SAFETY

Discord Glossary

Discord has its own vocabulary. You might hear your teen or students using these words when talking about Discord.

Server: Servers are the spaces on Discord. They are made by specific communities and friend groups. The vast majority of servers are small and invitation-only. Some larger servers are public. Any user can start a new server for free and invite their friends to it.

Channel: Discord servers are organized into text and voice channels, which are usually dedicated to specific topics and can have different rules.

• In text channels, users can post messages, upload files, and share images for others to see at any time.
• In voice channels, users can connect through a voice or video call in real time, and can share their screen with their friends - we call this Go Live.

DMs and GDMs: Users can send private messages to other users as a direct message (DM), as well as start a voice or video call. Most DMs are one-on-one conversations, but users have the option to invite up to nine others to the conversation to create a private group DM (GDM), with a maximum size of ten people. Group DMs are not public and require an invite from someone in the group to join.

Go Live: users can share their screen with other people who are in a server or a DM with them.

Nitro: Nitro is Discord’s premium subscription service. Nitro offers special perks for subscribers, such as the option to customize your Discord Tag, the ability to use custom emotes in every server, a higher file upload cap, and discounted Server Boosts.

Server Boosts: If your teen is a big fan of a community, they might want to boost the community’s server (or their own). Like Nitro, Server Boosts give servers special perks like more custom emotes, better video and voice quality, and the ability to set a custom invite link. Server Boosts can be bought with Nitro or purchased separately.

Student Hubs: Discord Hubs for Students allow students to verify their Discord account with their official student email, and unlock access to an exclusive hub for students at their school. Within the hub, they can connect with other verified students, discover servers for study groups or classes, and share their own servers for fellow students to join. Hubs are not affiliated with or managed by a school or school staff. Servers in a Hub are student-run but may include non-students. For more information on Student Hubs, please check out our Student Hubs FAQs.

Why people love Discord

Below, you can see just a few of our favorite stories about what people are doing on Discord and why they love it. You can find even more stories about how people use Discord right here.

Cyndie, a parent of two from North Carolina, reflects on how her family uses Discord:

“There are four of us and we all have Discord installed on both our computers and phones. My oldest son is in an apartment, and the younger one is on campus, so we use Discord to make family plans. Everything gets dropped into that server. From dinner’s ready to internships and job offers. Usually it’s the silly, stupid stuff we just drop in that makes us all laugh, like when there’s a Weird Al question on Jeopardy. I can’t imagine life without it.”

Genavieve, a high-school student from California, talks about how her classes use Discord:

"I've been using Discord for the last two years as my main communication with my friends. We had too many people in our group chat and wanted a platform where we could all communicate with each other. Discord is a great way for a friend group of thirty people to stay in touch! Also, with distance learning in place, I’ve started using it with my AP Physics class too. It's been so important to feel connected to our teachers and each other when we are so isolated and in such a difficult class. Using Discord brought us closer together as a class — we are already a small class of 22 students, so being able to joke around and send memes helps us not feel so alone during the distance learning. The different channels and @mentions make it much easier to keep information straight. Screenshare makes it even easier, so we can show each other documents or problems we are working on to get feedback or troubleshooting advice.”

David, a physics and math tutor from New Jersey, talks about how he teaches students and connects with other teachers over Discord:

"I use Discord to tutor one of my students and to stay up to date with conversations and announcements in a group of physics teachers interested in physics education research. It's nice to see a side-by-side camera view of my desk with the student's work. I also really like that the audio through the OPUS codec which sounds very clean."

‍

‍

We work hard to ensure everyone on Discord is able to have meaningful conversations and spend time with their communities in a safe, positive, and inclusive manner.

