from geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml to privacy@lemmy.ml on 28 Oct 09:30
https://lemmy.ml/post/54598472
Finding good Discord servers relevant to your interests can be tough unless you sift through Discord’s own database or get an invite to one.
The popular messaging and chat service is looking to solve that problem with an obvious yet big change to the platform. Discord will now make public servers discoverable through Google Search.
On Tuesday, Discord announced that starting Nov. 16, 2026, all Discoverable Servers will receive a Server Web Page. These public Server Web Pages will include summaries of discussions happening in that public server. In addition, starting in mid-December, some messages within these servers will be made publicly accessible on the Server Web Page. There will be no need for visitors to join the server or even have a Discord account in order to see these messages.
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What the fuck? At least have some LLM summarize conversations… Whatever, it’s not like Discord has any consideration for user privacy
It says there will be summaries.
But is it also going to reveal user messages or only summaries?
I really like these changes. I know quite a few people who refuse to use Discord for obvious reasons I don’t think I have to elaborate on, especially in this community. So soon they can still read about what is going on without having to create an account and join the server.
Another positive note is that these pages might be indexed by search engines, so answers that previously only could be found on Discord by joining the respective server and searching there are now more accessible to everyone.
Of course the primary intent is to show non-discord users what they are missing out on and therefore get them to join the plattform, driving up user numbers, but it still does bring some benefits to everyone as well.
This might mean there will be some useful information appearing online which previously went to forums and has since been lost, but on the other hand this is not great for privacy.
The server owner can choose which channels are displayed on the server page and every user can also choose for themselves if their messages are visible or not. The default setting is that all public channels are visible (which makes sense, since you can already preview discoverable servers before joining, altough this requires an account), the user setting depends on where you are from and if youre account is part of the adult age group. Messages from teens are always hidden and the setting cannot be changed. For adults, it depends on local laws. For example, in the EU visibility is off by default, in the US it’s on.
But, no matter if you’re a teen or an adult, live in the EU or US, you will never see the account that sent the messages on the website. There is no setting for anyone to change that either.
Is this true? Reddit threads show up in search but they still make you log in to view
Edit: looks like Discord plans to make the messages visible to guests. For now at least. I’d say 90% probability they are doing this to cement their platform as a forum replacement, and will enshittify and login-wall everything once they have captured the market
Yes, their blog post states the details of what is and isn’t possible, your choices and it also includes a few servers that can already showcase channels to show off how it will look like. Rust, for example, opted to how their announcement channel publicly on their web page. You can see the posts and reactions it received, but not the user who posted the message or any other user details (like which user used which reaction), you’d still have to join the server to see that.
Is there a way to disable it? I don’t see the settings they mention in the article, but it does say my server is discoverable.
Yes.
For Servers: Server Settings -> Web Presence -> Discoverable Content on the Web has two settings, one for Channel Summaries and one for Channel Messages. Both allow you to select the affected channels or you can flick a toggle for the entire feature
For Users: Settings -> Data & Privacy -> Show my message content from Discoverable channels on web pages
Keep in mind tho that anyone can access all public channels of every discoverable server already anyway, with the change you just no longer need an account to do so, although the web page does only show message content and reactions, not the account that sent the message. To keep your server and its content private you should not have made it discoverable in the first place. And in case you want to change that as well: Server Settings -> Access -> How can people join your server?