Allow For Server Owners/Administrators Of Large Scale Discord Servers To Set "Allow Direct Messages From Server Members" to OFF By Default - While allowing the users to OPT IN to receiving direct messages from users on a server later on after they join
Listen, I understand this has been posted multiple times. For myself and many others who volunteer their time to staff large scale servers of 5,000 users plus, we are absolutely tired of the direct message spam bots that are targeting our users with cryptocurrency scams, and other type of DM message scams. The users are even tired of it. Discord, I plead with you as someone who helps manage a server that has 22,000 users, with 4,200 unique visitors this week (according to Server Insights), please consider this feature for the safety of ALL users who use your lovely product. Discord, if you wish to discuss about this feature further, I am more than happy to sit down over a Zoom meeting and express my concern. At the very least, please read this in full. I know we are not the only server dealing with the mass DM spam issue.
The Proposal (Again)
I propose that much like the Default Notifications settings for community servers, Server Owners and Administrators are granted with a permission to automatically set "Allow Direct Messages From Server Members" to OFF By default for all new and current members and allow for users to opt in if they so choose. It will look something like this (the below example is of the default notifications settings)
Before anyone asks this: "Why not set 'Must have verified phone on their Discord account'?" My Answer: We have a sizable portion of the community that are either not old enough to own a phone (parents won't let them) - aside from that, we have users from outside of more developed countries that do not have the leisure of owning a cell phone. I wish to keep them included as some of them contribute a lot of conversation to the community.
According to the Server Insights tool, I currently have 1,206 users (15%) of the userbase in the server I manage that only use Desktop. I'd like to say a lot of them have 2FA enabled at least, but I can't count on all of them to verify their phone number. This would hurt the community if I turned on the most aggressive moderation setting and upset a lot of people.
Impersonation of Server Owners - The DM Bots Are Targeting Content Creators Specifically
To make matters worse, people are using special ASCII characters to set their Discord wide username and the four numbers after it to pretend to be the server owner/content creator I.E. ServerOwner#1234, and setting the same profile photo! Can you tell the difference between ASCII character "97" and "208 176"? Probably on Sublime text or a word editor, but you cannot see the difference when looking at the account names as the text will appear the same on the Discord app. This is not an issue for the staff and myself as we ban by unique ID and it's impossible to ban the server owner anyways, but not to the typical end user's eye when they receive a direct message. Today, we had someone pretend to be the content creator's support staff. Literally named, "XXSupportStaff#0000." We delivered a quick ban, but it's raising a brow. We have a dedicated channel where users screenshot and post the screenshot there for us staff to ban. We have to depend on our users who are receiving these direct messages, to report them to us.
Not Everyone Is Able To Identify Scam Messages Easily
We have a lot of people joining the community I help manage who are NOT familiar with Discord. As much as we warn people about the DM Spam with our auto-feeds, announcements and ensuring to educate our community to avoid these scams, people are still falling for these mass spam DM messages. Not everyone is as fluent in computer applications to know there are unique IDs associated with Discord accounts. For those who work in the Information Technology and Cyber Security fields, you know exactly what I am talking about. For those who don't, it's nothing to be ashamed of. I sit in front of a computer all day as my full-time job for a hospital and watch one of our cybersecurity tools- it happens, people fall for these as scammers are getting more and more clever. I want to make it clear that this feature request is to help people who are not as computer savvy to not be scammed through a Discord Direct Message.
Closing
All in all, this feature can prevent a lot of headache and heartache for potential victims. We LOVE Discord, I've been using it for many years, and plan on using it for many years to come. However, this is a feature I and many others believe that can help Discord users engage safe online communication without a huge worry of someone falling for a scam. I understand that this is not going to prevent someone from being scammed forever, but I believe for sure it will suppress a lot of the illicit and fraudulent attempts that are on-going.
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I vote yes, add this feature.
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Please add this feature.
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This goes without saying, this is very needed I get messages every other day from these bots and I don't want to have to go through every single server one by one (80+) to simply enable this for the servers where bots come from, so having servers with the ability to just turn off direct dm's without sending a friend request is a simple no brainer that needs.....*sorry correction* NEEEDS! to be done
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Yes absolutely, the suggestions forum needs to be littered with these requests.
We are getting hit by a spam bot that is somehow even able to bypass phone verification. We verified that the bots have no roles but somehow is able to pm users with no other shared servers.
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this is verry pogers no cap no lap no drap no sap no kizzy no lizzzy no sizzy
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Absolutely needs to happen
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Bumping this topic for more visibility.
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