Discord has responded to the issue of 620 million users having their messages scraped and sold by banning the account related to a site believed to be behind the snooping efforts.
The reports of the efforts started coming in earlier this month showed the web of accounts that were tracking users and archiving messages on a massive scale. The report also claimed that more than 4 billion public messages, including voice data, were scooped by bots.
Discord's Messages Controversy
(Photo : Martin BUREAU, AFP, Getty Images / Image taken from official website)
The data that was taken was then packaged up for sale for as little as $5 by the now-defunct website Spy.pet. The site itself advertised the data as a way for companies to train AI models for "federal agents looking for a new source of intel."
Discord revealed that it had banned the accounts that were responsible for the incident and is considering legal action.
A spokesperson for the company said, "Our Safety team has been diligently investigating this activity, and we identified certain accounts that we believe are affiliated with the Spy.pet website, which we have subsequently banned," according to Eurogamer.
They added that based on an investigation, the accounts were able to access other Discord servers that were open and available for anyone to join. They also targeted servers where the accounts had easy access to a valid invite link.
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When they got into these spaces, the accounts could only access the same information as any other user on those servers. Nothing suggested that Discord private messages were at risk or that personal data beyond what a user shares on their profile.
However, the incident still caused concerns over user safety because the owner of Spy.pet was reportedly a member of the harassment forum Kiwi Farms.
Discord announced last month that it was letting third-party developers create games to play on its platform. This marked an extension of Discord's Activities initiative that was launched in December last year.
Popular Chatting App
Discord is a popular group-chatting app that was originally designed for gamers to use during their sessions. The platform has since become usable for all kinds of communities due to its various features, including voice chat, video chat, and live streaming, said Business Insider.
Spy.pet administrators later acknowledged that Discord had banned some of its bots but also claimed that the removal of its website was unrelated. They said on Telegram that they plan to get their website domain back and continue running the site.
The crackdown on the supposed Spy.pet-related accounts follows layoffs at Discord that happened in January earlier this year that affected more than 170 employees. CEO Jason Citron sent an email to staff blaming the layoffs on the company's fast growth during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Citron said that the platform had quickly grown and expanded its workforce, increasing by more than five times since 2020. He noted that this caused the company to take on more projects and become less efficient in how it operated, according to The Verge.
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