Ask HN: Discord banned me with no recourse

[asdojasdosadsa]

I recently tried to make a separate work account in Discord. To do so I created a new account with my main accounts phone number. This caused discord to delete my primary account phone number and used it for the new account.

However, this alone caused me to be instantly banned. After reaching out to support, they basically told that me I could not use my present phone number for verification and that they couldn't tell me why, and couldn't help me further with that.

I would really like to keep my primary Discord account, is there anything I can do about it?

I have contacted Discord support through their ticket system twice, I have contacted Discord on Twitter (DM); but to no avail

[JonathanBeuys]

I don't get it.

We keep seeing these dystopian stories again and again and again. Does anybody really believe it will ever stop? Or will we all live in fear of losing a lot of work and valuable connections by being banned from one of our social accounts?

I already lost one Instagram account that I put a lot of work into. One day, Insta suddenly asked for my birthday. After me putting it in, all I saw is "Sorry, this page isn't available." and thats it. Whenever I try to log in, all I get is "Sorry, this page isn't available.". Some kind of ban or bug. I dunno. I never managed to get it back. Feels very 1984.

But when say "Ok, let's build social tools where the user owns their social graph via cryptographic proof" then there is nothing but (blind?) hate.

Sometimes there are real discussions. Then the main argument is always "But what if you lose your private key?"

Well, we could build something like Discord (FB, Twitter, Insta, HN, you name it) where losing our private key throws us back to the current system. So if the platform owner (say a DAO) "decides" to deplatform you (say via a DAO vote) you can use your private key to prohibit it.

This way, you can only become deplatformed if the platform decides to deplatform you AND you lose your private key.

If you only lose your private key, then you can ask the platform to please transfer your account to a new private key. Then the usual authentification mechanisms (email, phone, id etc) kick in.

I could sleep way better if I knew that two have to mess up for me to lose my digital life. Me and the platform.

[moss2]

Another idea would be legislature. Have these online public spaces serve under the same laws as real-life public spaces (museums, parks et cetera).

If a town banned you from the train station because you refuse to give them your phone number, that would open them up to being sued. That should absolutely apply to Discord, Google Mail and Amazon AWS.

[pjc50]

Unfortunately as we've seen from email, if there's no system for silencing posters you get drowned in spam. The history evolved as follows, and this is how I'd expect it to go for any "decentralized" comms system:

- various private blocklists pop up identifying alleged spammers. These have a false positive rate, but they're useful enough to become popular

- deliverability starts to become an issue; some people can't deliver because they're on a blocklist

- people start to notice that a big, popular service has both good antispam and good deliverability

- after a while, everyone's back on big, popular services which occasionally false-positive ban people.

[cloudwalk9]

Discord Trust and Safety in particular is downright useless. I feel I should share my story. It's a personal hell I've been stuck in for a while.

I'm disabled from severe depression resistant to first line treatments, bedridden a lot of the time, and I rely on the platform for most of my social interaction and resources for my hobbies, as far as I can pursue them of course. Discord is invaluable and is basically a monopoly in my cultural bubble.

On Jan 13, they disabled a 7 year old early supporter account with an active Nitro subscription with the reason "Your account posted content that sexualized individuals under the age of 18, or was involved in servers dedicated to such unacceptable content". I've never done this. I learned a lot of people were getting disabled for being in a server that they haven't touched in years and it went rogue or was raided and that stuff was posted there, so I figured I was a victim of a carpet bombing and it was a one-off.

But they continued to disable every new account (12 so far, I lost count). Most of the accounts were disabled in the last two weeks. They left me alone for 6 months until Sep 1 when my 4th account was disabled without the usual explanation email. I made an appeal and not only was it ignored, it was marked solved within 4 hours.

In fact they have not communicated with me at all. They have ignored all of my tickets, have not sent emails for each account that was disabled after the first. Except one time I got an email but the reason was left blank.

