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.
Using this to try to get more people off of discord.
Also not privacy related, but fuck substack
Ken Klippenstein has done amazing work and broke multiple stories.
This is not a smear against discord but a reveal of how the government is operating. If you don’t think it is a privacy issue then you don’t know what privacy is. Being a fan boy doesn’t change what is happening.
Use discord all you want but your point is baseless about the story.
Apologies, I wasn’t criticizing the article, or you for sharing it. It’s a tricky sentence, especially if English isn’t your first language - the “but” changes the subject. Article is definitely privacy related.
What isn’t privacy related is my opinion about subtack. I don’t mean to derail, so will let anyone reading this look up why ss sucks and make their own decision.
Gotcha. SS has a troubling history. One could argue journalist have a open door policy.
How do you say one is a journalist while another isn’t? Today, anyone can be a journalist and a lot of traditional journalist are doing their own thing.
Even credible outlets are changing. The New Your Times was considered top tier but now… lord have mercy. Billionaires are buying up and interfering with the companies. And then we have private equity firms, the lice found on the flies that eat shit.
Yes, I wonder what journalists (“professional” and otherwise) are supposed to do. Everyone going their own way and splintering off into many little voices doesn’t feel like the right answer, but publishers are beholden to investors and can be bought out by billionaires. I suppose there are publishers/agencies that have maintained their integrity like 404 Media, or Al Jazeera.
Maybe this is just the burden of anyone in a democracy: to constantly weigh the quality of the sources of information you’re using to form opinions which spawn action.
Critical thinking is a invaluable tool that ia slowly being lost to drone mentality. That is how democracy dies.