When I get asked the question, “Is Search Cord a problem?”—funny enough, my answer is no. But let me explain why.
There are two reasons I don't think this is a problem, and after that, I’ll get into what I believe is the real issue.
First, discoverable Discord servers are public. Anyone can search for these servers. The most important part? When I click to join a server—like the Marvel Rivals server—I can already see people’s messages before I officially join. I'm in this kind of “lurking” mode.
What I want to point out is that these messages are visible to anybody and can be saved. I’ll explain that more later. But this applies to any discoverable server on Discord. And that's exactly what Search Cord is dealing with. These are public messages.
People fail to understand this. That’s my big PSA: Stop using public Discord community servers like they’re private group chats.
I’ve seen so many people share images, screenshots of their address, their full name—enough info that you could dox them. I've seen people post the name of their school. Would you post your school on Twitter? No? Then why post it in a Discord server with 130,000 members? This is still the internet. Stop oversharing.
Second, and this is more of a devil’s advocate take: can you really say this website is inherently bad or good? At the end of the day, it’s a tool. Being able to search for answers is brilliant. For example, searching for a MacBook PDF or schematics.
Or, maybe you’re someone who wants to catch a predator. Believe it or not, you can search for certain communities—yes, even questionable ones—and they’ve all been scraped. Vigilante groups might use this to gather info and send it to law enforcement. Of course, that assumes the vigilantes are trying to help and not just make some viral YouTube video bodyslamming someone in a Target. (You know the one. I can’t show it or YouTube would get mad.)
So yes, this tool can be used for good. But, like any tool, it can also be misused.
With Search Cord, people could use it to harass or stalk others on Discord. For example, if someone has a unique or short username—like mine, which is sometimes abbreviated to “NTS”—a person could just type that in. If you search “NTS” across Discord, you'd probably find stuff about me. Honestly, that just feeds into my insecurities and reminds me I'm not as hot as I thought I was. Which is fine. I'm kind of a loser anyway.
But let’s say you have a really unique name like "Fortnite Vietnam Veteran with PTSD" (okay, extreme example) or something quirky like “CalsJ.” A stalker could just search for that and see where your name pops up.
This is essentially just like Google. You can search “Honda Civic repair,” or you can use Google to dox people or find illegal websites or substances. So... are we going to cancel Google next? It’s just a search engine.