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Generative AI is attracting attention as the technology has progressed in leaps and bounds in recent years, offering fresh ways to solve user problems. Since it's a relatively new area in terms of its practical application, figuring out how to start building with LLMs (large language models) can be challenging. We're excited to share our approach for solving problems with generative AI, along with insights on rapidly launching new features leveraging this technology.
We break down the process of building with LLMs into a few stages. Starting with product ideation and defining requirements, we first need to figure out what we’re building and how it can benefit users. Next, we develop a prototype of our idea, learn from small-scale experiments, and repeat that process until our feature is in a good state. Finally, we fully launch and deploy our product at scale. In this post, we will dive deeper into each stage of this process.
We start by having empathy for our users and for our staff - what are the opportunities that generative AI can help address? Like machine learning in general, generative AI is a tool — and one that shouldn’t be applied when other tools are a better fit. When it comes to identifying where generative AI can make an impact, we dig into challenges that commonly:
The sun peeks over the horizon. The neon sign on the window flickers to life, and a bell jingles as the front door of your favorite local game shop swings forward — it’s time to open up shop!
We’re starting something new on the Discord Blog today: Staff Picks. Every month, a few Discord employees will let everyone know what they’ve been playing recently, why they’ve enjoyed it so much, and give recommendations on what they think you should try out, too!
A little backstory if you’ve never been to a locally-owned game shop before: along the shelves of certain stores, you might see cards or signs with an employee’s name and their recommendations if you’re unsure what to play. We’re doing that, but on the Discord Blog!
For this first article in the series, think of it as your first time at the game shop! You’ll meet the faces you’ll start to get familiar with over time, and hear what they tend to play and what they’ve played this month.
Let’s meet the staff lineup!
What’s your name? What do you do at Discord?
Matt, Gaming Platform Partnerships. I've been at Discord for just over five years. I've had the privilege of working with game devs and major game platforms. My work has spanned across Discord Game Stores, to building verified servers, to integrating Game SDKs, to launching awesome products like Discord voice on console.
What platforms do you usually play games on?
PC, PS5, Xbox, Steam Deck, and sometimes my phone.
What’s your most played game this month?
It's a three-way tie between Helldivers 2, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.
Tell us one game recommendation for us to get to know you well.
The original DOOM. id Software overall is the studio that converted me into the obsessive gamer I am today: Starting with Commander Keen, then blowing my mind with taking down Mecha-Hitler in Wolfenstein 3D, but DOOM is a game I spent years playing before moving on to anything else (also probably because I didn't have enough allowance money to play anything else).
Here's the Discord Changelog from April 3, 2024. You can also find the most recent Changelog in the Discord app under Settings > What's New.
The newest season of THE FINALS is underway as we speak (or, type?), and we’re doing something special with our friends at Embark Studios in celebration of the new mode, map, ability, weapons, and gadgets that have been added!
For the next two weeks, you can get your hands on the Discord-exclusive “Skill Issue” set for THE FINALS by completing a Quest. Desktop players can head into their Gift inventory (User Settings > Gift Inventory) to get started, and thanks to the game’s cross-progression feature, you can use your newly-earned Skill Issue set anywhere you play THE FINALS after redeeming your code.
We’d tell a whole story about how cool this set looks, but you’re probably itching to get your new cosmetic set ASAP. Alright alright, let’s dig right in.
Here’s the objective: Accept the Quest on Discord in the Gift Inventory, fire up THE FINALS, and stream your gameplay in any server you’re in with at least one friend for 15 minutes. (And try and pull off a sick play to impress ‘em, or better yet, invite them to join your team and play along.)
And… that’s it! After 15 minutes of streaming, your Quest is complete and the “Skill Issue” set redemption code will be waiting for you in your Gift Inventory! Use your new set as you dive into the game’s new map, try out those shiny new gadgets, and play a few rounds of THE FINALS.
