This is really unfortunate. I've used the IRC gateway feature over the years to lurk in multiple Slack groups and looks like this will be the end of using (social) Slack groups for me.

Their web interface has just.. not cut it for me. Too resource intensive and not enough control over how/when I am interrupted. This was why I gravitated to the IRC gateway in the first place. Oh well.

This is the MOTD when connecting: https://i.imgur.com/A8XP0eK.png