What’s New in Family Center: Building With Teens in Mind

When we first launched Family Center in June 2023, our goal was to start the dialogue between guardians and teens about their experience and activity on Discord. With Family Center, guardians can see which servers their teens are joining or which friends they’re adding, all while protecting teens’ privacy and independence. The idea was to encourage healthy conversations so everyone could feel safer online. 

Since then, we’ve been listening and learning. Teens want support without feeling controlled. Guardians want tools that make it easier to guide and empower. And both sides want to feel confident navigating the online world together.

Guardians shouldn’t have to be a Discord expert to support their teen. That’s why starting today, we’re rolling out over the next week new Family Center features to help guardians stay informed and play a more active role in their teens’ online experiences, while making sure teens continue to have a voice in shaping their digital environment. These updates are built with our teen safety principles, informed by teen research and perspectives.  

What’s New in Family Center

The new features allow guardians who have linked Family Center accounts to play a more active role in creating a safer space online for teens while still respecting their privacy.

More visibility into recent activity: In addition to the past seven days of activity that guardians can already see, Family Center now includes insight into the following teen activities:

• Total Purchases: All purchases made in the last week, including Shop and Nitro subscriptions
• Total Call Minutes in Voice & Video: Total minutes spent on calls in the last week, including voice and video calls in Direct Messages (DMs), Group Direct Messages (GDMs), and servers
• Top Users and Servers: Top five users and servers your teen most frequently messaged and called in the last week

Ability for teens to notify guardians when they’ve submitted a report: When a teen reports another user or piece of content to Discord, they’ll have the option to notify their guardian. If they choose to share, their guardian receives an email letting them know a report was filed. The email notification doesn’t include the details of the report, so we encourage guardians to have an open and honest conversation with their teen about what happened and how they can support.

Guardian-managed settings: We built Family Center to encourage guardians and teens to create habits together that support a healthy online experience, both now and in the future. To help develop those healthy habits, we’re introducing guardian-managed settings, which enable certain teen account settings to be managed by guardians. This includes who can DM your teen, whether sensitive content is filtered, and select data privacy controls. We encourage teens to collaborate with their guardians to find the right settings for their experience. 

Go to our help center articles for parents & guardians and for teens to learn more about all the features available with Family Center.

For Teens

‍These updates to Family Center give your guardian more tools, but we designed them with you in mind. These changes aren’t intended to take anything away. Instead, they’re about making sure you have the right support when you need it, without losing your independence. 

• Your voice matters: Some settings, like what sensitive content you see, are guardian-managed, but you’re encouraged to review them together so they reflect the Discord experience you want. Notifying your guardian of a report you submit is optional and entirely up to you!
• Privacy is protected: As always, guardians can’t see the content of the messages you send. The information they do see is meant to help keep you safe, and you’ll see the exact same information in Family Center, so there’s full transparency.

We know each of you has a unique perspective on your Discord experience. That’s why we encourage you to have open conversations with your guardian to make sure you are setting up your Discord account together in a way that works for you.

For Guardians

‍You don’t have to be a Discord expert to support your teen. With the updated Family Center, you’ll be able to:

• Play a more active role in safety: Manage certain settings that shape your teen’s experience, like content filters and DM controls.
• Nurture trust: You will not be able to view the contents of your teen’s messages out of respect for their privacy. We’re focused on making it easier for you to offer guidance, not surveillance. In Family Center, your teen will always see the same things you see, so there’s full transparency.
• Start better conversations: Use the new recent activity data as a way to check in and have open, informed dialogue with your teen about their time on Discord.

By creating more visibility, encouraging open dialogue, and respecting your teen’s autonomy, Family Center helps you guide your teen’s online journey while strengthening the trust and independence they need to grow.

How to Get Started with Family Center

Connecting a Discord account to Family Center is quick and easy:

• Guardians and teens each open their Discord app
• Go to User Settings > Family Center
• Follow the steps to link accounts

Once your accounts are linked, you’ll be able to use the new Family Center features. Go to our help center articles here for more details on how to get connected.

What’s Next?

We’ll continue evolving Family Center to give guardians even more ways to support teens on Discord. Stay tuned for future updates on our Safety Center.