Matrix/Element seems the best drop-in replacement for Discord. Can set up chatrooms in Discord "server"-style, or as persistent DMs with others. In the chatrooms, you can make text chat spaces and call spaces. No dedicated voice chat space, you just dont turn on webcam for the call spaces. Pretty sure it uses same voip tech. Selfhostable if you want. Encrypted. Really it is just a barebones but functional Discord. Matrix can be bridged to Discord as well so you can talk between either, should help ease the transition period for anyone jumping ship.
Is there an actually good alternative? I guess we're gonna swap to something on top of Matrix but I would really really like something that has the same streaming/voice chat capability and idioms. Probably half the time I'm using discord I'm in voice chat, and probably half the time I'm doing that I'm screen sharing, is there some way I can keep doing that?
Just my take but if a company is using anything other than RTA server headers [1] for age verification then there are shenanigans afoot. This should be assumed. If it's not palantir it will be some other dark pattern and will only spread like a virus. Numerous entities are salivating at all the opportunities "age verification" will give them. With time a persons PII will end up being shared with a myriad of shady entities and leaked to all-the-bad-people leading to the creation of even more artificial business models that should have never existed in the first place. Do not accept this behavior otherwise a fascist 3rd party will eventually be required for all internet access.
Ideal Solution (that has existed for a very long time): Legislate the requirements for most clients used by young children to look for the RTA server header and trigger parental controls if the parent thinks they should be enabled. It's not perfect, nothing is nor ever will be but using the header solution is entirely private, does not store or leak data and puts the decision into the device owners rather than creating perverse incentives to track everyone. It may actually protect most small children whereas today teens quickly find a work-around and then teach smaller children how to work around these centralized gate-keepers. The current solutions are just about tracking people by real identity and incentivizing teens to commit identity crimes thus feeding the prison industrial complex. Parents are already legally responsible for their offspring. If parents are having difficulty with raising their children that is a different problem and would require a different solution after significant critical thinking.
Less Than Ideal solution: Create a maintain multiple deny-lists of domains that are using 3rd party age verification or gathering personal data in any way shape or form. Incorporate the deny-lists into uBlock and related add-ons.
Non starters: Anything that suggests the 3rd party verification is anonymous and includes cryptographic terminology. It may start off anonymous and with time the verification will include a unique code that can be reversed through some obfuscated method. Anything involving a 3rd party whether directly or indirectly must be entirely rejected.
Reminder that HN is SV centered and therefore everyone and everything is oriented around tribal group think.
Meta was funded by Thiel, yet most of the people in this thread use their products.
The CCP has technology that dwarfs Palantir, but a ton of people in this thread use TikTok, because they don't recognize fascism unless it's perpetrated by somebody that looks like the Nazis they see in movies.
I grew up around brainwashed religious zealots. I hated it. Everything was this moralistic condemnation and guilt by association game, played by people who had absolutely no sense of perspective and had zero interactions outside of there group think circles. Constantly condemning people they don't know and have never met and don't understand.
I've been on HN for 13 years now. It looks more and more like that every day.
This comment will be down voted without any substantive critique other than "I guess you're a fascist too."
Meanwhile, Discord will not have the slightest tiny drop in user numbers, because nobody outside of this moralistic circle jerk cares.
Spot on. I wish this site was never associated with the term hacker because under the thin veneer of people doing cool things with tech, there is today nothing more authoritarian, narrow minded, overconfident and establishment than SV tech culture.
Something I don't quite understand about this Discord fiasco.
Every single thing you ever put into discord via text or voice has already and was already being sold to advertisers. If you were ever logged into Google simultaneously while on Discord it's already linked up to the real information they have about you.
I've just seen numerous things I've talked about or typed about with friends promptly appear on my YouTube feeds.
1. Citation needed. Why would Google be secretly ingesting all of your Discord messages and be using it for... YouTube recommendations? Baader-Meinhof phenomenon is a more likely explanation
2. Already collecting a lot of data is not a reason to collect even more sensitive data. Plenty of people use Discord differently than you do. Anonymously participating in projects that use Discord and never saying anything personal over it, for example. This would possibly remove the ability to do so, for example if Discord's secretive AI decided that an LGBTQ+ project's Discord should be age restricted, and you would be forced to submit enough information to be fully identified and deanonymized, and now some foreign government could build a database that includes your full identity and your affiliation to such project
We need to hold people to account for the company they keep. If your largest investor is known for mining data for fascist regimes and you are in the business of verifying data authentication then it not guilt by association it is the smoking gun and best to avoid
"You're free to use something else" doesn't work when it was legal pressure that introduced age verification. All the something else's will eventually be forced to follow.
Yes, and? people are free not to be concerned if they don't think it's a problem. They're free to say they're not concerned. They're free to suggest others shouldn't be concerned. They're free to phrase that suggestion in a highly dismissive way. They're free to add distracting noise by pointing out the obvious. They're free to draw attention to noise by pointing at it. They're free to feel bad about doing it. They're free to click the submit button anyway. Sorry.
Matrix/Element seems the best drop-in replacement for Discord. Can set up chatrooms in Discord "server"-style, or as persistent DMs with others. In the chatrooms, you can make text chat spaces and call spaces. No dedicated voice chat space, you just dont turn on webcam for the call spaces. Pretty sure it uses same voip tech. Selfhostable if you want. Encrypted. Really it is just a barebones but functional Discord. Matrix can be bridged to Discord as well so you can talk between either, should help ease the transition period for anyone jumping ship.
Stoat, Zulip, and Mattermost are other options.