Simply put: stream cool game while you play it to your friends on Discord, get rewarded with a cool thing in THE FINALS. It’s almost as easy as solo-carrying your friends to victory.
If you aren’t seeing the Quest in Settings or your gameplay isn’t being counted, double-check in User Settings > Privacy & Safety > In-game rewards on the desktop app to make sure you’re sharing the deets on what game you’re playing with us. (We can’t give you your sweet reward if we can’t see you’re playing THE FINALS, ya’know?)
Don’t delay: The Skill Issue set is exclusively available in Discord until April 16 at 11:59 pm UTC. While the Quest awaits you for two weeks, your redemption code remains valid until May 30, 2024 at 11:59 pm EDT. See Terms and Conditions below. (Don’t forget to claim your code after you finish the Quest!)
If you’ve never seen a Discord Quest before and could use some detailed set-up guidance, take a peek at the Discord Quests support article. If you’re already used to streaming PC games to your friends on Discord, you’ll get it down fast.
Once you’ve unlocked your exclusive reward, share it with us! Take a screenshot or clip, and mention us on X, TikTok, or Instagram! We’d love to see you rep it in-game. 🙏
If you’re a developer interested in running your own Discord Quest and rewarding your players for playing what they love with their friends, get in touch with us here.
From the moment the idea of Discord was born – baby Wumpus, you might say – our CEO, Jason Citron, was focused on one of the most important questions for a growing company to answer: “How do you create a place where people can thrive doing their best work?”
Since then, we’ve grown our team and heard how they would describe and capture the essence of what makes working at Discord special. At Discord, we live by these seven Wumpus principles!
Take the time to get to know people and find common ground. Remember that we are all working towards the same goal. Start from a place of trust, assume good intent, and seek to understand other points of view before passing judgment.
Deliver solutions that meet the needs of the people we serve. Strive to deeply understand how what you are working on helps customers from first principles and invent creative approaches to meet them. Focus on their needs, not what the competition is doing.
Surprise & delight comes from caring about the million little details of how a person experiences your work. Put the right emotion in when they least expect it to deliver the magic. This applies to how we show up with each other too!
When you own a decision, involve your stakeholders, get informed through data, have constructive debates, and make a decision. When you are part of a decision or when you aren't, share your thoughts respectfully. When a decision is made, regardless of whether you agree with it, commit to bringing it to life with excellence. Transparency is our goal, not consensus.
All big things start small. Think long-term and break ideas down so you can start delivering value and learning right away. Strive for an 80/20 approach and compound from there. This is the essence of moving fast with both excellence and surprise & delight.
Take risks (big and small) to do things that matter and don't be afraid to change directions based on what you learn. Inspect reality — using data when you can — to determine whether it is working or not. If it's working, keep going. When it's not, don't be afraid to cut your losses. Always learn what went right and wrong to do better next time.
Seize the opportunity to do incredible work that you can be proud of every single day. Learn more, ask questions, improve yourself, improve our company, and help those around you reach their maximum potential.
Playing games with your friends is what Discord’s all about. It’s not just us saying that… every month, people on Discord play a collective 1.5 billion hours across 60,000 unique games. And of those 60,000 games, VALORANT stands out among the 5 most-played games on the platform.
We also know that Discord is the place for anyone who plays games to show off what they’re into, and what better place to show that off than on your Discord profile! Whether you’re deep into the competitive scene or a certain character from something you played recently speaks to you, someone’s Discord profile speaks a thousand words about ‘em — and that’s not including the words they wrote in their bio.
The Shop launched last September to help express who you are even better. Along with your avatar and bio, the Shop lets you build a digital wardrobe of different looks for your profile, bringing more Anime, Fantasy, and even Cyberpunk aesthetics to your Discord looks, and put the final touches on your presentation.
But ever since the launch, we've heard from many of you that you want GAMING styles. Today, we’re super excited to bring you our limited-time VALORANT collection: a new set of Avatar Decorations and Profile Effects featuring fan-favorite Agents Jett, Reyna, and Omen. Joining them is the newest Agent revealed this week: Clove. (Yes, we have items featuring them, too!)
