Shapes Inc calls Discord's action unfair as it gets kicked off the platform

Alright, this is a bit of a mess. Shapes Inc, a platform that helps people create AI “Shapes” for Discord, is really upset. They’ve been booted off Discord, and they are not happy about it. Shapes Inc took to social media platform X, saying Discord is “unfairly targeting” them. They are calling on their community, all the content creators out there who use Shapes, to make some noise on Reddit, X, and TikTok. They want people to share how much Shapes means to them. It feels a bit like a digital protest, I guess.

Many users on the Shapes and Discord subreddits were quick to chime in on posts highlighting the unsuspecting emails people were getting. These emails from Discord told users their “Application and the Shapes, Inc. platform” violated Discord’s Developer Terms and Developer Policy. Specifically, the email mentions giving Shapes access to application tokens and API data and enabling unauthorized use of API data, including using message content to train models. That last part is a big one, apparently.

Here’s a screenshot of the email that was shared on Reddit:

Discord says they’ve disabled the applications and that users need to delete any API data shared with Shapes. They even warn that failing to do so could lead to Discord taking “further action,” which could mean deleting user accounts. Yeah, you read that right. Deleting accounts.

Shapes Inc pushed back hard against this. On their own subreddit, someone who appears to be from Shapes Inc said Discord terminated their project, which they claim has over 10 million users and 400k+ live shapes. They also help thousands build communities on Discord, they said. The post called Discord’s action unexpected, careless, cold, and unfair.

They really took issue with the claims about using message content for AI training, flat out saying “It never happened.” The post also pointed out that other popular bots like MEE6 and Dyno require users to submit bot tokens for certain features, asking why no action has been taken against them. It does make you wonder about the consistency of enforcement, doesn’t it?

Meanwhile, users are scrambling. Many are trying to figure out how to delete their Shapes applications from the Discord developer portal. Some found their applications were already gone, presumably deleted by Discord.

Others are worried about their accounts being disabled. But from what I managed to gather from the comments, it doesn’t seem like anyone’s account has been disabled. There were a few users who initially thought the email was informing them that their accounts were disabled, but later confirmed that the bot was disabled, not the account. So if you see the email, don’t fret, it’s highly unlikely that Discord will disable your account.