View source for News/Discord Bans Bot Scraper Accounts

{{News
|seo_title=Discord Bans Bot Scraper Accounts
|seo_keywords=Discord
|image=Discord bot ban.png
|tags=Discord
|date=2024-04-30T19:38:05.000Z
|sources={{NewsSource
|source=Games Industry
|url=https://www.gamesindustry.biz/discord-bans-accounts-that-sold-messages-from-users-of-up-to-620m-users
|article=News/Discord Bans Bot Scraper Accounts
}}
|author=Andura
|category=Drama
|content=According to recent reports, [[Companies/Discord|Discord]] has taken action against utilizing bot accounts to extract messages from up members and then selling them to third-party entities. The reports state that an investigation conducted by 404 Media, uncovered that these bots had collected over four billion public messages, including voice messages, from various Discord servers, notably those related to titles like Among Us and Minecraft.

The harvested data was marketed through Spy.pet, priced at $5 targeting companies interested in utilizing the messages for training AI models or for intelligence purposes. Discord informed 404 Media that the bots exclusively scraped messages from public servers accessible to anyone or via easily obtainable invite links. Discord officialss ensured that no private messages were compromised and that the bots could only access personal data already visible on users' profiles.

'''More:'''[[News/Discord.io Data Breach Announced|Discord.io Data Breach Announced]]

Spy.Pet website has been shut down, and Discord has taken steps to ban the accounts involved in this activity. Discord officials stated '''"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."'''
}}