With Episode 8 Act 2 of VALORANT in full swing, we figured it’d be a great opportunity to work with our friends at Riot Games and combine two things people love to do on Discord: playing VALORANT and making your Discord profile perfectly express who you are.
While you’re here, check out the slick trailer showcasing VALORANT’s newest Agent we mentioned, Clove. Clove uses their gift of immortality to get the upper hand on their enemies, providing cover from beyond the grave or springing back into action to clutch a round.
This VALORANT Collection is available until May 7th, so make sure you grab what you like before it disappears in the smoke. Never explored the Shop before? It’s easy to get there, so follow along if you’d like some backup!
If “Shop” in the context of Discord is completely new to you, no worries — it’s just as quick as purchasing your equipment at the beginning of a round of VALORANT.
The next time you open up the desktop or web app, you’ll see a Shop tab right as you open it. Click that, and you’ll head straight to the Shop.
From there, it’s up to you! Preview what a particular avatar decoration or profile effect looks like on your profile by clicking on it. If you purchase it, you can use it in your profile even after the VALORANT collection leaves the Shop.
Tie it all together with a matching avatar to set up a killer profile combo to impress your friends and style on your rivals. If you’ve got Nitro, you can also pair your new VALORANT items with a profile banner and profile colors, and even use your decorations on a per-server basis!
The VALORANT collection will be available in the Shop until May 7th, so grab whichever one calls to you while you can — no need to queue up with a squad before entering the Shop.
If you’ve never played VALORANT, what’re ya waitin’ for?! It’s available to download on Windows PCs, so head on over to the official site and give it a shot. It might end up being your newest obsession — there’s a reason why it’s in the top 5 most-played games on Discord.
Appropriately managing complex access permissions is a crucial part of mature security programs at companies like Discord. Access controls that are easy to understand and manage make our lives easier, while poorly configured access controls often lead to significant harm.
74% of all breaches involve the human element, with privilege misuse and stolen user credentials being two of the primary threats. This indicates that access control is crucial to the security of businesses, especially when it comes to protecting proprietary information and sensitive systems. That said, plans and policies designed to manage permissions tend to cause headaches for end-users and leave the decisions about “who can access what” in the hands of people who don’t have much information about the resources – often IT or Security.
To address this within Discord, we built a new internal portal for staff to manage their permissions. We created it with the goals of security, transparency, and ease of use in mind with the intention of eventually making the tool publicly available and free to use.
We’ve been hard at work to make our vision a reality and are happy to announce that Access has now been open-sourced on GitHub for anyone to utilize. In this article, we’ll discuss our path to creating Access and highlight its biggest features.
At Discord, we use Okta as our identity provider for employee single sign-on. As we grew, so did our desire to further customize access controls for our employees, leading us to want to either build or buy an additional access control tool. To start, we came up with a list of standards we wanted this tool to meet:
Hey, everyone! We’re closing out the month of March and celebrating Women’s History Month with a spotlight on Discord’s own Women in Tech ERG: a community for inspiration, support, and opportunities for Discord employees who identify as women.
Internally at Discord, we kicked off Women’s History Month with a panel entitled, “How We Rise Together” led by our very own Kelly Liang, SVP of Global Partnerships. Kelly welcomed an ensemble of female executive leaders from across the Gaming, Tech, and Advertising industries, who shared inspiring, powerful insights for all that participated.
We also hosted several Career Roundtables throughout the month, hosted by women and non-binary leaders at Discord. Members of the Women in Tech ERG and allies alike came together to have open conversations about the realities, challenges, and opportunities for women and non-binary folks in the workplace and discussed ways to support one another.
As Discord is committed to building an inclusive and representative workforce – advocating for gender parity, equity, and inclusion in all that we do – this work doesn’t stop here. The Women In Tech ERG also runs ongoing sessions for community building, mentorship, career development, and nonprofit partnerships year-round.
