough. I contacted their support email and was told that there was no other option but to provide a phone number and that they couldn’t override it. So I told them to delete my account and that I would never use their service. It took two weeks for them to do it.

There are very few situations in which an app needs my phone number in my eyes. And a chat application is not one of them. Just like I refused to use the official Reddit app because it wanted access to my contacts and location. I am not a super privacy nut, but the whole hog approach of gathering my info is not acceptable. I would rather pay for the service. I would have paid for Reddit if they had gone that route rather than dropping 3rd Party apps. Instead I’m on Lemmy.

So fucking hell yes, this again.

There are alternatives to Discord.

unconfirmedsourcesDOTgov, 10 months ago

Everyone wants your phone number now because it’s a decent approach to combating spammers. Note that I said decent, not perfect. It’s relatively easy for a company to determine if a phone number is owned by a specific person vs. a voip company that enables spammers to use hundreds of new numbers, so now we’re asking everyone for theirs. SMS is also used for the lowest form of multi factor authentication, so they get to claim that it’s a security decision, not one for marketing, etc and because of network effects, we all have to choose to either go along or miss out.

Agree that it’s super annoying and certainly not privacy-centric, but Discord is owned by Microsoft, what can we expect? Innovation?

shertson, 10 months ago

I understand the ease for choosing phone numbers. I would love it if they gave me another option to validate.

For a community like Lemmy, I would prefer that they choose a different chat system, one that doesn’t require me to validate with a phone number. Matrix is an option and doesn’t require phone numbers.

kaito, 10 months ago

Discord being owned by Microsoft, now that’s news to me. I don’t think that’s a thing, at least not yet.

unconfirmedsourcesDOTgov, 10 months ago

For some reason I was convinced they had sold out, but it looks like you’re right, they’re still independent for the time being. Thanks for the note!

deweydecibel, 10 months ago

This is shitty, but not common.

Certain channels will require a phone verified account, but most won’t.

Did you ever try on a phone or a different computer in a different location? With a different email?

shertson, 10 months ago

I did try on phone, laptop, and desktop. I didn’t try with another email. Perhaps the channel required it, but since I was only trying to join Discord for that one channel, it wasn’t worth pursuing further. I sought and got support for my issue in other places.

haagch, 10 months ago

If discord ever decides that your account is “suspicious” (they won’t tell you why they decide it), you will be completely locked out of your account and you can not do anything on the website unless you provide your phone number for verification. I have one such accounts too that I created for joining the community of a certain game. These are the only two screens you can access on this account:

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/b5d2cdd5-3f40-4b67-84b8-481270a0a175.pnghttps://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/00126ff4-d2a5-4453-ac94-eb3c48de3bda.png

They also helpfully tell you that you can only verify a single account with your phone number, so if I wanted to verify this account for a gaming community, I would de-verify the account I use for work, so I’m not going to do that, lest it looks “suspicious” to discord and they delete my account - For example a while ago the person who created one of the discord community “servers” we use for work got their discord account deleted (discord wouldn’t tell us a reason).

The point isn’t to bash the discord company or service, I’m just stating things that happen if you choose discord.

vonbaronhans, 10 months ago

Must be server specific. I’ve used Discord for years and never had to add a phone number.

Tenesto, 10 months ago

Your requirement to use software is based around whether or not it requires your phone number for verification?

Man some people draw really weird lines.

flamingarms, 10 months ago

What makes it a weird line for them to draw?

cubedsteaks, 10 months ago

are you in the uk? Cause that might make a difference. I’m in the US and a lot of apps use phone numbers for log in.

flamingarms, 10 months ago

I understand a large number of apps request phone number to log in, but that doesn’t explain why it’s a weird line to draw to not engage with that.

cubedsteaks, 10 months ago

so you don’t understand that it’s been normalized?

That’s why its a weird line to draw. Cause its considered normal here.

flamingarms, 10 months ago

I understand it’s been normalized. I’m trying to figure out my hangup with the word “weird”… I guess ultimately I don’t consider it weird for someone to stand against something that’s normalized.

cubedsteaks, 10 months ago

I don’t consider it weird for someone to stand against something that’s normalized

I mean, I agree with that for some things. Like I think its fucking weird that people do celebrity worship, but that’s also considered pretty normal.

but I think in the case of using your phone number to sign in, it’s normalized because its been shown to work as a log in/sign up method. In the US phone numbers are treated like a form of ID as you’re assumed to have a phone in your name, that can be attached to you and your identity. It’s so common place that it’s encouraged to do things that way - so its weird to draw the line there because its then also preventing you from using something, even though the only hold up is that it’s something most people do with no issue.

Magrath, 10 months ago

I think at the very least we could have an open source alternative along with the discord. No reason to completely shutdown the discord.

icedterminal, 10 months ago

One already exists

revolt.chat

Blaze, 10 months ago

Moderation tools are in progress, so probably not good for now: trello.com/b/4e2O7tge/revolt-roadmap

icedterminal, 10 months ago

It has moderation tools already. They’re upgrading and expanding them to be more granular per user feedback.

They’re not absent as your comment leads one to believe.

Blaze, 10 months ago

Thanks for clarifying!

I just mentioned it because I know LW staff wanted extended moderation tools

refurbishedrefurbisher, 10 months ago

matrix.org

I’ve been using it for a very long time now. (Mostly) works really well.

altima_neo, 10 months ago

Yeah I’m here because I like the alternative to Reddit’s bullshit.

I couldn’t care less about Foss. I mean it’s cool, but it’s not why I’m here.

cloud, 10 months ago

Sounds like you are not too smart

cloud, 10 months ago

Reddit screw you over because it’s closed source and centralized. You need to realize that discord it’s just the same if not worst.