In Just 6 Months, Discord Banned More Than 55 Million Accounts, And 68 Thousand Servers

Discord, the popular instant messaging and VoIP social platform, is pretty much decentralized.

This is because Discord is ad-free, and that users can create private chats through servers, which can be accessed via invite links.

But that doesn't mean rules are meant to be broken, because in its first and second quarterly safety reports, the platform noted that some 55,573,411 accounts and 68,379 servers were "disabled" between January and June, 2022.

According to the company, most of these were taken down for "spam or spam-related offenses."

The number of accounts that Discord disabled for reasons other than spam pales in comparison, amounting to only 1,821,721.

The bans in this category were issues relating to "child safety" or "exploitative and unsolicited content."

Discord

According to Discord:

"Our mission at Discord is to create welcoming spaces where people can find belonging. We recognize that safety enables people to find belonging and that’s why safety is one of our most important investments and priorities. "

"Safety is a vital priority for our company. Around 15 percent of all Discord employees are dedicated to this area and every employee shares in the commitment to keeping Discord safe."

Discord does allow those affected to appeal.

"Discord allows users to appeal actions taken on their accounts if they believe that the enforcement was incorrect."

"We welcome appeals and take them seriously when they raise context or information that we may not have known. We review appeals and reinstate accounts if we determine that a mistake was made or if we believe, based on the appeal, that the user has recognized the violation made for a low-harm issue."

However, the platform seems to be justified in disabling these accounts and closing the affected servers, since only a miniscule 2% in the first quarter and less than one percent in the second quarter of this year, were reinstated.

What this means, out of the 235,945 users who complained about Discord banning them, only 3,098 of them were allowed to return to the platform.

Discord apparently acted on 24% of reported infractions between January and March, as well as 22% of those reported between April and June of 2022.

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"For some high-harm issues such as Violent Extremism or Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) - a subcategory of Child Safety - we do not issue warnings but rather immediately disable the account and remove the content. In the case of CSAM, we also report the account to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children."

According to reports, scrutiny of extremist and illegal activity on Discord has been pretty high in the last few years, with child harm content and hate-promoting content have been in the spotlight.

Earlier in 2022, it is said that Discord was among the online platforms where hate speech spread, particularly after mass shooting incidents.

While Discord has been praised for creating a community, the platform has also been criticized for hosting a safe haven for cyberbullies.

This happened because Discord has a long-lasting problems of hostile behavior and abuse within its chats, as well as community chats being "raided" by large number of users from other communities.

These people often flood the chats with controversial topics related to race, religion, politics, and pornography.

Discord has also been criticized for being a place for alt-right groups, which is caused by the pseudonymity and privacy feature offered by Discord's service.

Discord started sharing quarterly reports since 2019, the year Bianca Devins' gruesome photos were shared after she was murdered.