A few days ago I made three accounts to try to test ways to get them off my back. One was made on a virtual machine on a VPS located a thousand miles away from me and had no connection to me. Although I did give vague hints to friends that it was me. They banned all three accounts, even the VM one. I had a nervous breakdown knowing I may never be able to participate on the platform again. I also felt like I was being watched.

In the last two weeks it was always the same Discord staff assigning themselves to my appeals, "Violet". This includes the one that was marked solved without communication. And they're supposedly experiencing increased ticket volumes.

I'm not sure what I'm gonna do. Only thing I can hope for is Discord to basically die and everyone moves elsewhere, or they leave me alone.

[quikoa]

Perhaps it's worth to consider taking them to a small claims court. I don't know what the odds of winning are but it's quite the hassle for a company.

[ncmncm]

Slightly off topic, but the US FDA has just approved an analog of the miraculous ketamine depression treatment. Basically you can chug a 4oz /100 ml of dextromethorphan (US brand "Delsym") for the same effect, a couple of weeks' absolute relief via a poorly understood metabolic pathway. "If it works, it works."

I will be eager to hear about others' results. (No effect, + or -, for me, on a smaller dose. Do, always, start with a smaller dose, in case it works badly for you; and check warnings on drug interactions carefully.) Maybe ask your Dr.

[ridgered4]

> A few days ago I made three accounts to try to test ways to get them off my back. One was made on a virtual machine on a VPS located a thousand miles away from me and had no connection to me. Although I did give vague hints to friends that it was me. They banned all three accounts, even the VM one. I had a nervous breakdown knowing I may never be able to participate on the platform again. I also felt like I was being watched.

Curious what the mechanism for identifying the VPS account was. Phone number? Some sort of client signature? I don't use discord.

[steanne]

you may be able to participate in servers that have bridges, like to irc or matrix. that's a minority, though.

[iLoveOncall]

> "Your account posted content that sexualized individuals under the age of 18, or was involved in servers dedicated to such unacceptable content". I've never done this.

You shared furry porn picturing subjects of a questionable age, didn't you?

[dannyw]

There's no foolproof way for them to ban you; something is leaking. Do you know any technical friends why may be able to test ideas?

[theo1996]

>using discord after 2014+2

[ctrlmeta]

The popularity of Discord always surprises me! It takes hard work and time to create an active community. Why put all that hard work and time into a corporate-controlled platform that can lock you out of it anytime they want? How do people feel ok taking such a big risk? Why not use an open protocol like Matrix (or IRC if you're savvy) to form your community?

[gigaflop]

Discoed does a lot of things 'right' for a lot of people.

For gamers, Discord became a no-brainer after not much time. Click to create a server for some friends, send out some invites, and that's pretty much all you need. Built-in game overlay settings, voice chat, and screen sharing. Text and voice channels.

Compare this to the old TeamSpeak/Ventrilo/Mumble era, where you'd need to actually manage the installation, and tell people how to connect.

Discord makes it braindead-easy to get started, and the risks you're talking about affect less than 10% of the userbase, probably. Until a more-open platform provides a better experience, Discord will be here to stay among the masses.

[haunter]

>The popularity of Discord always surprises me! It takes hard work and time to create an active community

Free dedicated voice chat with rich text chat. It was meant to take on Teamspeak, Ventrilo, Mumble etc. And it successfully did.

>or IRC if you're savvy

Totally different use case, not even comparable

[Crosseye_Jack]

Most people want someone else to deal with the hassle. Most people don't want to run their own server(s), so even if people did use IRC or Matrix those people would host their community on servers that are controlled by others who could lock you out of it anytime they wanted.

> How do people feel ok taking such a big risk?

Well for most people they don't see the risks involved and those who are aware of the risks don't believe it will ever happen to them. Just look at Google accounts as an example. People use Gmail, get themselves locked out of them, and lose pretty much all their digital lives all the time but people still happily rely on Gmail.