Outside of our doors, there are countless communities of women and nonbinary folks online who are creating amazing content and revitalizing the gaming space. This month, our Women in Tech ERG and its allies would love to share a handful of their favorite vibrant gaming communities and content creators led by women.
In honor of Women’s History Month, Discord is raising funds for Girls Who Code, an organization on a mission to close the gender gap in technology and change the image of what a programmer looks like and does. Discord is proud to honor communities online that are making the world a more thriving, inclusive place for women, girls, and nonbinary folks.
If you’d like to be a part of the Women in Tech ERGs’ journey and Discord’s culture, we’d love to have you — consider taking a peek at our jobs page from time to time!
Grab your Palicos and your human pals! The winter season is nearing its end, meaning it’s time to go… gasp… OUTSIDE!! What better way to do that than to explore what’s around you, fighting huge monsters as you go in Monster Hunter Now, Niantic’s newest game that lets you and up to three nearby friends fight monsters by finding them in the real world.
Our friends at Niantic want to bring you and your Discord friends together for an outdoor adventure this spring — starting on March 19th, Niantic is giving out one month of Discord Nitro to their players for Monster Hunter Now’s sixth-month anniversary, usable for anyone who hasn’t had Nitro within the last year. Download the game on the App Store or Google Play and take a peek at their in-game news for all the details.
Already a cool cat with Discord Nitro? Nitro members can claim a bundle of rewards to use on their adventures in Monster Hunter Now! The bundle includes a material from the elusive DevilJho, one of the newest monsters you’ll encounter on your adventures.
The reward bundle includes:
This anniversary reward bundle is available until April 18, 2024. If you’re an existing Nitro member ready to hit the streets with your friends, read on to see how it all works!
Monster Hunter Now players who also happen to be Discord Nitro members will find their bundle of hunting supplies waiting for them in their Gift Inventory, which you can redeem on the Monster Hunter Now website!
(Didn’t make a Monster Hunter Now account yet? Download the game and sign up!)
And that’s it! The next time you launch Monster Hunter Now, your hunting supplies will be waiting for you in your Item Box. If you were already playing, you may need to restart the game to see your stuff.
With your stash chock-full of supplies and a new monster-filled perspective of your local area, get out there and hunt some Pukei-Pukei with your friends! You can redeem your items until April 18, 2024, so Nitro members should head into User Settings > Gift Inventory before then to claim their supplies.
If you need some extra hunting help, we’ve got two resources for you to use. (Educational resources, not crafting resources.) Check out our support article about this promo or Niantic’s article about redeeming codes for Monster Hunter Now.
Aah, last year’s Discord App Pitches… *deep exhale*… we remember it like it was yesterday. Whaddaya say we do it again? But this time, let’s make it HUGE! We’ll create bigger experiences for people to come together and play on Discord. This time, we’ll bring more of our enthusiastic developer community along for the ride!
Discord App Pitches is making a return, and we’re looking for both Discord App Developers and Game Developers to pitch their ideas for new Activities (woah) directly within Discord using the brand-new Embedded App SDK announced last week.
What’s new for our Activity-flavored variation of Discord App Pitches this year? A whole lot, actually!
You can submit your pitch any time between April 1, 2024, and May 1, 2024. Jump straight into the action by exploring our Discord App Pitches 2024 website using the big button below!
If you didn’t immediately rush to smash that blurple button with enthusiasm and excitement, read on for more deets about what we’re looking for this time around and who’s judging. You can also find rules, eligibility, terms, and important legal info here.
Just like last year, we’re looking for App ideas within five specific categories. We’re building games and experiences to enjoy inside Discord with your friends, and this year’s categories reflect what’s possible with the Embedded App SDK:
🏆 Compete: We're looking for game experiences that ignite (friendly) rivalries, test skills against individuals or teams, and bring true pride in leaderboard status. Ideal for those who revel in competition and enjoy pitting their skills against others.
