V and Jed -- thank you for doing this piece. I know it couldn't of been easy to write. My son has limited access to Discord but this has convinced me that he doesn't need it at all. It IS incredibly difficult to navigate and keep track of, even as someone who lightly uses it for language learning servers, and it's hard to supervise.
I'll be reading your Roblox report next since I missed that last week. I saw today that Meta whistleblowers were in Congress again on VR safety for children -- would you take on that topic too?
I am speaking as a parent whose child has ended up in chats on Discord multiple times now and was being groomed. It started with Roblox and then navigated to Discord. These people were clearly grooming my teenage son. I will admit that we weren’t as diligent with checking his phone as much as we should have which allowed those conversations to happen. The people contacting my son kept trying to lead the conversations to talk about sexual content, unhappy relationships with friends/parents, finances, self-harm etc. when all my son wanted to do was talk about the games and memes he liked. He didn’t see the danger. I cannot express to everyone enough how dangerous Roblox and Discord are to young kids. My son wasn’t easy to influence because he has healthy family/friend relationships and mostly didn’t engage with any of that but they were contacting him regularly and constantly trying different tactics to try to form an emotional connection with him. I have never been more scared in my life for my child. We have all devices locked down as much as possible but it is scary to think how easily they got access to him.
I have been an admin on several large servers, and having dealt with their privacy & security team, discord itself needs to expand this team, reorganize, and do better.
I joined Discord for some Photoshop tutorials and such. I let my oldest use it to chat with his cousin. I thank you for this bc I just sent him this article for a discussion today. I sent it to the cousins mom too. They’re 14 & 15 yr old boys. Scary world.
(Please read in the key of "Confused Millenial") Side note, Angles? What is up with the "Angles" thing? I double checked because I initially thought it was a typo but it really is Angles... Any Cliff's Notes for what the heck?
I use Discord for communities, like Swifties or Book Clubs, and even for our DnD campaign. I don't think the problem is Discord itself.
Admins of each Discord server have a lot of control over moderation and such, and many use that well. But that can be an issue in the dangerous servers.
The solution is what it always has been: parents and even peers need to talk to teens! Talk about topics that make you uncomfortable because safety is more important. Be clear about what the natural consequences of certain interactions are. Let them be informed. Do not keep them out of the loop for the sake of them staying "kids". They understand a lot more than most give them credit for.
They ABSOLUTELY need better age verification, but also the platform is not necessarily the problem itself. I hate that this is reality, but the internet has been a dark place for a long time where kids can be exposed to horrible things in even seemingly innocuous places. Parents need to be aware and really talk to their kids, society needs to change, we need accountability and actual justice in the criminal justice system.
Discord is basically what ventrilo used to be back in the day, plus some. For me, it's used to hang out with World of Warcraft guildies both in game and out. It also let's users stream what they're playing which is super helpful when trying to figure out what you're doing wrong.
I have other friends that use it for running DnD groups with friends.
I don't know how you even get into an untoward discord server without looking to do it - the app doesn't suggest servers or groups or push you towards going outside of the space that you're in. So I really, really think it comes down to unsupervised and uneducated children having free access to the Internet by incurious parents. Be curious, ask questions, put the family computer back in the living room.
You should subscribe to Dr. Marc-André Argentino’s blog “From the Depths”. He writes all about these groups and had a post about 764 back in May. https://www.maargentino.com
How is Discord being a private space full of private spaces different from other platforms? Like... Aren't our group texts a private space? I think the kids are just on Discord because it's where the adults aren't. Like AOL used to be, then Facebook, then Twitter, then Kick... The youth are looking for spaces they can be alone, just like we did, only their spaces are digital. So why does the platform matter? Do we really think the teens will stop making 764 offshoots if Discord puts in age verification? Or will they migrate to whatever's next? The bigger question for me isn't where they are but why are they nihilists? "No lives matter"? Why do the children yearn for collapse?
I was on chatrooms in the 90s as a teen and college kid, now in my 50s I’m helping my teen to navigate online life.
There are a lot of good places on discord and I personally belong to at least 5 servers. The responsibility should rely on community, the owners of the servers and the parents as whole, this is the village that needs to help the parents of the kids that are falling into this trap.
My own kid had a grooming incident with Roblox, that I caught within a week but we had already moved onto some deeply disturbing conversations. Even after that incident we still openly talk about the dangers of online. Talking to your kids is under rated this day and age. Kids need direction and guidance for on-line activity. Us having an honest and blunt conversation is why we caught things so quickly. Noticing changes in behavior is also important to pay attention to, your kid will change their behavior and it’s not normal hormone changes.
Wow. I use Discord for sharing information among music performers. But V's article, alongside the PBS documentary I just watched last night on Hannah Arendt (see her "The Origins of Totalitarianism") have me feeling pretty distressed. Down, but not out!
I read about this and it's surreal, and it hurts my head and my heart that these behaviors and actions exist. It feels ingrained for me to say, "the obvious solution is surveillance, if we can know everything about everyone then we can prevent this." But can it? Or would it make it more difficult to find this kind of behavior?
I think an obvious problem is that this behavior is already known, and can already be tracked to individuals, but it's not. Like another person mentioned, parenting is a huge part of this, and society is not set up to properly parent and raise kids. Full stop. A single parental unit isn't going to be capable of dealing with someone this mentally unwell.
The level of disturbed I felt just reading about this blows my mind as to how horrific it would be to actually enter any one of these chat rooms.
