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In recent days, U.S. government documents alleged to be classified were shared on Discord servers. The appearance of these documents on our platform was unusual – conversations on Discord generally relate to video games, music, art, sports, and other interests of our users around the world.
Classified military intelligence documents pose a significant, complex challenge for Discord as they do for other online platforms – only authorized government personnel can determine whether a document is classified, unclassified, or even authentic. And currently, there is no structured process for the government to communicate their determinations to platforms like Discord.
However, what is clear is that unauthorized disclosure of classified government documents violates Discord’s Terms of Service, which prohibit the posting of illegal content on our platform. Because of this, in connection with this incident, we have removed content, terminated user accounts, and are cooperating with the efforts of the United States Departments of Defense and Justice in their investigation of this incident. And, while a suspect has been arrested, we continue to conduct our own internal investigation of these events.
Discord is a communications platform that brings people together over shared experiences. More than 150 million people around the world use our platform every month to stay in touch and spend time with the most important people in their lives.
The safety of all the people and communities that call Discord their online home is a top priority. Posting illegal content or demonstrating racist behavior, both observed in this incident, are not welcome or allowed on Discord.
Below is a summary of what we can share about the recent incident, including actions taken and more details around our practices.
Because investigations are ongoing, we can only share limited details. What we can say is that the alleged documents were initially shared in a small, invite-only server on Discord. The original server has been deleted, but the materials have since appeared in several additional servers.
Our Terms of Service expressly prohibit using Discord for illegal or criminal purposes. This includes the sharing of documents that may be verifiably classified. Unlike the overwhelming majority of the people who find community on Discord, this group departed from the norms, broke our rules, and did so in apparent violation of the law.
Our mission is for Discord to be the place to hang out with friends online. With that mission comes a responsibility to make Discord a safe and positive place for our users. For example, our policies clearly outline that hate speech, threats and violent extremism have no place on our platform. When Discord’s Trust and Safety team learns of content that violates our rules, we act quickly to remove it. In this instance, we have banned users involved with the original distribution of the materials, deleted content deemed to be against our Terms, and issued warnings to users who continue to share the materials in question.
This recent incident fundamentally represents a misuse of our platform and a violation of our platform rules. Our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines provide the universal rules for what is acceptable activity and content on Discord. When we become aware of violations to our policies, we take action.
The core of our mission is to give everyone the power to find and create belonging in their lives. Creating a safe environment on Discord is essential to achieve this, and is one of the ways we prevent misuse of our platform. Safety is at the core of everything we do and a primary area of investment as a business:
The fight against bad actors on communications platforms is unlikely to end soon, and our approach to safety is guided by the following principles:
Underpinning all of this are two important considerations: our overall approach towards content moderation and our investments in technology solutions to keep our users safe.
We currently employ three levers to moderate user content on Discord, while mindful of user privacy:
There is constant innovation taking place within and beyond Discord to improve how companies can effectively scale and deliver content moderation. In the future, our approach will continue to evolve, as we are constantly finding new ways to do better for our users.
We believe that in the long term, machine learning will be an essential component of safety solutions. In 2021, we acquired Sentropy, a leader in AI-powered moderation systems, to advance our work in this domain. We will continue to balance technology with the judgment and contextual assessment of highly trained employees, as well as continuing to maintain our strong stance on user privacy.
Here is an overview of some of our key investments in technology:
In the field of online safety, we are inspired by the spirit of cooperation across companies and civil society groups. We are proud to engage and learn from a wide range of companies and organizations including:
This cooperation extends to our work with law enforcement agencies. When appropriate, Discord complies with information requests from law enforcement agencies while respecting the privacy and rights of our users. Discord also may disclose information to authorities in emergency situations when we possess a good faith belief that there is imminent risk of serious physical injury or death. You can read more about how Discord works with law enforcement here.
If you would like to learn more about our approach to Safety, we welcome you to visit the links below.
