Will Discord’s IPO Lead to Enshittification?
Discord, the widely popular communication platform, is reportedly preparing for an Initial Public Offering (IPO) in 2025, collaborating with financial giants JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs to facilitate the process.
While this move could bolster Discord’s financial standing and market presence, it raises significant concerns regarding user data privacy and security.
The Implications of Discord’s IPO on User Data Privacy
Transitioning from a private entity to a publicly traded company often brings about shifts in corporate priorities. For Discord, this could mean increased pressure to generate revenue to satisfy shareholders.
Historically, such pressures have led tech companies and social media platforms to monetize user data more aggressively, potentially compromising user privacy.
Although Discord’s Privacy Policy asserts that the company does not sell personal information, the demands of public investors might challenge this stance.
Recent Privacy Concerns with Discord’s AI Features
Discord’s foray into AI-powered features has already sparked privacy debates. The introduction of ‘Conversation Summaries’ aimed to enhance user experience by grouping messages into topics.
However, investigations revealed that this feature retained information about users even after messages were deleted, posing potential vulnerabilities for social engineering attacks . Such incidents underscore the delicate balance Discord must maintain between innovation and user privacy.
The Broader Context: Tech Companies and Data Monetization
The tech industry’s landscape is replete with instances where companies, post-IPO, have intensified data monetization efforts. Cory Doctorow’s ‘enshittification’ concept sums this up perfectly; the trend of tech giants – Facebook, Reddit, Amazon, and Google – going public, then making anti-user experience decisions. Some examples – stuffing platforms with ads, selling customer data, making the platform hard to leave, penalizing users for things that hurt their metrics (like sharing links) are a handful of examples.
A Harvard Business Review study argued that tech companies going public often creates friction between long-term product quality and innovation, vs short-term financial gain. With Discord’s IPO looming on the horizon, there’s a good chance we see the platform take a similar direction as its public predecessors.
Protecting Your Digital Footprint
Regardless of how Discord continues to evolve approaching an IPO, proactively managing your digital footprint is only a good thing for your digital privacy.
Not only does it prevent big tech from selling and leveraging your data for their profit, it also reduces the likelihood of targeted scammers, spammers, and hackers. Our app, Redact.dev is the most comprehensive digital footprint management tool – giving you the power to mass delete content from 30 platforms (and counting).
At the very least, you should regularly review and adjust privacy settings, as well as staying informed about platform policy changes.