Post by Dancing Puffball on Mar 18, 2020 17:20:29 GMT
Short answer: It depends
Many people, especially within the ad server community interpret the ToS in a very rigid, stringent way. They view certain matters in black and white absolutes, avoiding all ability to consider nuance. It's almost as if Discord were to have a no tolerance policy. The fact of the matter is, the ToS is at times very vague. Readers interpret the ToS in many different ways, which can quickly and easily lead to debates regarding semantics, which are ultimately useless and lead to nothing positive. What actually matters when these matters pop up is what Discord says themselves, and while it should be common sense not to DM advertise to strangers, I've many times seen people get up in arms over more minor forms of it and it's clear they're narrow minded on the issue.
The original quote, which many individuals take out of context is as follows: You may use the Service to send messages to other users of the Service. You agree that your use of the Service will not include sending unsolicited marketing messages or broadcasts (i.e., spam). When reading this quote, many interpretations arise, much of which is personal bias backed conjecture. What I mean by that is, your personal values are likely to influence the way in which you interpret the ToS, whether you realize it or not. It is a well established fact that people tend to believe what they want to believe and scientific studies back up this argument.
There are other reasons why many believe that Discord has a no tolerance policy regarding DM advertising. One reason is appeal ad populum: the fact that many people believe and enforce this principle. Another reason is a loose interpretation of the word 'spam'. However when you google the definition of 'spam', the actual definition conflicts with the argument of those enforcing this policy. Spam is typically defined as irrelevant or inappropriate messages sent on the Internet to a large number of recipients. Ergo, the definition itself conflicts with the notion that DM invitations sent to one or two people only count as spam. Spam is, in fact, repeated behavior sent to a large volume of users, typically users in which the spammer has never spoken to before.
Discord even has filters in place to help curtail genuine spam. For instance, if you send too many DMs to too many individuals within a short time frame, your account will become rate limited and will likely be forced through SMS verification to gain access to your account. Once you've verified your phone a certain number of times, Discord will suspend your ability to verify with the same number for a couple of days. Aside from these measures that are already put in place, it is possible to get terminated for DM advertising. But as mentioned earlier, people who get terminated are actual spammers. Below is a quote that is extremely important to consider in this argument;
We highly discourage uses from DM advertising as it can lead to actions that are against our ToS such as DM spam which can cause your account to be disabled.
This quote should be evidence to anyone with a rational mind that DM advertising is not an immediate black and white violation of the ToS. In fact, the very proposition looks ridiculous when put into proper perspective. If DM advertising were a black and white offense, then that would mean that I could technically be terminated for sending an invite to a friend thinking they'd want to join a server, but instead they chose to report me for spam. Sure, I get this is a silly hypothetical that would rarely happen, but it's an example of how absurd such a policy would be when put into perspective. The fact is that not all forms of spam are of the same magnitude and significance. Discord has made it absolutely clear in their response that DM advertising can lead to spam. They are using the dictionary definition of spam, which is essentially mass messaging. The fact that this is difficult for many people to understand only proves the point I made earlier about how people's feelings are heavily lead by personal bias and other unreasonable influences.
But yes, I can definitely agree that DM advertising is annoying, and that most of the time it is in fact spam. I run several very large servers and I typically enforce an automatic ban with zero warnings over this type of behavior, so it's not as if I'm trying to enable this behavior or anything of that sort. My only point of contention is when people address the issue from a no questions asked black and white level of understanding, leading to termination of anyone who dares to send a link to anyone, because that exactly what many of you are arguing. It's an argument that crosses the barrier of being reasonable, so far away from it that we reach the point of lunacy. It's absolutely ruthless. It is absolutely absurd to me that people could take the issue of DM advertising so far, that even the most innocuous forms of it lead to an automatic permaban.
But I do agree as I stated before that most of the time, this form of advertisement IS spam. But I ask all of you to simply be more gentle to those who aren't actually going around spamming users. That's all.
Many people, especially within the ad server community interpret the ToS in a very rigid, stringent way. They view certain matters in black and white absolutes, avoiding all ability to consider nuance. It's almost as if Discord were to have a no tolerance policy. The fact of the matter is, the ToS is at times very vague. Readers interpret the ToS in many different ways, which can quickly and easily lead to debates regarding semantics, which are ultimately useless and lead to nothing positive. What actually matters when these matters pop up is what Discord says themselves, and while it should be common sense not to DM advertise to strangers, I've many times seen people get up in arms over more minor forms of it and it's clear they're narrow minded on the issue.
The original quote, which many individuals take out of context is as follows: You may use the Service to send messages to other users of the Service. You agree that your use of the Service will not include sending unsolicited marketing messages or broadcasts (i.e., spam). When reading this quote, many interpretations arise, much of which is personal bias backed conjecture. What I mean by that is, your personal values are likely to influence the way in which you interpret the ToS, whether you realize it or not. It is a well established fact that people tend to believe what they want to believe and scientific studies back up this argument.
There are other reasons why many believe that Discord has a no tolerance policy regarding DM advertising. One reason is appeal ad populum: the fact that many people believe and enforce this principle. Another reason is a loose interpretation of the word 'spam'. However when you google the definition of 'spam', the actual definition conflicts with the argument of those enforcing this policy. Spam is typically defined as irrelevant or inappropriate messages sent on the Internet to a large number of recipients. Ergo, the definition itself conflicts with the notion that DM invitations sent to one or two people only count as spam. Spam is, in fact, repeated behavior sent to a large volume of users, typically users in which the spammer has never spoken to before.
Discord even has filters in place to help curtail genuine spam. For instance, if you send too many DMs to too many individuals within a short time frame, your account will become rate limited and will likely be forced through SMS verification to gain access to your account. Once you've verified your phone a certain number of times, Discord will suspend your ability to verify with the same number for a couple of days. Aside from these measures that are already put in place, it is possible to get terminated for DM advertising. But as mentioned earlier, people who get terminated are actual spammers. Below is a quote that is extremely important to consider in this argument;
We highly discourage uses from DM advertising as it can lead to actions that are against our ToS such as DM spam which can cause your account to be disabled.
This quote should be evidence to anyone with a rational mind that DM advertising is not an immediate black and white violation of the ToS. In fact, the very proposition looks ridiculous when put into proper perspective. If DM advertising were a black and white offense, then that would mean that I could technically be terminated for sending an invite to a friend thinking they'd want to join a server, but instead they chose to report me for spam. Sure, I get this is a silly hypothetical that would rarely happen, but it's an example of how absurd such a policy would be when put into perspective. The fact is that not all forms of spam are of the same magnitude and significance. Discord has made it absolutely clear in their response that DM advertising can lead to spam. They are using the dictionary definition of spam, which is essentially mass messaging. The fact that this is difficult for many people to understand only proves the point I made earlier about how people's feelings are heavily lead by personal bias and other unreasonable influences.
But yes, I can definitely agree that DM advertising is annoying, and that most of the time it is in fact spam. I run several very large servers and I typically enforce an automatic ban with zero warnings over this type of behavior, so it's not as if I'm trying to enable this behavior or anything of that sort. My only point of contention is when people address the issue from a no questions asked black and white level of understanding, leading to termination of anyone who dares to send a link to anyone, because that exactly what many of you are arguing. It's an argument that crosses the barrier of being reasonable, so far away from it that we reach the point of lunacy. It's absolutely ruthless. It is absolutely absurd to me that people could take the issue of DM advertising so far, that even the most innocuous forms of it lead to an automatic permaban.
But I do agree as I stated before that most of the time, this form of advertisement IS spam. But I ask all of you to simply be more gentle to those who aren't actually going around spamming users. That's all.
