Texas AG Sues Discord For Deceiving Parents, Endangering Children
Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against communications app Discord, alleging that the platform allows child predators to exploit children while falsely claiming child safety to parents.
“Discord presents itself to the world as a platform built on community, connection, and safety. It is not,” the lawsuit, filed on May 22 in the District Court of Collin County, Texas, said.
“Behind the safety pages and transparency pages, Discord built and maintains one of the internet’s most efficient hunting grounds for manipulation, grooming, and predatory behavior towards children. Discord did so knowingly, deliberately, and profitably.”
The design choices implemented on the communications platform make it easy for bad actors to locate vulnerable users, build trust quickly, and operate away from public view, the complaint said.
According to a Discord webpage, safety is at the “core of everything” the company does.
In another post, the company claims safety considerations are “fully integrated into our design process.” Discord also says that it has a “zero-tolerance policy” against individuals who engage in sexual grooming or exploitation of minors.
Such promises made to consumers, parents, and regulators were false, the lawsuit alleges.
Discord makes safety an “opt-in rather than default,” the complaint states.
“It chose to leave private servers invisible. It chose to staff its most critical safety function with unpaid volunteers. It chose to expire violations after 90 days. It chose to bury the block button. Discord chose profits and growth over the safety of children,” it states.
A 45-year-old can create a Discord account as a 13-year-old, and the platform has no reliable mechanism to detect or prevent such actions, according to the lawsuit.
While Discord allows channels to be age-restricted if a moderator wishes, this protection depends entirely on the self-reported birthdate entered when a user creates an account. The platform basically created an age-verification system “that a child can defeat in seconds,” the complaint said.
The lawsuit highlights multiple cases of minors being harmed by predators on Discord, including a 13-year-old boy who committed suicide in 2022 after being targeted by the 764 extremist network on the platform.
In another case, a 15-year-old boy committed suicide after he was groomed by a predator on Discord and Roblox to send sexually explicit images and videos, according to the lawsuit.
The complaint noted that Discord has made it into the “Dirty Dozen” list set up by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation for five straight years.
“Sexual abusers return to Discord again and again, thanks to this company’s reputation for lax rule enforcement and dangerous design,” the center said. “Even registered sex offenders have been charged for targeting kids on Discord.”
The lawsuit asks the court to declare Discord’s actions as “unlawful, deceptive, misleading, and unfair” and order the company to implement age verification requirements.
In an emailed statement to The Epoch Times, a Discord spokesperson said the lawsuit’s “characterization of Discord does not reflect the platform we have built or the investments we have made in user safety.”
According to the spokesperson, unlike social media platforms, Discord does not have any algorithmic feeds, infinite scroll, or public “likes” that push content to mass audiences.
“Our safety systems combine advanced technology and human-led investigations, alongside user reports to help identify accounts or spaces engaged in harmful activity, including sharing exploitative and child sexual abuse materials,” the spokesperson said.
“We provide teen users and their parents and guardians with important privacy and safety tools, including Teen Safety Assist and our Family Center. We look forward to collaborating with policymakers in working toward a safer online experience for all users on Discord and across the internet.”
Age Assurance Rollout
On Feb. 9, Discord announced it planned to roll out teen safety features globally to ensure a “safer and more inclusive experience” for users aged 13 and older.
This involves an “age assurance process” in which users must submit identification or agree to use facial age estimation technology. However, only in a minority of cases will age assurance be required, according to Discord.
As part of the update, users will have “teen-appropriate experience, with updated communication settings, restricted access to age-gated spaces, and content filtering that preserves the privacy and meaningful connections that define Discord,” the company said.
The updates were scheduled to take effect in March. But on Feb. 24, Discord said that the rollout had been extended to the second half of this year.
Meanwhile, Discord was one of the companies targeted by a recent letter from Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson, who asked the platform to comply with the Take It Down Act by May 19.
The Act requires platforms to set up a process that enables individuals, including children, to request the removal of intimate photos or videos shared without their consent. Platforms must make it easy for victims to submit such removal requests.
The FTC warned that it would “vigorously” enforce the Act, with each violation potentially resulting in civil penalties of $53,088.