Five hours after Charlie Kirk was shot this week, an Atlanta man got a phone call from an Illinois police officer asking about a photo he shared with a couple of close friends on a private Discord chat. The Atlanta man, who asked not to be identified, says the post was merely a confirmation that he had purchased the same T-shirt that the accused killer wore (from an Illinois-based online shop).
Social media companies are generally forbidden by law from divulging users’ private communications to the government without a traditional legal process (e.g., court order). But there’s an exception: in perceived emergencies, social media platforms can proactively and “voluntarily” hand over private messages in response to what’s called an “emergency disclosure request” (EDR).
Discord, I am told, did not respond to any EDR here; but when I asked them directly if they’d provided law enforcement with information to traditional legal process, they declined to respond on-record.
The FBI, or the intelligence community, evidently is monitoring Discord private messaging, even from people who have broken no law.
Full blown Orwellian world. Run for local government and stop this shit.
The largest populated areas are left leaning. If they ae controlled by democratic socialist, we can restrict this shit. Just by pure numbers.
This was what should have been a private conversation though, not public.
It was said in a Discord chat. Discord chats are not private, you agree to that in the TOS when you sign up.
There are always people monitoring the chats, voice and video, looking for illegal activities. Something was said in that conversation that their algorithm flagged for human review and that person sent it to law enforcement.
You have zero privacy on any social media. Everything that you write is viewable by the service owner and they actively look for things to report to law enforcement.
Companies pay lip service to your privacy, but at the end of the day they’ll turn you in the instant it suits them. If you want privacy, you use encryption so that your privacy is guaranteed by mathematics.