Our commitment:

• The vast majority of servers are invite-only and private. An outsider cannot guess the link to a specific server. Discord only lets users search for public servers. All searchable servers are required to maintain healthy and positive communities in order to remain searchable.
• Privacy is incredibly important to us. We do not monitor every server or every conversation. However, conversations on Discord are not end-to-end encrypted. When we are alerted to an issue, we investigate the behavior at issue and take action.
• We have a zero-tolerance policy to content or behavior that violates our Community Guidelines. When we are alerted to a violation of our rules, we investigate and take action. We also work to proactively identify illegal behavior and terminate it.
• Discord is not an anonymous platform. Users are identified by their username, which is chosen by the user, followed by a "#" and a four-digit number, known as their Discord tag. Discord doesn’t ask for anyone’s real name on signup but we are able to track who is responsible for what by tying usernames to verified email addresses and IP addresses.
• Users are in control of their experience on Discord. People come to Discord for different purposes, and we want them to be able to tailor their experience on Discord to their own needs. Unlike other platforms where someone might be able to message you as soon as you sign up for an account (before you have added any friends or joined any servers), this isn’t the case on Discord. In order for another user to send a direct message (DM) to you, you must either (1) accept the other user as a friend or (2) decide to join a server that the other user is a member of. We are continuously building products to let our users control their own level of security and privacy. Learn about these tools here.

‍

‍

Explicit media content settings

From this menu, users can decide whether they want Discord to automatically scan and delete direct messages (DMs) that contain explicit media content. You can access this setting by going into User Settings, selecting the Privacy & Safety section, and finding the "Safe Direct Messaging" heading.

By default, this is set to “my friends are nice”, which means only DMs your teen receives from non-friends are scanned for explicit media. Choose ‘Keep me safe’ to have all DMs your teen receives scanned for explicit media.

Direct message (DM) settings

• This menu lets users determine who can contact them in a DM. You can access this setting by going into User Settings, selecting the Privacy & Safety section, and finding the "Server Privacy Defaults" heading.
• By default, whenever your teen is in a server, anyone in that server can send them a DM.
• You can disable the ability for anyone in a server with your teen to send your teen a DM by toggling “Allow direct messages from server members” to off. When you toggle this setting off, you will be prompted to choose if you would like to apply this change to all of your teen’s existing servers. If you click "No," this change will only affect new servers your teen joins, and you will need to adjust the DM settings individually for each server that they have previously joined (in Privacy Settings on the server’s dropdown list).

You can also control these settings on a server-by-server basis.

Friend request settings

• This menu lets you determine who can send your teen a friend request on Discord. You can access this setting by going into User Settings and selecting the Friend Requests section.
• Users should only accept friend requests from users that they know and trust. If your teen isn’t sure, there’s no harm in rejecting the friend request. They can always add that user later if it’s a mistake.

You can choose from the following options when deciding who can send your teen a friend request.

• Everyone - Selecting this means that anyone who knows your teen's Discord Tag or is in a mutual server with your teen can send your teen a friend request. This is handy if your teen doesn’t share servers with someone that introduced them to Discord and your teen wants to let them send a friend request with just your teen's Discord Tag.
• Friends of Friends - Selecting only this option means that for anyone to send your teen a friend request, they must have at least one mutual friend with your teen. You can view this in their user profile by clicking the Mutual Friends tab next to the Mutual Servers tab.
• Server Members - Selecting this means users who share a server with your teen can send your teen a friend request. Deselecting this while "Friends of Friends" is selected means that your teen can only be sent a friend request by someone with a mutual friend.

If you don’t want your teen to receive ANY friend requests, you can deselect all three options. However, your teen can still send out friend requests to other people.

Blocking

If someone is bothering your teen, you always have the option to block the user. Blocking on Discord removes the user from your teen's Friends List, prevents them from messaging your teen directly, and hides their messages in any shared servers.

To block someone, they can simply right-click on their @username and select Block.

If your teen has blocked a user but that user creates a new account to try and contact them, please report the user to the Trust & Safety team. You can learn more about how to do this at this link.

Deleting an account

If you or your teen would like to delete your teen’s Discord account, please follow the steps described in this article. Please note that we are unable to delete an account by request from someone other than the account owner.

1. Let your teen know that the same rules apply online as offline.

• The same common sense and critical thinking they use offline should be used online too. For example, only accept friend requests from people you know. If something doesn’t seem right, tell a trusted adult. Behavior that’s not okay at school is also not okay online.
• Review Discord’s Community Guidelines with your teen and help them understand what is and isn’t permissible on Discord.
• Review their security and privacy settings and the servers they belong to with them so they fully understand who can interact with them on Discord.