🤝 Adventure Together: We're on the lookout for gaming experiences that create shared moments and facilitate meaningful interactions among players. Perfect for those who find joy in collective undertakings and making memories.
🎨 Collect and Create: Equipped with elements of creativity and decision-making, these games might have daily challenges, unexpected rewards, and engaging content that keeps players returning for more. Perfect for those who enjoy crafting their own unique experiences and venturing into unknown territories.
☕ Chill: We're keen on experiences that offer a laid-back, stress-free environment. These games and experiences are ideal for users who wish to unwind and enjoy a game without any pressure or high stakes.
♠️ Wildcard: The Discord Developer Platform is a playground for innovation and unique ideas. For ideas that defy categorization, the Wildcard category is open. There are no rules, no guidelines, no restrictions — the potential is limitless!
*Each category winner will win a $5,000 start-up grant and a $10,000 grant for eligible completed apps. In addition to these, one grand prize winner is eligible for an additional $15,000 grant for a total of $30,000 if they resubmit their app in accordance with the Official Rules.
Winners will also receive personal support from Discord Staff to help make their Activity the best it can be once it’s complete.
Check out the full scoop on each category on the Discord App Pitches page. (Did you open it yet?)
Hi folks! It’s Important Announcement DayTM again: we’re updating our Terms of Service, Paid Services Terms, Privacy Policy, and Community Guidelines! These changes go into effect on April 15, 2024.
We regularly review our policies to ensure we're surfacing important information to our users in a clear and easy-to-understand way. As we continually work to improve our services, respond to new laws, and protect your privacy, we periodically update these policies to reflect those priorities and our commitments to each other.
Here are some highlights of what we’ve updated:
You can find a summary of the changes at the links below, but please do read the revised policies, as they are what actually govern your use of Discord:
Thanks for reading!
Developers, has anyone said how incredible you all are? Well, let us remind you: y’all are INCREDIBLE — just look at all the stuff we did together last year. Creating great Apps on Discord is a never-ending adventure of creating nearly anything you can think of.
When it comes to gaming, Discord is core to how players find each other, play together, and stay connected, whether they’re already playing their favorite PC and console games, or they’re spending time together in more low-key in-server Activities. And plenty of Discord Developers out there have had their eyes on Activities, wondering when they could create their own.
That time? It’s (almost) now. Starting March 18, Discord Developers will be able to build new games and experiences that can be played directly on the platform with our new Embedded App SDK.
There’s a lot to talk about in this article — try using the Table of Contents to navigate through it all! You’ll see it on the right of your browser window on desktop or at the bottom of your screen if you’re on mobile.
You might be asking yourself: “What’s the Embedded App SDK?” Explained plainly, the Embedded App SDK lets you build apps that are embedded in an iframe within Discord, i.e. the Activities you know and love today. Long story short, Discord Developers like you create amazing Apps on Discord, whether they’re helping in your conversations, or rich interactive experiences that you and your friends can play instantly within Discord.
We want Discord to grow into the best place for developers to do it all: build, share, distribute, be discovered, and monetize their work. We want Discord to be where your App gets its start, where it finds a home in the communities of people around the world, and where it can be easily shared between friends.
Whether you’re building a traditional text-based App that you’re used to or a new Activity that people can play, you’re still developing directly within Discord. And it’s up to you and your dev team to decide how it takes shape!
The Embedded App SDK is available globally starting March 18, so head to the Developer Portal to learn how to get started! If you want to see what you can build, you already can: hop into a Voice Channel and use the Rocket button to try out today’s available Activities with your friends!
Discord was created to bring friends together around games. A lot has changed since Discord started in 2015, as it’s grown to welcome hundreds of millions of people who play games and enjoy so many other experiences together. One thing has stayed true: helping people deepen their friendships by playing games remains the heart and soul of why we do what we do at Discord.
