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.
You may as well assume that anything done on public social media is being read, searched and filtered in real-time by law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
Given the trajectory of this administration in persecuting people for their political affiliation, dumping commercial social media should be an imperative for everyone who isn’t goose stepping.
This was what should have been a private conversation though, not public.
That’s been the case for 10 years. Unless it’s e2ee, it’s public record and can be tied to your real name with a minimal amount of paperwork.
Before I comment anything anywhere, I imagine it being read in a court room in a monotone voice. Bip bop dippity dop, the judge in this case is a swell person and I hope they have a lovely day!
Well they will have to read a lot of my erotic zelda/link fan fiction.
👀
Sounds like a CSAM case for a motivated partisan prosecutor.
People break the law, as it is written, way more than they think. Selective enforcement to target political rival groups is very much in the playbook here.
It is less safe to speak in public today than it was 2 years ago, and it is only getting worse. Protecting your privacy also means protecting yourself from mob justice when they decide you’re the new target group.
New flavor of the month. Let’s see what Trump seen on Fox News.
It’s like the lottery, but wose
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Discord is private social media, and most users think their messages aren’t shared with government without a warrant. Of course it’s possible in this case Discord didn’t even provide the messages “to police”, but that the police just subscribe to their commercial data-sharing and enjoy the same real-time access that way.