This is the first time I hear of this, can you please link a source?
Discord didn't fire the person who was joking about database edits the most (or anyone to my knowledge). All they did was close the outlet for staff to show their badge off and brag about it. That doesn't fix anything, my assumption is that this is still going in.
Could you please provide some sources? As the other poster noted this is the first time we hear of this. Would be keen on knowing more
[0]: https://blog.discord.com/how-discord-stores-billions-of-mess...
Discord considers all servers public, not because they actually are (many are for friend groups or even classes etc.), but because that'd mean your consent for keeping any message you send is in question whenever someone is invited to a guild you were not expecting there. Their argument against removal is always "following public conversations is in the public interest". Any European court would tell them to fuck off if someone finally sued them over ignoring GDPR requests, because in the end most Discord servers (absolute numbers, not by volume) can not be considered public.
The thing is there is no user→message mappings stored in their database. The data structures are designed for message→user traversal. Nothing like Facebook's user activity log.
(on small servers they're unfortunately on-demand, but you could still store a set of all guilds a user ever joined and build an overview)
Discord also refuses to delete any data you give them. Deleting a Discord account sets a lockout flag, changes the nickname to "Deleted User" and resets the avatar to default. That's it. They don't even bother setting the user ID on your messages to something common, to a bot (and anyone who turns on developer mode) all your messages still contain your Discord ID.
I also learned from personal experience that they ignore any requests for deleting data coming in via GDPR. These people need to get slapped in a lawsuit.