cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/17618684
Forced arbitration means any legal disputes you may have with Discord must be resolved through a single third party mediator, who 99% of the time is chosen by, and will rule in favor of, the corporation/Discord. This effectively removes all your legal rights as a consumer, because arbitration decisions are legally binding and non-appealable.
The new ToS goes into effect April 15th, 2024.
YOU CAN OPT OUT OF ARBITRATION. You must email arbitration-opt-out@discord.com BEFORE MAY 15TH (30 days after ToS effective date) with your username stating that you wish to opt out of the arbitration clause. Once May 15th passes you are bound to arbitration with Discord forever.
Opt-out before it's too late.
Sounds like something John Oliver ought to cover.
(And, yeah, I know he's mentioned it in episodes dedicated to other things, but an episode specifically about forced arbitration would be cool.)
Something from Legal Eagle would be nice too.
Gotta be honest about my experience with Legal Eagle. One of the first videos I ever saw of his contained an error. (Sonny Bono had nothing to do with the Copyright Act of 1976. Bono wasn't in congress until 1995. Legal Eagle is confusing the Copyright Act of 1976 with the "Sonny Bono" Copyright Term Extension Act which was passed in 1998.)
And maybe it's just serendipitous that one of the first videos of his that I watched contained an error that I was able to identify immediately. And maybe the vast majority of his videos aren't riddled with errors. But I'm no expert on law and he's supposed to be an expert on law, and given that one of the first few facts I even heard him speak was one I could immediately identify as incorrect, it made me concerned.
Like if I had no expertise in Chemistry beyond my high-school class 20 years ago and was able to correct someone on YouTube who claims to hold a Ph.D. in Chemistry and claims to have worked as a chemical engineer at Dow Chemical for the last 20 years that "no, actually oxygen isn't a noble gas. Maybe you're thinking of neon? It's just two to the right on the periodic table from oxygen."