A lot has changed since 2015 for the games industry too. Today, more of us are playing on multiple devices, and more games than ever are launching each year. On Discord alone, we host 1.5 billion hours of gameplay across more than 60,000 titles every month. This is all awesome, except it’s becoming really difficult for game developers to break through and bring their ideas to life as a successful business.
Over the years, we’ve spent a lot of time with devs to learn about the intersection of our worlds and how we might be able to make Discord better for them, and even partner with them to bring you more cool stuff. They brought some really interesting ideas about how we could help, so today we’re announcing a few new tools that we hope will make building a gaming business a little easier. Let’s talk about how we’ll expand Quests and our Shop.
Quests are a way for players to discover games and earn rewards for playing them on Discord. We started experimenting with them over the last year, and millions of you opted in and completed them. We’ve heard great feedback from developers who partnered with us to create them and from many of you who completed one. If you didn’t see firsthand, the "May the 4th" Fortnite Quest is a great example. Now, we’re opening up sponsored Quests to more game developers.
Quests will show up tastefully in Discord where you can opt-in to stream your game to friends and win rewards for playing. Some players will be made aware that a Quest is available, while others will discover it as their friends accept and embark on the Quest. Developers and publishers who sponsor Quests will work with our team to build an experience that showcases their game and offers a reward tailored for their game.
Here's the Discord Changelog from March 5, 2024. You can also find the most recent Changelog in the Discord app under Settings > What's New.
Go Live is one of Discord’s most popular features, allowing users to stream applications, screens, and especially video games, to others on the call. Originally released for the desktop on August 15, 2019, it’s grown to support web browsers and phones, and even gained support on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One consoles this last year.
Go Live’s screen sharing technology is a multi-process pipeline that requires coordination between streamers, viewers, and Discord’s backend. Each part of the process needs to support the large image resolutions and high framerates that are crucial for everything from showing off your favorite fast-paced games to crisp text legibility during document sharing. Any part of the flow can become a bottleneck and degrade the experience, so every component must work efficiently.
Go Live continually captures updates to your application and screen using the optimal method available on your operating system. It has a robust fallback system so if one method fails, it will quickly switch to the next method so the stream isn’t interrupted. All capture methods have the same goal but work in different ways — some are provided directly by your operating system, while others require Discord to reach into the application through dll-injection to grab what it’s rendering.
Discord uses OS-specific audio APIs to capture audio from the shared screen or application. Fairly often, audio is generated from several processes of the application (ex. game music from one process, voice chat on another) so we capture audio from the shared process and all its children.
Discord is proud to join the global community in celebrating Black History Month. This annual observance commemorates and recognizes the invaluable contributions of Black individuals throughout history, acknowledging their resilience, creativity, and enduring legacy that has shaped the world we live in today.
For this year's Black History Month, Discord's Black and African American Movement Employee Resource Group (or the BAAM ERG for short) and its allies would love to share a handful of their favorite vibrant Black gaming communities and content creators. Black gamers have played an integral role in shaping the gaming landscape and fostering inclusivity within our community, from esports enthusiasts to casual players, and content creators to streamers.
Check ‘em out!
Celebrating Black gaming communities online that are creating great culture and content is a great way to celebrate Black History Month near and far and is a tangible way to advocate for a more inclusive online world. Throughout February, Discord and Discord employees donated to non-profit organizations supporting Black communities, highlighted Black-owned businesses to help support their work, held thoughtful discussions of Black intersectionality with various identities, and celebrated Black joy together.
The BAAM ERG, along with Discord and the rest of its employees, are honoring organizations that support, advocate, and are creating a more inclusive, equitable world for Black global citizens, including supporting organizations such as The East Oakland Collective and Free Black Therapy.
If you’d like to be a part of the BAAM ERG’s journey and Discord’s culture, we’d love to have you — consider taking a peek at our jobs page from time to time!