Some quickly Googled stats about Gmail (take these number with a pinch of salt cause I've not looked into whats supporting these numbers - https://techjury.net/blog/gmail-statistics/ )

> Gmail remains the most popular email platform with over 1.8 billion users worldwide.

> As of April 2022, Gmail holds 29.5% of the email client market share.

> Gmail accounts for 27% of all email opens.

> 75% of all Gmail users access their email on mobile devices.

> 61% of 18-29-year-olds use Gmail.

[bodge5000]

Unless your whole friend group/community also cares about that, you'll have a hard time steering them towards alternatives. Even in cases where the product itself is better, privacy and control aside.

[ajkjk]

Most people don't care about anything you mentioned.

[Suzuran]

Having experience with both, the big win with Discord vs. self-hosted services is that I don't have to directly fight the losing war/arms race vs. organized spam.

[bruce343434]

They really, honestly, don't think it would happen to them. It's not a risk to them in their brains.

[zarzavat]

What alternative is there that has: screen sharing, voice calls, all your friends across every community in one DM list, meaning that you can make group chats across communities?

[BrandoElFollito]

Matrix is great, but does not immediately have a web interface, and this may push back some users.

It is not that it is difficult to use a client (though the authentication i snot obvious - but then I had to think hard about Discord authentication/servers/invitations as well) but everyone is used to have a web interface and mobile clients to start with.

[EamonnMR]

People will do anything for the tiniest drop of illusionary power and will take the shortest path to it.

[hotgeart]

Same for Youtube, Twitch or else. Because the ppl are there, and it's easier and gives you the spotlight at no cost.

[vouaobrasil]

It's just because other people are there and it's a trend. That is why most people do things.

[namlem]

Discord has a ton of useful features. It's a very powerful application.

[ropeladder]

I triggered some Discord flag where now they require me to give them my phone number to log in via the web. I won't give it to them. Luckily I have a still-logged-in instance on my home computer, do I can still use that for the time being. Super frustration though.

[kouteiheika]

Same here. Still logged in through Firefox, but can't login through Chrome anymore. Exact same computer, exact same IP address. I contacted support and they refused to help me, quote:

> I just checked with my team, and upon review of your account, it appears that our detection system has triggered successfully and we will not be removing the phone verification requirement on your account. You'll be required to register a phone number to your Discord account in order to continue the use of it.

This is *after* I explained that I'm still logged in and can fully use Discord in another browser without registering a phone number.

I tried to also get an answer as to whether I'll be locked out of my account if I log out of my account in Firefox, but they didn't tell me.

[_V_]

I have the very same problem. It seems that my IP @ home was somehow flagged and I was unable to access Discord without giving them phone number.

I will never give my phone to Discord/Twitter etc - just a matter of principle.

[GoblinSlayer]

Most likely data mining. Google does the same.

[mdrzn]

Seems like it's an old issue that hasn't been fixed [0]

[0] https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/3600556...

[PaulKeeble]

When they were doing the massive bans in November/December/January it looked like it was to try and boost their new user stats for the rumoured upcoming public sale. But more and more it just looks like they have an errant security algorithm that bans legitimate customers with no recourse. I suspect much of Discord's new user signups are people who have had accounts banned and then have to make a new account, there probably isn't much real growth happening now and there is growing disquiet about their terrible customer support.

[msoucy]

Yeah you're SOL. Discord has a habit of banning people, saying that they investigated themselves and determined themselves to be correct in banning you, and then deleting accounts.

[jimktrains2]

Somehow my phone number was removed from my account and now i cannot add it again. When asking support why it was removed they've responded multiple times with the same canned email saying they can't remove the phone number requirement. I repeated said I don't want it removed, just to know why my number was removed and how to add it back, but yet i receive the same canned message.

[throwawayuydw]

This happened to me - they absolutely will not unblock your # unless you know somebody who works there beyond the support queues. I was told by a friend who did a stint at Discord that standard flow is churn new accounts, and that's acceptable because their users are already used to name churn.