Element was a bit too raw for me - mobile wasn’t great either. Ymmv
Zulip is definitely not an alternative to discord but I'll check out the others.
There are different types of communities on discord. Zulip will be a good idea for some of them.
For mobile, you can use FluffyChat, it's another Matrix app
Is there an actually good alternative? I guess we're gonna swap to something on top of Matrix but I would really really like something that has the same streaming/voice chat capability and idioms. Probably half the time I'm using discord I'm in voice chat, and probably half the time I'm doing that I'm screen sharing, is there some way I can keep doing that?
Just my take but if a company is using anything other than RTA server headers [1] for age verification then there are shenanigans afoot. This should be assumed. If it's not palantir it will be some other dark pattern and will only spread like a virus. Numerous entities are salivating at all the opportunities "age verification" will give them. With time a persons PII will end up being shared with a myriad of shady entities and leaked to all-the-bad-people leading to the creation of even more artificial business models that should have never existed in the first place. Do not accept this behavior otherwise a fascist 3rd party will eventually be required for all internet access.
Ideal Solution (that has existed for a very long time): Legislate the requirements for most clients used by young children to look for the RTA server header and trigger parental controls if the parent thinks they should be enabled. It's not perfect, nothing is nor ever will be but using the header solution is entirely private, does not store or leak data and puts the decision into the device owners rather than creating perverse incentives to track everyone. It may actually protect most small children whereas today teens quickly find a work-around and then teach smaller children how to work around these centralized gate-keepers. The current solutions are just about tracking people by real identity and incentivizing teens to commit identity crimes thus feeding the prison industrial complex. Parents are already legally responsible for their offspring. If parents are having difficulty with raising their children that is a different problem and would require a different solution after significant critical thinking.
Less Than Ideal solution: Create a maintain multiple deny-lists of domains that are using 3rd party age verification or gathering personal data in any way shape or form. Incorporate the deny-lists into uBlock and related add-ons.
Non starters: Anything that suggests the 3rd party verification is anonymous and includes cryptographic terminology. It may start off anonymous and with time the verification will include a unique code that can be reversed through some obfuscated method. Anything involving a 3rd party whether directly or indirectly must be entirely rejected.
Previous Discussion: [2]
[1] - https://www.rtalabel.org/page.php
[2] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46152074
The age verification is pushed (lobbied) by the same companies which collect data: Palantir, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Apple and others.
How do you think EU and UK came to this idea ? Google was pushing it from some time but they needed a "legal framework".
In the future they will not need your phone anymore for border or house searches.
Reminder that HN is SV centered and therefore everyone and everything is oriented around tribal group think.
Meta was funded by Thiel, yet most of the people in this thread use their products.
The CCP has technology that dwarfs Palantir, but a ton of people in this thread use TikTok, because they don't recognize fascism unless it's perpetrated by somebody that looks like the Nazis they see in movies.
I grew up around brainwashed religious zealots. I hated it. Everything was this moralistic condemnation and guilt by association game, played by people who had absolutely no sense of perspective and had zero interactions outside of there group think circles. Constantly condemning people they don't know and have never met and don't understand.
I've been on HN for 13 years now. It looks more and more like that every day.
This comment will be down voted without any substantive critique other than "I guess you're a fascist too."
Meanwhile, Discord will not have the slightest tiny drop in user numbers, because nobody outside of this moralistic circle jerk cares.
Spot on. I wish this site was never associated with the term hacker because under the thin veneer of people doing cool things with tech, there is today nothing more authoritarian, narrow minded, overconfident and establishment than SV tech culture.
Something I don't quite understand about this Discord fiasco.
Every single thing you ever put into discord via text or voice has already and was already being sold to advertisers. If you were ever logged into Google simultaneously while on Discord it's already linked up to the real information they have about you.
I've just seen numerous things I've talked about or typed about with friends promptly appear on my YouTube feeds.
So like.. ?
1. Citation needed. Why would Google be secretly ingesting all of your Discord messages and be using it for... YouTube recommendations? Baader-Meinhof phenomenon is a more likely explanation
2. Already collecting a lot of data is not a reason to collect even more sensitive data. Plenty of people use Discord differently than you do. Anonymously participating in projects that use Discord and never saying anything personal over it, for example. This would possibly remove the ability to do so, for example if Discord's secretive AI decided that an LGBTQ+ project's Discord should be age restricted, and you would be forced to submit enough information to be fully identified and deanonymized, and now some foreign government could build a database that includes your full identity and your affiliation to such project
So like what? There's clearly a difference. The new thing is worse, and stacks with the already bad stuff. So like... fiasco.
Yes, and? This sounds like a guilt-by-association accusation with no relevance.
Anyway, people are free not to use Discord if they don't like their age verification feature. It is one chat service amongst many, not a monopoly.
We need to hold people to account for the company they keep. If your largest investor is known for mining data for fascist regimes and you are in the business of verifying data authentication then it not guilt by association it is the smoking gun and best to avoid
"You're free to use something else" doesn't work when it was legal pressure that introduced age verification. All the something else's will eventually be forced to follow.
Yes, and? people are free not to be concerned if they don't think it's a problem. They're free to say they're not concerned. They're free to suggest others shouldn't be concerned. They're free to phrase that suggestion in a highly dismissive way. They're free to add distracting noise by pointing out the obvious. They're free to draw attention to noise by pointing at it. They're free to feel bad about doing it. They're free to click the submit button anyway. Sorry.
the vast majority of the rich got to their position thru sheer ruthlessness. is it irrational to you that this garners distrust ?