If you've been following our previous engineering blog posts, you'll know that building and maintaining Discord is a complex task. Our software development takes place in a polyglot mono-repo, where Python, Typescript, Rust, Elixir, and C/C++ are the most actively developed languages. We also develop and ship products for all major platforms including Android, iOS, MacOS, Windows, and Linux.
The Internal Developer Experience team is responsible for roughly the first third of the Software Development Life Cycle. Our main tasks include building and maintaining IDE experiences, managing development environments, shipping tools for building, developing, and testing code, scaling and maintaining CI infrastructure, and owning the change management process and supporting tooling infrastructure. While we could delve deeper into any of these topics, this blog post focuses on how we transitioned all backend and infrastructure development to a Linux-based Cloud Development Environment, thanks to the team over at Coder.
Over the past few years, Discord's engineering organization has gone through rapid growth and more than tripled in size. Discord operates as a hybrid company with a physical office in San Francisco and the Netherlands, but our engineering team primarily operates remotely.
Most of our developers use MacBooks. Before transitioning to remote development machines, we ensured that engineers could fully stand up Discord on both Mac and Ubuntu machines, and created custom tools to provision laptops using Homebrew. However, we encountered several issues where a brew upgrade could halt a developer in their tracks. We resolved many of these issues by hard-pinning every software package and transitive dependency, although this made it more difficult to install arbitrary software packages. We have since moved from Homebrew to Nix for installing system dependencies, allowing engineers to use Homebrew as needed.
Our local service orchestration tools have also evolved. We began with Makefiles and procfiles, but quickly outgrew this system. We experimented with Docker and docker-compose, but for various reasons, this did not work for us. At that time, the performance on docker-for-Mac performance was subpar, and the added friction in the (re)-build loop led us to seek faster, simpler solutions. We eventually moved to a supervisor-based system and developed tools to easily define and run services and dependencies.
However, not using containers in the development loop comes with trade-offs. Managing two non-reproducible environments became a significant burden for the tooling teams. We often found ourselves debugging niche and unique issues to unblock engineers. As the company continued to grow, it became clear that we needed to focus on a single Linux-based development environment. This led us to explore Cloud Developer Environments (CDEs) and eventually evaluate Coder.
The European Union’s Digital Services Act, or “DSA”, is an important regulation that affects how certain companies moderate content in the EU. We’ve been working hard on our approach to the DSA, and as the law comes into force for companies like ours, we want to outline some changes EU users are going to see across Discord.
Creating a place for safe connection is a top priority, and we invest heavily in it. Independent of any regulation, more than 15% of our employees are focused on safety, and we work tirelessly to reinforce our Community Guidelines, removing content and bad actors who violate them. Today we’re giving you some more information about the work we’ve been doing to meet our obligations under the DSA for our users based in the EU. As we updated our products and policies, we focused on what would be best for our users, and we are proud of what we have built. And while we’re starting with the EU, we plan to roll out certain parts of this system that improve safety for all of our users so that our platform continues to be the best place to hang out and have fun with friends.
Transparency has always been one of our core values at Discord. In October 2023, we announced our new Warning System, which is an in-app hub where users can easily review their account status. We want users to be able to easily understand what rule(s) they broke, what restrictions may have been placed on their account, and how they can do better in the future.
This information lives in a user’s Privacy & Safety settings, under the Account Standing tab, and is the centralized place where users can see what actions we have taken. For EU users, we are rolling out an experience that lets users login and view their account standing, even when the account is suspended. This will enable better transparency, so that users can understand why their account was suspended and submit an appeal, if appropriate. We’re also adding more context to our action notices, including the content that violated our policies (as long as providing that additional context does not harm Discord or others). And for every report actioned under the DSA, we will be sending notices by email so users are alerted outside the app as well.
We also want people to understand how to exercise their rights under the DSA. To that end, we have made updates to our Safety Center and other articles to provide context on how to submit DSA reports, appeal decisions, and more, and we will be updating our user policies (including our Terms of Service) to account for DSA requirements.