WASHINGTON, DC (July 14, 2023) – The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) commended Discord for improving child safety protections with changes NCOSE recommended to Discord when it was named to its 2023 Dirty Dozen List.
Discord was placed on the 2023 Dirty Dozen List because the messaging platform has been popular with predators who want to groom children and find and trade child sexual abuse materials, as well as adult image-based sexual abuse. Learn more: www.endsexualexploitation.org/Discord.
“Discord is finally doing more to address child safety and we commend the company for hearing our concerns and implementing more stringent protections. Discord’s changes mean that more children will be protected from potential predators on this child-centric platform as a result,” said Haley McNamara, vice president of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation.
Discord updated its child sexual abuse material policy to include “any text or media content that sexualizes children, including drawn, photorealistic, and AI-generated photorealistic child sexual abuse material.” This includes links to websites containing material that sexualizes minors, expressing desires for real or fictitious minors through comments or texts, and sharing media depicting minors in sexualized poses or fetishized contexts. Discord is also prohibiting teen dating servers in order to thwart potential grooming of children by adults. The company announced the creation of a Family Center to help parents and caregivers navigate Discord and further protect their children.
“Discord clearly heard our concerns, having adopted many of our requests to significantly improve child safety after we placed it on our 2023 Dirty Dozen List. We hope more companies follow in Discord’s path, especially as AI technology advances and creates more pathways for abuse and exploitation,” McNamara added.
About National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE)
Founded in 1962, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) is the leading national non-partisan organization exposing the links between all forms of sexual exploitation such as child sexual abuse, prostitution, sex trafficking and the public health harms of pornography.
