In early March 2023, claims spread that the chat app Discord was altering its privacy policy and that any content uploaded to the platform would be fed to an artificial intelligence, or AI.
The claims spread across various platforms. One person posted on Twitter on Match 10, "TO MY FRIENDS IN ART SERVERS: do not send anything you do not want fed into the meat grinder any more, including NDA work."
Another person wrote in a Reddit post, "With their new privacy policy, which will be effective after the 27th March, Discord will record/store your video calls, voice calls/channels, including your screen shares." The rumor had also been shared on platforms like Tumblr.
I love all the people accusing me of fear-mongering like the last year hasn't proven over and over again that tech companies do not give two shits whether they can legally take data or not- it doesn't matter what Discord's ToS does or does not say if they're shacking up with AI.
— Morrighan Corbel also @ Tumblr now (@MorrighanCorbel) March 10, 2023
Discord did update its privacy policy, but we found no evidence that any content uploaded to the platform would be fed to an AI. An announcement from the company about new AI features said Discord user data would not be used to train its general models.
"There has not been a change in our overall position on how we store or record the contents of video or voice channels," a Discord spokesperson wrote to Snopes when we reached out for comment. "User privacy is important to Discord, and we will continue to uphold privacy protections.
What Does Updated Privacy Policy Mean?
Discord updated its privacy policy on Feb. 24, 2023, with changes scheduled to take effect March 27, 2023. The current policy was previously updated the year before around the same time, with changes taking effect March 28, 2022.
Under the "information we collect" section in Discord's current privacy policy, it stated the content created by users was part of the information the company collected. That explicitly included messages, custom emojis and uploaded files. While discussing video, the policy said:
We generally do not store the contents of video or voice calls or channels. If we were to change that in the future (for example, to facilitate content moderation), we would disclose that to you in advance. We also don't store streaming content when you share your screen, but we do retain the thumbnail cover image for the stream for a short period of time.
The new privacy policy covered all of the content addressed under the old privacy policy. It also specified new content the company now collects, including recordings of Go Live activity and voice messages.
"We made these changes to support new product features that we are working on (things like voice messages, allowing users to create short recordings of their streams, and similar features)," the Discord spokesperson wrote. "We understand that the wording of the new privacy policy can be misunderstood, and we're looking to improve this to reflect our actual intention to support these kinds of features."
Other communication apps like WhatsApp, which allow users to send voice messages and make video calls, have end-to-end encryption while still allowing for other data to be collected. End-to-end encryption has often been used to make messages more secure.
There have been security issues on apps like WhatsApp before. In 2021, ProPublica reported that WhatsApp undermines privacy protections for its users. The story was later updated with a clarification saying that the app did not break end-to-end encryption.
What Happened with Discord's New AI Features?
On March 9, Discord separately announced new AI features on the platform.
The AI expansion included turning an already existing bot into a chatbot that could answer questions and have conversations with users; additional moderation services; conversation summaries; and a shared whiteboard with a text-to-image generator.
The announcement from Discord about AI stated it came out on March 9 to further clarify the chatbot's "privacy-first and optional-only approach." It said the OpenAI technology used to power Discord's AI features could not be trained on Discord user data.
"Users can control how Discord uses their information as described in our Privacy Policy (under "How to control your privacy")," the Discord spokesperson wrote. "This includes the ability to delete content and to customize a number of personal settings, among other options."
Under Discord's privacy and safety settings, users could turn off "Use data to improve Discord" and "Use Discord to customise my Discord experience." The company said on Twitter in 2019 that turning off the first option blocks the tracking of user activity, like what games someone is playing, while the second blocks analytical tracking of user features and experiences.