V and Jed -- thank you for doing this piece. I know it couldn't of been easy to write. My son has limited access to Discord but this has convinced me that he doesn't need it at all. It IS incredibly difficult to navigate and keep track of, even as someone who lightly uses it for language learning servers, and it's hard to supervise.
I'll be reading your Roblox report next since I missed that last week. I saw today that Meta whistleblowers were in Congress again on VR safety for children -- would you take on that topic too?
I knew Discord had a dark side and I wouldn’t allow my child to use it. That being said, as a book club platform it slaps.
I am speaking as a parent whose child has ended up in chats on Discord multiple times now and was being groomed. It started with Roblox and then navigated to Discord. These people were clearly grooming my teenage son. I will admit that we weren’t as diligent with checking his phone as much as we should have which allowed those conversations to happen. The people contacting my son kept trying to lead the conversations to talk about sexual content, unhappy relationships with friends/parents, finances, self-harm etc. when all my son wanted to do was talk about the games and memes he liked. He didn’t see the danger. I cannot express to everyone enough how dangerous Roblox and Discord are to young kids. My son wasn’t easy to influence because he has healthy family/friend relationships and mostly didn’t engage with any of that but they were contacting him regularly and constantly trying different tactics to try to form an emotional connection with him. I have never been more scared in my life for my child. We have all devices locked down as much as possible but it is scary to think how easily they got access to him.
I have been an admin on several large servers, and having dealt with their privacy & security team, discord itself needs to expand this team, reorganize, and do better.
I joined Discord for some Photoshop tutorials and such. I let my oldest use it to chat with his cousin. I thank you for this bc I just sent him this article for a discussion today. I sent it to the cousins mom too. They’re 14 & 15 yr old boys. Scary world.
(Please read in the key of "Confused Millenial") Side note, Angles? What is up with the "Angles" thing? I double checked because I initially thought it was a typo but it really is Angles... Any Cliff's Notes for what the heck?
I use Discord for communities, like Swifties or Book Clubs, and even for our DnD campaign. I don't think the problem is Discord itself.
Admins of each Discord server have a lot of control over moderation and such, and many use that well. But that can be an issue in the dangerous servers.
The solution is what it always has been: parents and even peers need to talk to teens! Talk about topics that make you uncomfortable because safety is more important. Be clear about what the natural consequences of certain interactions are. Let them be informed. Do not keep them out of the loop for the sake of them staying "kids". They understand a lot more than most give them credit for.
They ABSOLUTELY need better age verification, but also the platform is not necessarily the problem itself. I hate that this is reality, but the internet has been a dark place for a long time where kids can be exposed to horrible things in even seemingly innocuous places. Parents need to be aware and really talk to their kids, society needs to change, we need accountability and actual justice in the criminal justice system.
Discord is basically what ventrilo used to be back in the day, plus some. For me, it's used to hang out with World of Warcraft guildies both in game and out. It also let's users stream what they're playing which is super helpful when trying to figure out what you're doing wrong.
I have other friends that use it for running DnD groups with friends.
I don't know how you even get into an untoward discord server without looking to do it - the app doesn't suggest servers or groups or push you towards going outside of the space that you're in. So I really, really think it comes down to unsupervised and uneducated children having free access to the Internet by incurious parents. Be curious, ask questions, put the family computer back in the living room.
You should subscribe to Dr. Marc-André Argentino’s blog “From the Depths”. He writes all about these groups and had a post about 764 back in May. https://www.maargentino.com
How is Discord being a private space full of private spaces different from other platforms? Like... Aren't our group texts a private space? I think the kids are just on Discord because it's where the adults aren't. Like AOL used to be, then Facebook, then Twitter, then Kick... The youth are looking for spaces they can be alone, just like we did, only their spaces are digital. So why does the platform matter? Do we really think the teens will stop making 764 offshoots if Discord puts in age verification? Or will they migrate to whatever's next? The bigger question for me isn't where they are but why are they nihilists? "No lives matter"? Why do the children yearn for collapse?
I was on chatrooms in the 90s as a teen and college kid, now in my 50s I’m helping my teen to navigate online life.
There are a lot of good places on discord and I personally belong to at least 5 servers. The responsibility should rely on community, the owners of the servers and the parents as whole, this is the village that needs to help the parents of the kids that are falling into this trap.
My own kid had a grooming incident with Roblox, that I caught within a week but we had already moved onto some deeply disturbing conversations. Even after that incident we still openly talk about the dangers of online. Talking to your kids is under rated this day and age. Kids need direction and guidance for on-line activity. Us having an honest and blunt conversation is why we caught things so quickly. Noticing changes in behavior is also important to pay attention to, your kid will change their behavior and it’s not normal hormone changes.
Wow. I use Discord for sharing information among music performers. But V's article, alongside the PBS documentary I just watched last night on Hannah Arendt (see her "The Origins of Totalitarianism") have me feeling pretty distressed. Down, but not out!
Frightening and important to bring awareness to. Thanks, for doing the hard subject journalism, V.
I read about this and it's surreal, and it hurts my head and my heart that these behaviors and actions exist. It feels ingrained for me to say, "the obvious solution is surveillance, if we can know everything about everyone then we can prevent this." But can it? Or would it make it more difficult to find this kind of behavior?
I think an obvious problem is that this behavior is already known, and can already be tracked to individuals, but it's not. Like another person mentioned, parenting is a huge part of this, and society is not set up to properly parent and raise kids. Full stop. A single parental unit isn't going to be capable of dealing with someone this mentally unwell.