Ars Technica: Discord hops the generative AI train with ChatGPT-style tools. “Joining a recent parade of companies adopting generative AI technology, Discord announced on Thursday that it is rolling out a suite of AI-powered features, such as a ChatGPT-style chatbot, an upgrade to its moderation tool, an open source avatar remixer, and AI-powered conversation summaries.”
Business Insider: Laid-off Google employees are turning to a Discord server with nearly 18,000 members for emotional support and financial advice. “Google employees who were recently laid off have joined a Discord server to get emotional support and financial tips after departing from the tech giant. ‘Google Post-Layoffs’ has more than 17,800 members, comprised of laid-off Google staff, current employees, former workers who left prior to the job cuts, recruiters, and journalists.”
The Verge: Discord acquires Gas, the popular app for teens to compliment each other. “Gas has polls that ask users to vote for things like the most beautiful person they’ve met or the classmate that isn’t afraid to get in trouble. It has soared in popularity among high schoolers since launching in August. One of the co-creators of TBH, a very similar teenager app acquired and shut down by Facebook, created Gas, which has caught the attention of more than 1 million daily active users and 30,000 new users per hour in October.”
How-To Geek: 10 Discord Features You Should Be Using. “Discord’s core functionality, like sending text messages or joining voice calls, isn’t hard to figure out if you’ve used other modern messaging platforms. There’s also a pile of additional features available for paying Discord Nitro subscribers. However, other features are less obvious, or have uses you may not have thought about.”
Bloomberg: A Look at the Gold Rush to Become the New Twitter. “Amid the dysfunction comes an increasing number of alternatives vying to lure Twitterati. Some were created out of the ashes of Twitter, while many are getting a fresh start after languishing in the shadows for years. Here’s a look at the alternatives for those seeking a Plan B, and how they stack up against the Blue Bird.”
Engadget: Discord users can soon verify their identities with linked accounts. “Discord is expanding on Connections, a feature that allows users to show what music they’re listening to (among other things), by providing a way for folks to verify their identity using accounts on other platforms. Starting in the next few weeks, admins will be able to offer dedicated server roles to users who have authenticated profiles with accounts elsewhere.”
Bleeping Computer: New ransomware encrypts files, then steals your Discord account. “The new ‘AXLocker’ ransomware family is not only encrypting victims’ files and demanding a ransom payment but also stealing the Discord accounts of infected users.”
WIRED: Avoiding Twitter? Try These Interest-Based Discord Servers. “ARE YOU LOOKING for an alternative to Twitter since Elon Musk acquired it? Some social media users switched over to Mastodon, a decentralized option with similar structures. For anyone who’s retiring those Twitter fingers and feels open to trying something different, Discord is another great choice.”
Ars Technica: Discord update adds activities, app directory, and cheaper Nitro subscription. “Discord announced a plethora of updates to its online communication software and service today, including new ways to interact with third-party apps on the platform and a cheaper Nitro subscription tier.”
SlashGear: Discord Features That You’re Missing Out On. “Today, Discord has tens of millions of active users, many of whom are members of multiple servers (via Cloudwards). If you’re one of those users, you may have missed out on some of the lesser-known features, tips, and tricks that could help you streamline your Discord experience. Or, at least make it a little more fun.”
Ars Technica: Roblox sued for allegedly enabling young girl’s sexual, financial exploitation. “Through the pandemic, the user-created game platform that’s so popular with kids, Roblox, expanded its user base and decided to go public. Within two years, its value shot from less than $4 billion to $45 billion. Now it’s being sued—along with Discord, Snap, and Meta—by a parent who alleges that during the pandemic, Roblox became the gateway enabling multiple adult users to prey on a 10-year-old girl.”
Ars Technica: Discord’s new feature looks a bit like Internet forums—with a dash of Reddit. “Discord announced a new feature on Wednesday called ‘Forum Channels’ to allow for more organized and asynchronous discussions within servers. The intent with Forum Channels seems to be to make it easier for specific conversations to continue for extended periods without the worry that a topic change or another simultaneous conversation will bury a subject in the annals of chat log history.”
Jerusalem Post: Russia’s state watchdog restricts TikTok, Zoom and other IT companies . “Russia’s state communications watchdog Roskomnadzor said on Friday that it was taking punitive measures against a string of foreign IT companies including TikTok, Telegram, Zoom, Discord and Pinterest, according to Russian media.”
Intel 471: How cybercriminals are using messaging apps to launch malware schemes. ” Apps like Discord and Telegram have underlying elements that allow users to create and share programs or other types of content that’s used inside the platform. These programs, colloquially known as ‘bots,’ or other content allows for users to share media, play games, moderate channels, or any other automated task a developer can devise. Cybercriminals have figured out how to leverage this for their own begotten gains.”
Digital Trends: Discord’s new content moderation tool will automatically block words and phrases. “In an effort to help its own moderators out, Discord has developed a new automated content moderation tool. Content moderation can be an exhausting, burnout-inducing task that requires community moderators to view upsetting content and then decide how best to handle such content and the user who posted it. Discord’s new tool, called AutoMod, is meant to help with that task.”
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