‍

2. Talk about what content they see and share online

• Much of our teens’ lives take place online today, including romances.
• Sharing personal images online can have long-term consequences and it’s important for teens to understand these consequences. Help them think about what it might feel like to have intimate photos of themselves forwarded to any number of peers by someone they thought they liked or trusted. Make them aware of the risk of sharing intimate pictures with anyone.
• Review your teen’s content filters on Discord. Have a discussion about who is on their friends list, who they’re messaging, and what information they are sharing about themselves.

3. Set limits on screen time with your teen.

• iOS and Android operating systems offer parental controls that can help you manage your teen's phone usage if needed. Apple and Microsoft offer similar controls for computers.
• If you are worried about how much time your teen spends online, set ground rules - for example, “no social media after 10 PM,” or “no phone at the dinner table.”

4. Try Discord for yourself

• Most of the services that your kids use online aren’t limited to teens. You might find that you also enjoy using them, and might even find new and fun ways to communicate as a family.
• You will also understand how these apps work from the inside, and will be more easily able to talk to your teens about staying safe online.
• You can download Discord and create a Discord account right here.
• We suggest asking your teen to give you a tour of Discord using your new account! Some prompts you can use to get started are:

• Show me how to add you as a friend!
• Show me how to create a server together.
• Show me your favorite features.
• Show me how you stay in touch with your friends.
• Show me your favorite emojis or gifs.

5. Third party resources

Many online safety experts provide resources for parents to navigate their kids’ online lives.

ConnectSafely published their Parent’s Guide to Discord which gives a holistic overview of how your teen uses Discord, our safety settings, and ways to start conversations with your teen about their safety.

For more information from other organizations, please go directly to their websites:

• Connect Safely
• Common Sense Media
• Family Online Safety Institute
• Internet Matters
• Be Internet Awesome

1. Is Discord safe for my teens to use?

There are a few things that make Discord a great and safe place for teens:

• Users are in control of their experience on Discord. Conversations on Discord are driven by the people you choose and the topics you choose to talk about. Each user gets to choose who can message them, who can send them a friend request, and what kind of content they can receive.
• Privacy is incredibly important to us. We do not ask for a real name when a user signs up, and we do not sell our user data. We do not monitor every server or every conversation.
• Private, invite-only groups. Most Discord servers are small, private, invite-only groups where your teen can spend time with their friends or schoolmates.

To help your teen use Discord safely, it’s important to understand how Discord works and how you can best control your teen’s experience on it. We have listed a number of tips to do so here.

Just like with every other online service, the best way to ensure your teen stays safe online is to have clear guidelines on what they should and shouldn’t be looking at or posting online, and make sure that you keep clear lines of communication with them.

2. What is the minimum age to be on Discord? How do you ensure teens under 13 can’t create an account?

Discord's Terms of Service require people to be over a minimum age to access our app or website. The minimum age to access Discord is 13, unless local legislation mandates an older age.

To ensure that users satisfy that minimum age requirement, users are asked to confirm their date of birth upon creating an account. Learn more about how we use this age information here. If a user is reported as being under 13, we delete their account unless they can verify that they are at least 13 years old using an official ID document.

3. What personal information does Discord collect about my teen? Do you sell it?

Discord does not ask for a real name when a user signs up, and we do not sell user data. To learn more about what information we collect and how we use this information, please see our Privacy Policy.

4. Can my teen be exposed to inappropriate content on Discord?

Like on every internet platform, there is age-restricted content on Discord. Each user chooses which servers they want to join and who they want to interact with.

In servers, age-restricted content must be posted in a channel marked as age-restricted, which cannot be accessed by users under 18. For Direct Messages, we recommend that every user under 18 activates the explicit media content filter by selecting "Keep Me Safe" under the "Safe Direct Messaging" heading in the Privacy & Safety section of their User Settings. When a user chooses the "Keep Me Safe" setting, images and videos in all direct messages are scanned by Discord and explicit media content is blocked.

