>>72201
Discord made a mistake.
As we've all noticed by now, Discord's just forced the apparition of a bar linking to their latest BLM-related blog on (apparently) every user's client. Worse of all, a bug makes it non removable without a client refresh so it's kind of asking for a strong reaction. But I respect the fact that this particular point isn't what they intended.

Nevertheless, here we are.

"Discord's gone woke !" as I read a bit earlier on this very subreddit. I guess that's the core element of this little reaction text really : as a major tool of communication, Discord will almost assuredly drive people away whenever it takes a strong, precise stance on a given political issue (BLM IS political, like it or not. We can discuss why in the comments maybe.).The mistake here would be to assume only the "biggots we don't want anyway" would be driven away while all the nice people stay put. Win-win, right ? That assumes two things :

1 - That people we'd want to keep on the platform (whatever that means) don't disagree with the very concept of a communication platform taking a stance politically.

2 - That Discord's stance on the issue (whatever it is) is somehow the undebatable, absolute truth and morally superior stance down to the smallest detail.

Both of these conditions are obviously not met. The first one is the most obvious : plenty of people of all political orientations want businesses, communication platforms included, to keep themselves out of politics / public discourse.

Why I personally think that if you're curious :In my case, this is because I believe that true, overall unbiased public discourse that isn't afraid of rethinking about the most "evident" of things requires the absence of censorship related to opinion (preventing outright calls to violence / humiliation against somebody in particular / a very identifiable group is still fine), and most relevant here, communication spaces that remain neutral. Not to say those who run these tools can't have opinions, but they need to see the bigger picture.

For the American redditors : don't forget there is a massively diverse political world outside of America. Although nowadays freedom of speech seems like more and more of a right wing value over in the US, it definitely remains a universal value in other countries (like in France where I live), beyond fringe extremist groups.

As for the second one... here goes.

The intentions here seem good, noble. Fighting discrimination based on objectively meaningless differences like skin color, or things people can't do anything about / are in the process of correcting like handicap is a good thing. Not everyone agrees with that, but I know what can happen on the internet when you don't make it clear you agree with that premise.

With that premise in mind, here's my problem with what Discord just did in terms of politics (beyond the issue raised earlier of a communication platform taking a political stance) :

The whole race-based anti-racism "woke" parlance carried by the likes of DiAngelo is FAR from being the ONLY politico-moral stance that fights against aforementioned discriminations. It is based on many premises even leftists like me (don't let that stop you if you're not a leftist, the definition of that word varies massively per country, and that's far from being the point) simply disagree with. It is then no surprise that some people, like me, will claim they are anti-racist while vehemantly disagreeing with a lot that's been linked to in that article.

The point of this post isn't to debate what IS the right solution to the issues BLM is raising awareness on, so I'll keep my own opinion on all this for the comments should anybody want to begin a conversation there.

There you have it. Discord effectively shot themselves in the foot, and I'm willing to bet their article isn't going to sway the opinions of many, but rather polarize people even more. For people that don't rely on Discord for anything serious, it could lead to uninstalling it. For others like me that depend on Discord in multiple ways, uninstalling isn't an option but it doesn't mean I'm not left with a sentiment of disgust. I want my spaces of communication to remain the craddle of political discourse, not its framing.