Discord has decided to ban me!
Why was I banned?
Not even two weeks after Discord disabled me for not forking over a phone number, my account has been permanently disabled due to posting "dehumanizing or discriminatory content or incited violence towards an individual or community". What did I do in reality? Troll a communist, anarchist, femboy on a Discord server for posting unfunny femboy memes. He threatened to report me and successfully did so. In my opinion, this situation is extraordinarily ironic since the Anarchist crowd usually tries to champion themselves as the freedom-loving types! Such is life though, I will simply need to clean the mess up and move on.
These monsters will ban you too!
Discord has mistakenly become the center of culture across the internet for personal communications. It is a center-piece in many people's social and business lives. Some people depend on this hostile platform to communicate with those they care about, those they associate with in business, and, in some cases, family. This was a mistake to give this company power as it has given Discord total and utter control over your life. Discord can, and will, terminate you without prior notice. This company doesn't have to give you time to prepare, they don't have to give you due process, you aren't given a fair trial, if you are deemed unprofitable you will be tossed away. This company is nothing but poison for your ability to talk to those you care about. Discord doesn't care about you, it cares about Chinese profits and banning users.
Discord’s flawed rules and how they conspire against you
Discord's terms of service enable a very "Politically Correct" version of culture and enforce it as the social norm for the website. This policy enforces a thought process of fear of being out of line by Discord's standards. You will be unpersoned if Discord sees you as a threat. The platform won't let you do what once was normal on the internet (insulting, trolling, and flaming) because its unprofitable. Discord for won't let you be a political activist if they disagree with you. Discord won't coom brains coom in peace either. Even big-shot content creators will have their legacy purged from the site at a moments notice if Discord deems them unprofitable. If you are inflammatory to the average progressive in any way, you will be unpersoned. If you are insulting towards someone on Discord, you will be unpersoned. If you interact with anyone outside of your social circle (and due to how Discord's networking effects work, you likely will) you will likely end up with an account ban due to clashing with someone and end up unpersoned. You have no power in this system and when Discord deems you unprofitable, they will unperson you. Your rug will eventually be yanked from you and you will lose much of what you believed was yours.
The effects of an account ban
An account ban is devastating to the average person. Most people don't have backups or redundancy with contacts with people they know. Most people don't have websites, alternative platforms, and other useful tools to be able to ground themselves once thrown off Discord. Most people, if they lost their account, would be utterly and totally screwed. You, likely being a normal person, are in that boat. If you use Discord for any extended amount of time and don't have an alternative set up, you are likely liable at any moment to be removed for some form of wrong-think and have everything stolen from you. It's not a matter of if, but when. If you are someone who actively uses Discord to show your personality to others and that personality, in any way, shape, or form, could be deemed unprofitable, you will be unpersoned. You will be exiled eventually. You will be found eventually. You will eventually have all those connections you have gained from the platform stolen from you unless you act a certain way or leave.
Discord as a social manipulator.
Now, Discord has a ton of power over its average user. The average user has put much faith and trust into this platform NOT to ban them so that they can keep their contacts. This means that some people will alter behaviors to fit what is "politically correct" as to avoid banning. People are being corralled into suppressing their personality (and in some cases, permanently altering it) to appease a corporate overlord for the "privilege" of communicating with other individuals. This insane amount of social pressure creates a system in where Discord's rules are what is only socially acceptable, meaning that you will not see what they don't want you to see. If this is the case, it will have an effect on you and your personality due to the deprivation and acceleration of certain types of information. As most sane people would guess, suppressing your own personality for some corporate slave master is not a way to live. It certainly isn't good for getting what you believe out there. It's not good for having integrity, it's not good for being a true and honest friend, it's not good for being the person you really are. It's, over all, not a good thing to self-censor to appease corperate interest. This can have life long effects too, if you are only ever exposed to what the corporation allow, you will be only what the corporation allow. While yes, there are those who slip through the cracks and make their statements heard, they too will eventually be silenced. Infact, those people will be made an example of by the Discord moderation staff. If you choose to be be brave and join them, you too will have everything taken from you.
What is to be done then?
Abandon Discord. That is right, the only reasonable option is to uproot everything and move to a platform that WONT do this to you. This doesn't mean return to Skype or Teamspeak or some other equally compromised chatting platform that will oust you for similar reasons, but instead to chose something decentralized, open, and uncompromisable by design. Any chatting application that runs on the Matrix protocol would be ideal in breaking free. Even though Matrix (and its offical client: Element.io) isn't perfect, isn't familiar, and isn't exactly what you're used to, using it is much better than having to fear account terminations and silencings by corporate bullies hellbent on profit and annihilation. Even if you don't want to swap outright (maybe you're attached to Discord in some way), Matrix offers what are called Bridges that allow for users of many different communication mediums to connect to one another. This means that Discord users can contact Matrix users and both of those users can contact a Skype user so long as bridges are properly set up. This is the key here, the bridge infrastructures, while easy to set up, they do require that first push to get off the ground. So even if you yourself cannot be bothered to swap platforms (even though you really should), you should, at the minimum, set up a basic bridge with Matrix to allow those who do not wish to participate in Discord to act and do freely. This is the only way we can see a proper exodus from these draconian chatting applications that wish to use and abuse their users.
What will I personally do
For everything besides purely business related transactions, I will cease using Discord. If you need me, contact me via a preferred way. I will likely answer to whatever comes my way. If you don't wish to contact me via a preferred way, then do not contact me. If using a freedom respecting application is too much of a burden for you, then you are likely too much of a burden for me; if its too much of a chore to simply send me an email, then you're likely not someone worth talking to anyway. Sorry that this is the way things have to be and try not to take it personally, but I simply rather not support a company that has shown willingness to censor, override, and attack its own user base. If you end up contacting me via a preferred way though, good on you. You're taking a little bit more control over one of your communication mediums. Hopefully, a freedom respecting communication method will eventually become your tool of choice so that you, and you alone, have power over where, how, and why you speak. In an ideal society, we will all be able to speak freely about whatever we wish, however we wish. Sadly, that ideal is not now, but it is for sure something worth fighting for.