alt Hacker NewsThe real risk here isn't AI training - It's deanonymization. People posted in a "private" community under nicknames.
However, the server administrator enables the "discoverability" feature for everyone. So the entire history of members who never chose this option suddenly becomes discoverable and linked to their accounts. Use the same nickname on GitHub or X - and in a matter of seconds, it will point to the same person.
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The only thing server owners control is whether the server is public or not. They can’t set this particular aspect of it on or off, only individual users can.
As for turning a public server private or vice versa, that’s a very noticeable and impactful decision in lots of ways already.
It's not just that. It brings with it all the SEO bullshit that places like Reddit have. Everything has to be over moderated because it's a target for SEO spam.
This is only for public servers. If you were using a nickname on _public servers_ that was easy to identify before, then that was already a big mistake.
And this feature does not affect old messages - only ones after December 2026.