cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/17618684
Forced arbitration means any legal disputes you may have with Discord must be resolved through a single third party mediator, who 99% of the time is chosen by, and will rule in favor of, the corporation/Discord. This effectively removes all your legal rights as a consumer, because arbitration decisions are legally binding and non-appealable.
The new ToS goes into effect April 15th, 2024.
YOU CAN OPT OUT OF ARBITRATION. You must email [email protected] BEFORE MAY 15TH (30 days after ToS effective date) with your username stating that you wish to opt out of the arbitration clause. Once May 15th passes you are bound to arbitration with Discord forever.
Opt-out before it's too late.
This seems like an unreasonable provision that wouldn't hold up in court. Companies put all kinds of unenforceable shit in their contracts.
It's perfectly enforceable in the US. Almost every corporation uses arbitration now, because handpicked arbitrators rule in favor of the corporations 99% of the time. All completely outside of the public legal system, all completely secret, all completely legal and allowed.
Freest* country on earth baby!
* Free to fuck the working class, that is.
"They thought they were free"...
Sounds like something John Oliver ought to cover.
(And, yeah, I know he's mentioned it in episodes dedicated to other things, but an episode specifically about forced arbitration would be cool.)
Something from Legal Eagle would be nice too.
Gotta be honest about my experience with Legal Eagle. One of the first videos I ever saw of his contained an error. (Sonny Bono had nothing to do with the Copyright Act of 1976. Bono wasn't in congress until 1995. Legal Eagle is confusing the Copyright Act of 1976 with the "Sonny Bono" Copyright Term Extension Act which was passed in 1998.)
And maybe it's just serendipitous that one of the first videos of his that I watched contained an error that I was able to identify immediately. And maybe the vast majority of his videos aren't riddled with errors. But I'm no expert on law and he's supposed to be an expert on law, and given that one of the first few facts I even heard him speak was one I could immediately identify as incorrect, it made me concerned.
Like if I had no expertise in Chemistry beyond my high-school class 20 years ago and was able to correct someone on YouTube who claims to hold a Ph.D. in Chemistry and claims to have worked as a chemical engineer at Dow Chemical for the last 20 years that "no, actually oxygen isn't a noble gas. Maybe you're thinking of neon? It's just two to the right on the periodic table from oxygen."
It's also possible to use it against them though. The twist on arbitration is that the company has to pay for the arbiter win or lose. If a bunch of people opt to use it for a relatively minor issue, it's more expensive for them than a regular lawsuit even if they do win.
Even for individual stuff, it can be nice. I had a car dealership try to fuck me over. I looked into the arbitration clause, found the arbiters they used, and found out it was going to cost the dealership $4,000 to go to the arbiter over a $1,500 dispute. If I won, I'd get my repair and they'd lose $4,000. If I lost, I wouldn't get my repair, and they'd lose $4,000.
When I explained that they did the repair for free.
Looks like I have a new favorite pastime.
You will be happy to know that modern EULAs now have provisions against mass arbitration and bind you to a "class action" style arbitration.
I honestly don't understand how any of this is legal considering they can't prove you agreed to anything at all. I know my family members have agreed to junk while visiting my house and I don't know what account and where.
I don't expect that to stand up to a court challenge. Arbitration allows extra-judicial resolution of individual or class agreements (though most arbitration clauses actually prohibit class-action arbitration). But mandatory class arbitration would make it effectively impossible to seek individual damages of any kind, and there's no way that's legal.
You can lose your individual right to sue by not opting out of class membership when a class-action settlement or ruling is reached, yes. But that's not the same as automatically being assigned to a class before a suit can occur.
Check out section 1K of Roku's agreement
Citation?