We believe that the best way to make sure that your teenagers are only accessing content that they should is to set clear guidelines on what they should and shouldn’t be looking at or posting online, and make sure that you keep clear lines of communication with them.

5. Can my teen interact with people they don’t know on Discord?

Unlike other platforms where someone might be able to message you as soon as you sign up for an account (before you have added any friends or joined any servers), this isn’t the case on Discord. In order for another user to send a direct message (DM) to your teen, your teen must either (1) accept the other user as a friend or (2) decide to join a server that the other user is a member of.

Each user has control over the following:

• Who can DM them and who can send them a friend request
• Which servers they want to join and be a part of
• Who can join the servers that they create
• Whether they want their direct messages to be scanned for explicit media content automatically

Users should only accept friend requests from users that they know and trust. If your teen isn’t sure, there’s no harm in rejecting the friend request. They can always add that user later if it’s a mistake.

If your teen is ever uncomfortable interacting with someone on Discord, they can always block that specific user. Blocking a user removes them from your teen's Friends List, prevents them from messaging your teen directly, and hides their messages in any shared servers.

6. Are there parental controls on Discord I can use to control my teen's account?

We have detailed all the controls you have to help make your teen’s account safer here. We recommend going through these settings together with your teen and having an open conversation about why you are choosing certain settings.

iOS and Android operating systems offer parental controls that can help you manage your teen's phone usage, including Discord, if needed. Apple and Microsoft offer similar controls for computers.

7. How can I monitor what my teen is doing on Discord?

Privacy is incredibly important to us, including your teen’s privacy. We can’t share their login information with you, but we encourage you to discuss how to use Discord safely directly with your teen.

8. What are Student Hubs?

Discord Hubs for Students allow students to verify their Discord account with their official student email, and unlock access to an exclusive hub for students at their school. Within the hub, they can connect with other verified students, discover servers for study groups or classes, and share their own servers for fellow students to join. Hubs are not affiliated with or managed by a school or school staff. Servers in a Hub are student-run but may include non-students.

For more information on Student Hubs, please check out our Student Hubs FAQs.

9. What safety measures are in place for the students participating in Student Hubs?

Only those with a school-assigned email address can access a school’s specific hub. Click here to dive into our Student Hubs guidelines. All servers and users in the hub must also comply with our Community Guidelines, Terms of Service, and Privacy Policy. We also have all of our existing moderator controls for servers, such as setting specific roles and access to #channels in a server, blocking, banning, mod bots, and more. Students can also submit a report from within their hub to bring attention to any inappropriate behavior.

Even though the majority of Discord usage is in small, private, invite-only groups, we understand that there may be times when people in these groups behave in ways that make others uncomfortable or post content that isn’t allowed. Our Community Guidelines outline how all users should act on Discord and what we allow and do not allow. We recommend reviewing these with your teen so that you both know what behavior is and isn’t okay on the platform. Among other things, we do not allow:

• Bullying and harassment
• Sharing content glorifying or promoting self-harm
• Making violent threats against people
• Evading Discord-imposed bans and blocks
• Content that sexualizes or threatens minors

If your teen encounters a violation of our Community Guidelines, such as harassment or inappropriate content, please file a report with details that you can gather. A member of our Trust & Safety team will review the content and take appropriate action. The Trust & Safety team strives to ensure bad users don't disrupt your teen’s experience on Discord. We also provide a number of tools to ensure that teens (and everyone else) have control over their Discord experience.

‍

‍

Protecting the privacy and safety of our users is of utmost importance to Discord.

Discord is a communications service for teens and adults who are looking to talk with their communities and friends online. We do not allow those under the age of 13 on our service, and we encourage our users to report accounts that may belong to underage individuals.

We’re pleased to share that the Better Business Bureau’s Children’s Advertising Review Unit (“CARU”) issued a report endorsing our practices relating to children’s privacy. CARU regularly monitors websites and online services for compliance with laws and best practices relating to children’s privacy and engaged with Discord as part of its routine monitoring work.

CARU finished its review of Discord in October 2020 and issued the following statement in connection with the release of its report:
‍

“[T]he outcome we hope for is proactive corporate accountability on children’s privacy, and that is exactly what Discord delivered.”