[Nuzzerino]

Wait, are you implying they’re doing it to cook the books for inflating the total # of accounts on the platform? Somebody call Elon.

[gaws]

> I would really like to keep my primary Discord account, is there anything I can do about it?

Why? Discord has no obligation to its users, and it's a volatile platform to conduct any mission-critical or business-related communications. The best thing to do is to stop using it.

[_V_]

I have also tried to contact support and it was painful.

At first you get an automated response from some bot which is unhelpfull. After some more diggin and poking around you get to a human but they just told me that they don't know details about flagging and cannot do anything in regards to these processes. So basically useless.

I really don't understand why it got so popular

edit: typo

[Sebb767]

> I really don't understand why it got so popular

Because enough people never contact support for it to not be a major problem, I assume.

[wodenokoto]

So you can just snipe peoples accounts if you know their phone number?

[chrisked]

Write abuse@ and you stand a good chance they revert this quickly.

[dannyw]

No chance whatsoever, they legitimately don't have a flow for unbanning people outside of knowing an employee.

[superkuh]

Stop depending entirely on corporate systems for your personal communication and recreation (I say on HN...).

And absolutely stop calling for the use of violence (regulations by government) in these situations. Just because Bob says you cannot come over to the weekly neighborhood BBQs in his backyard does not mean it is ethical for you to call up your police friend to threaten Bob and to make sure you can go. It doesn't matter if you're right and he's wrong. It doesn't matter if everyone in the neighborhood continues to chose to go to his BBQs and you can't. It's still Bob's backyard and he isn't inititing violence against you. Don't do it to him.

[wojciii]

My discord user was initially blocked as they thought I was a bot. I had to write to support several times before it was unblocked and it wasted two weeks of my life.

Discord sucks. The only reason that I use it is because of work.

[cookingrobot]

My idea is we should regulate a lot of online services like we do landlords.

I remember years ago Microsoft thought someone was pirating their software so they started reading their emails looking for evidence. That seemed wrong to me. A landlord wouldn’t be allowed to snoop through your drawers if they thought you were stealing, they’d need to convince the police to get a warrant.

And in this discord case, once a company agrees to create an account for you and start providing service, they shouldn’t be allowed to “evict” you overnight for no good reason. There should be a proper process with protections when ending the relationship.

[DrWumbo]

Legislation has actually taken us in the opposite direction. With FOSTA/SESTA online platforms were required to make an effort to go through user content. I think a better analogy to use is these platforms being like bars or cafes. You don't expect the wait staff or bartender to snoop on your conversations, but if law enforcement asks what they know they might be forced to comply. If a bar notices you pimping and doesn't act, they could be liable.

[yieldcrv]

Honestly at this point I just went to the cell phone store and added a new line with a new sim card

Its like $5-20 dollars/mo, circumvents phone number based account barriers, circumvents voip and burner number discrimination

each iphone has 2 sim card slots, can give dates and strippers a phone number that doesn't have green bubbles when texted, amplifying my broad population legitimacy by an order of magnitude (its USA obviously it matters), while still keeping them segregated

I pay more for an uber, or a drink, or some stupid SaaS seat. just a social and internet freedom tax.

at this point just make it normal

[chmod775]

I did the same thing (also wanting to create a work account) with a similar result. Luckily it was the new account that got banned instead of the old one.

I hadn't added the phone number to my old account and when I later wanted to do so I was informed it could only be assigned to one.

So I removed the number from the new account, which immediately got banned, and then added it to my old account without a problem.

Something about "new account without phone" discord seems to dislike.

My old account also had some money spent with them, which possibly saved it.

[10g1k]

Discord, Reddit, and Twitter are notorious for being infested with pedos as moderators. You're better off without them. And there are alternatives.

[senko]

We really need a platform that would run open source for you as a service.

In many cases there are reasonable OSS alternatives (here, Discord itself!) but not everyone wants to be a part-time sysadmin.

Free/Libre Open-Source Software as a Service, anyone?