Quick note: I don't really have a blog, but I wanted to publish this on my site, so this just has some quick styles applied.
Resolution: My Discord account has been unbanned. After posting this page on Hacker News, the head of Discord's anti-abuse team saw it and looked into the issue. It turns out that my use of a third-party Discord client called Ripcord was the reason for my ban. At the time of the ban, I had been using this client for years, but I wasn't actively using it. I was actually using the official client, hence the older title of this page, but the third-party client was open on my laptop in the background. I leave this page here to chronicle how unacceptable Discord's response to this was.
It's true: Discord banned me for using their own client. On 1 November, I was scrolling through my old DMs. It was kind of messy, so I started to close some of them (which really just hides them). After closing maybe around seven of them, Discord booted me back to the login screen. I thought that was weird, but I grabbed my phone to scan the QR code to log in, but it didn't work. Annoyed, I manually typed in my login details only to find that my account has been disabled.
On the same day, 1 November, I opened a ticket (9765093) stating that I wasn't sure why my account was disabled and that I would like to know. They had sent me an email telling me that my account had been disabled, but the email only listed a vague list of reasons that could have caused the ban, and I didn't feel that I had done any of them.
On 3 November, two days later, Discord got back to me and let me know that I had received an email stating why my account was disabled (false) and that they had reviewed my ban and would not be reinstating my account.
The same day, I responded to their email, stating that their explanation wasn't good enough and that I hadn't done anything wrong. I demanded they give me an actual reason and reinstate my account.
Three days go by with no response from Discord. On 6 November, I send another response to their email, reiterating my desires and asking that I at least be able to transfer power of my larger servers if they insist on being corrupt.
Another six days without a peep from Discord. 12 November: I send yet another response, reiterating what I had said in previous emails and asking to be put in contact with a GDPR officer to get the data I want.
After two more days, Discord still has not responded outside of the initial email I received. On 14 November, I file a new ticket (9984772) and mention my previous ticket number and restate that I would like a reason why my account was banned and to have my account reinstated, considering I hadn't actually done anything besides use their official client.
After three days, on 17 November, the new ticket gets a response. Discord gives me the same list of reasons (a list of bullet points that count as "spam and/or platform abuse") and assure me that they understand "you may not have malicious intent, [but] we have to protect Discord as a whole, and this behavio[u]r can hurt Discord and its users." They also go on to mention that as a "one-time gesture", they "went ahead" (past tense) and lifted the ban on my account.
Hooray, I guess. I go to log in to Discord and it turns out that was a lie. My account is still disabled. I figure maybe it needs some time to propagate the change, but after hours and then days of trying, my account remains disabled. During these initial attempts on 17 November, I sent a response to Discord, stating that I would like to know the real reason I was banned, since what I was doing while I was banned wasn't spam or platform abuse, it was closing old DMs manually with the official client, a supported use-case. I also made note that my account had not been unbanned.
On 18 November, my account is still banned despite Discord saying they would lift the ban, so I send a quick response asking when the ban will be lifted.
On 19 November, I ask again, noting that this is the third time I've replied to this ticket and still not received a response.
On 20 November, I open yet another new ticket (10088193), reference the old one, and ask why I haven't been unbanned, demanding that they honour their word and lift my ban.
On 25 November, eight days after I was told my account would be unbanned and twenty-four days after the ban in question, I still have not heard from Discord. I was (and am still) banned for doing nothing wrong. Discord did not deign to reply to my last ticket at all, but I'm filing another one today (25 Nov, 10166788). I will continue to update this log of communications as time goes on.