— Dona Fraser, Senior Vice President Privacy Initiatives, and Director of the Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU).
‍

Discord appreciates CARU's thorough evaluation of our service and our practices. We look forward to continuing our work to improve online privacy and safety.

‍

‍

We’re all about helping millions of communities, small and big, find a home online to talk, hang out, and have meaningful conversations. That means we need to find the right balance between giving people a place to express themselves and promoting a welcoming and safe environment for everyone.

Our Community Guidelines define what is and isn't okay to do on Discord. Every person on Discord should feel like their voice can be heard, but not at the expense of someone else.

If you come across a message that appears to break these rules, please report it to your server moderator or to us. We might take a number of steps, including issuing a warning, removing the content, or removing the accounts and/or servers responsible.

Learn more about our Community Guidelines here and Terms of Service here.

‍

‍

When we receive a report from a Discord user, the Trust & Safety team looks through the available evidence and gathers as much information as possible. This investigation is centered around the reported messages, but can expand if the evidence shows that there’s a bigger violation. For example, we may investigate whether the entire server is dedicated to bad behavior, or if the behavior appears to be part of a wider pattern.

We spend a lot of time on this process because we believe the context in which something is posted is important and can change the meaning entirely. We might ask the reporting user for more information to help our investigation.

Responding to user reports is an important part of our Trust & Safety team’s work, but we know there is also violating content on Discord that might go unreported. This is where we get proactive. Our goal is to stop bad actors and their activity before anyone else encounters it. We prioritize getting rid of the worst-of-the-worst content because it has absolutely no place on Discord, and because the risk of harm is high. We focus our efforts on exploitative content, in particular non-consensual pornography and sexual content related to minors, as well as violent extremism.

Please note: We do not monitor every server or every conversation. Privacy is incredibly important to us and we try to balance it thoughtfully with our duty to prevent harm. However, we scan images uploaded to our platform using industry-standard PhotoDNA to detect matches to known child sexual abuse material. When we have data suggesting that a user is engaging in illegal activity or violating our policies, we investigate their networks, activity on Discord, and their messages to proactively detect accomplices and determine whether violations have occurred.

‍

‍

When our Trust & Safety team confirms that there has been a violation of our Community Guidelines, the team takes immediate steps to mitigate the harm. The following are actions that we might take on either users and/or servers:

• Removing the content
• Warning users to educate them about their violation
• Temporarily banning users for a fixed amount of time as a “cool-down” period
• Permanently banning users from Discord
• Disabling a server’s ability to invite new users
• Removing a server from Discord

Discord also works with law enforcement agencies in cases of immediate danger and/or self-harm. In particular, we swiftly report child abuse material content and the users responsible to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

‍

‍

Every user can appeal actions taken against their account. Through our investigative process, we go to great lengths to ensure that we’re only taking action when it’s warranted. But we’re not perfect. Mistakes might happen. Thus, appeals are an important part of the process.

Just as you deserve a chance to be heard when action is taken against you offline, you should have such a chance to be heard when an action is taken against your Discord account.

If you think we took unwarranted action against your account, you can reach out to us so we can review your case.

‍

‍

We’re committed to being transparent about bad behavior on the platform and how we respond to it. It’s an important part of our accountability to you and other Discord users. To share insights about what kind of bad behavior we’re seeing on Discord, and the actions we took to help keep Discord safe, we publish quarterly Transparency Reports. You can read our latest Transparency Report here.

As we continue to invest in safety and improve our enforcement capabilities, we’ll have new insights to share.

‍

‍

What is Discord?

Discord is a voice, video, and text chat app that's used by tens of millions of people ages 13+ to talk and hang out with their communities and friends.

The vast majority of servers are private, invite-only spaces for groups of friends and communities to stay in touch and spend time together. There are also larger, more open communities, generally centered around specific topics. Users have control over whom they interact with and what their experience on Discord is.

More information about Discord and our community goals can be found here.

Contact Information and Service of Process

• Our contact preference is email. Please contact us at lawenforcement@discord.com with any questions or legal process documents.
• We will not respond to correspondence sent by non-law enforcement officials to the email address listed above.
• All legal correspondence should be sent on company or agency letterhead with requisite signatures included.
• We will not comply with overly broad or vague requests.

