A Parent’s Guide to Discord

Given Discord’s status as such a large community or younger people with no age verification, the app is ripe for abuse by criminals and other wrongdoers. 

Every Discord server has a moderator, or “mod,” to oversee server activity. Moderators have the freedom to set and enforce rules for their servers. Many servers have active mods who take action against rude or inappropriate content. Unfortunately, other mods are less active, leaving users vulnerable to harmful content.

No particular server type is more or less likely to be safe. Safety depends on who runs the server and how well they monitor the app’s use.

Non-discoverable servers are private, which makes Discord a bit safer than other platforms, such as Omegle. However, it’s easy for invitation links to make their way onto more public platforms. When that happens, nearly anyone can infiltrate a server.

Here are just a few of the problems that have come up.

Cyberbullying and Harassment on Discord

Cyberbulllying and online harassment involves the use of electronic communication to torment, intimidate, threaten, or humiliate someone. In 2021, Discord issued a transparency report naming harassment as the app’s most commonly reported harmful behavior. This harassment can quickly escalate to bullying, severely damaging a child’s mental health.

Discord allows users or parents to report cyberbullying and other forms of harassment. Still, these incidents are often difficult to verify, especially when the consequences happen off-platform or elsewhere in the child’s social world. As a result, many children become trapped, not knowing where to find help.

Buying and Selling Illegal Drugs

According to a study published in “Contemporary Drug Problems,” drug sellers have created Discord servers to expand their markets. These servers allow sellers to find customers beyond their local markets. 

Many of these servers are intentionally large and easy to find. There, young users can buy or sell drugs without their parent’s knowledge.

Pornography and Sexual Exploitation

Discord does not have any restrictions on posting explicit material. While such content is limited to age-restricted servers, underage people can get access since there is no age-verification process. Therefore, children could find such material if they know where to look or are lured into an explicit server. 

In addition, the platform provides direct messaging, putting users at risk for receiving  explicit or inappropriate messages from other users.

Meanwhile, exploitative content has become a significant target for Discord’s trust and safety team, mainly due to the prevalence of such content. Discord defines exploitative content as potentially damaging sexually explicit material.

According to the 2021 transparency report, the team removed over 238,000 exploitative or potentially exploitative accounts in the first half of 2021.

Even with the increased surveillance, however, predators break through the safeguards. In 2022, multiple parents told CNN about older men having inappropriate interactions with minor children. One girl was only 10 when she began receiving pornographic links from an adult male.

That parent sent documentation of the incident to Discord’s trust and safety team but received no response.

Child Predators on Discord

In its transparency statement, Discord’s trust and safety team reports being toughest on content that could harm children. That includes self-harm content and child sexual abuse material.

Because no age verification exists, many children under 13 sign up for Discord accounts, often with parental consent. But those parents do not consent to predatory behavior, and Discord can be slow to shut it down. This delay leaves children vulnerable to sextortion and other crimes.

In the 2022 CNN report, one parent described Discord taking six weeks to close her daughter’s account. This happened after a predator convinced the 16-year-old girl to send nude photos and pictures of her home and school bus.

If parents are unaware of these exchanges with predators, the situation can quickly escalate to sexual abuse.