By default, all users – including users ages 13 to 17 – can receive friend invitations from anyone in the same server, which then opens up the ability for them to send private messages.ĬNN Business spoke to nearly a dozen parents who shared stories about their teenagers being exposed to self-harm chats, sexually explicit content and sexual predators on the platform, including users they believed were older men seeking inappropriate pictures and videos. Still, it’s possible for minors to connect with people they don’t know on public servers or in private chats if the stranger was invited by someone else in the room or if the channel link is dropped into a public group that the user accessed. All servers are private by default, and only channels with more than 200 members are discoverable in its search tool if the administrator wants it to be public, the company added. But the vast majority are private, invite-only spaces with fewer than 10 people, according to Discord. Some, like a room for memes, can have hundreds of thousands of members. Tiffany Hagler-Geard/Bloomberg/Getty Imagesĭiscord’s users, about 79% of which are located outside of North America, engage in public and private chats or channels, called servers, on varying topics, including music interests, Harry Potter and Minecraft, and homework help. While much of the focus from lawmakers with other platforms has been on scrutinizing more sophisticated technologies like algorithms, which can surface potentially harmful content to younger users, parents’ concerns about Discord recall an earlier era of the internet: anonymous chat rooms.ĭiscord is less well-known among parents than big names like Instagram, even as it surged to 150 million monthly active users globally during the pandemic. The service, which is known for its video game communities, is also less intuitive for some parents, blending the feel of early AOL chat rooms or work chat app Slack with the chaotic, personalized world of MySpace. Launched in 2015, Discord is less well-known among parents than big names like Instagram, even as it surged to 150 million monthly active users globally during the pandemic. President Joe Biden also used part of his State of the Union address to urge lawmakers to “hold social media platforms accountable for the national experiment they’re conducting on our children for profit.”ĭiscord, however, has not been part of that conversation. Lawmakers are now weighing legislation to protect kids online – a bipartisan bill was introduced in the Senate last month which proposes new and explicit responsibilities for tech platforms to protect children from digital harms. (FB) whistleblower pointed to Instagram’s potential to harm one’s mental health and body image, especially among teenage girls. (FB), Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat’s parent company were called to testify before the Senate after leaks from a Facebook In recent months, large social media companies have faced renewed scrutiny from lawmakers over the negative impacts their platforms can have on teens. “There’s lots of things we should have done in hindsight,” she said. The mother never reported the incident to Discord, and the conversations are no longer available to flag because the account was deleted. After shutting down her daughter’s Discord account, an effort she said took six weeks for the company to complete, she installed outdoor security cameras around the home. The mother worried the Discord user was manipulating, tracking and planning to exploit her daughter. Parents of the social media generation are not OK He then asked what American school buses looked like, so she took a photo of her bus and sent it.” He then requested pictures of her friends, and she sent those, too. “My daughter went on Zillow, found our home and sent it, so he knew where she lives. “I went through every chat they ever had but the most disturbing thing, beyond the nudes, was that he asked her to send a picture of our house,” said the mother, who, like other parents of young Discord users, asked to remain anonymous, citing concerns about their family’s privacy. He asked for nude pictures her daughter obliged. They struck up a friendship in a private thread. The stranger, who said he lived in England, entered a group chat that included her daughter and members of the band, according to the mother. When a mother in Washington state learned her teenage daughter was on Discord, a popular social media platform, she felt reasonably comfortable with the idea of her using it to communicate with members of her high school marching band.īut in September, the mother discovered the 16-year-old was also using the audio and chat service to message with someone who appeared from his profile picture to be an older man.
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