• The legal process should identify the user for whom information is being requested.
• Users should be identified by their 17-18 digit user identification number.
• If the user identification number is unattainable, a username and four-digit discriminator should be provided.
• Instructions on how to identify a user can be found here.

• Be advised, users are allowed to change their usernames and four-digit discriminators, thus responses rendered by Discord may list different usernames and four-digit discriminators than those originally requested.
• All legal processes should comply with 18 U.S. Code § 2701-2712.

Emergency Requests

• If you believe that an emergency involving danger of death or serious physical injury to any person requires disclosure without delay, please contact us at lawenforcement@discord.com with the subject line "Emergency Request," and provide the factual basis for the request so that we may evaluate it under 18 U.S.C. § 2702.
• We provide emergency disclosure responses only when enough information is provided for Discord to, in good faith, believe that the exigent situation requires disclosure of user information, as outlined in 18 U.S.C. § 2702.
• We do not disclose information for emergency requests unless they are from law enforcement.

Preservation Request

• Discord accepts requests to preserve records pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2703(f).
• We take steps to preserve account records once proper requests have been received and processed.
• Content and non-content information is preserved for 90 days, from the time of processing, and can only be extended for an additional 90 day period, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2703. In certain cases, an additional 90 days may be requested.
• Please reference the initial preservation request by providing the assigned ticket number and clear date range when sending legal process to obtain the preserved information.
• We are not permitted to disclose user information when solely in receipt of a preservation request.

International Legal Process Requests

• Please be advised that Discord is headquartered in and offers its services from the United States of America. Our customer data is stored exclusively in the United States.
• If you would like to obtain the requested information from Discord, please follow a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) or letters rogatory process so that a U.S. court might issue the required U.S. legal process to Discord.
• If an international legal process includes reports of child exploitation, Discord will investigate and take steps to archive these materials, remove them from our platform, and report any exploitative content.

Child Safety Policy

• When we are made aware of potential Child Safety concerns on our platform, our Trust & Safety team reviews the content and reports the content to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) or law enforcement where appropriate as required by 18 U.S.C. § 2258A. NCMEC will then work with local and international law enforcement as necessary.
• User accounts reported to NCMEC are archived and banned from our platform at the time of reporting.
• When submitting legal processes prompted by NCMEC reporting, include cybertip number and all of the user information provided.
• Law enforcement officials should indicate if a request pertains to a NCMEC reporting in the body of the email.

Data Retention Policy

• Discord does not require and generally does not possess names, addresses or other personal information, as we do not require that information on sign-up. The subscriber information that we possess is limited to an email address, and, if the user is a paid user, we might have limited billing information. In certain circumstances, we might also have a phone number the user has verified.
• Due to privacy concerns, Discord removes most user identifiers once a user is deleted, including username and discriminator.
• Users can always be located by their 17-18 digit UID number.
• More information regarding Discord's data retention and user privacy policy can be found here.
• Questions regarding Discord's privacy policy can be sent to privacy@discord.com.

User Notification

• Discord reserves the right to notify users if their information is requested by law enforcement.
• Court orders compelling non-disclosure are required to ensure the user is not notified pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2705.
• Non-disclosure orders should include a date range.
• Once a non-disclosure order has expired, an extension is required for continued compliance.
• Merely requesting Discord to not notify a user is not sufficient. ​​Discord reserves the right to notify users in those instances.

Cost Reimbursement

• Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2706, Discord may require cost reimbursement if the legal process is unduly burdensome or has associated cost.

EU Regulation 2021/784

• Under EU Regulation 2021/784 (addressing the dissemination of terrorist content online), Discord's Article 15 contact point is counterterrorism@discordapp.com and Discord's Article 17 legal representative is Discord Netherlands BV.

Still have questions?

Law enforcement should send any additional questions and/or legal process to:

lawenforcement@discord.com

If needed for mail service, our physical address is as follows:

Discord, Inc. 444 De Haro St, Suite 200 San Francisco, CA, 94107

If serving process by mail, please direct the mail to the Legal Department.