Diagnosed with selective mutism as a child, Jane Doe had trouble communicating with her peers. The online platform, Discord, provided a way for her to chat with friends without having to deal with social anxiety. Unfortunately, being an avid Discord user as a teenager made her a prime target for exploitation.
Discord is a messaging platform often used by gamers to communicate outside of their games. However, due to the platform’s lack of age verification, faulty safety settings, and dangerous design, it’s also a place rife with child predators.
One day, while Jane was online, a man messaged her. What she didn’t know was this man was a registered and convicted sex offender posing as a girl her age. According to Jane Doe’s lawsuit, the man then proceeded to groom and sexually exploit her. Jane Doe alleges that he sent her graphic messages describing sexual acts he intended to do to her, sent her sexually explicit images of himself, and coerced her into doing the same. She also says he tried to meet her in person multiple times.
Jane Doe filed a lawsuit, alleging Discord’s design and marketing ultimately led to her exploitation. And Jane’s exploitation is not a lone instance. Discord is a common platform where children are contacted by predators and abused. For example, the 2025 Bark Report found that Discord was one of the top 5 platforms flagged for grooming and possible sexual predators.
This year, Discord was been named to NCOSE’s Dirty Dozen List for the 5th time as a mainstream contributor to sexual exploitation. This lawsuit is yet another example of the urgent need for this platform to improve safety.
NCOSE Files Amicus Brief in Support of Jane Doe’s Appeal for Jury Trial
Sadly, Jane Doe’s lawsuit against Discord was recently dismissed because of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Section 230 is a law that has long been misinterpreted to give tech companies broad immunity from liability when their platforms create dangerous environments that facilitate exploitative and illegal activity.
Jane Doe and her legal team have appealed this ruling, asking the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse the district court’s holding and allow Jane’s claims to proceed against Discord. NCOSE has filed an amicus (“friend of the court”) brief in support of Jane Doe’s appeal. Discord must be held responsible for the harms it inflicts on its users.
Section 230 has long closed the door to survivors of sexual exploitation when they pursue justice through a civil lawsuit. The purpose of Section 230 is to prevent publishers from being responsible for third party content, but Jane Doe argues that it was Discord’s platform design itself – lax parental controls, private servers, false representations of safety – rather than the content, that led to her exploitation. Because of this, Discord shouldn’t be protected by Section 230.
Attorneys for Discord say Discord monitors, blocks, and removes harmful content, but can’t be liable for people who get around their efforts. However, NCOSE has named Discord to the Dirty Dozen List five times, and each time we have sent them a letter informing them of the exploitation that occurs on their platform. It would be naive to assume that Discord executives are doing everything they should to curb the rampant exploitation that’s happening on the platform.
Why Discord is On the Dirty Dozen List for the 5th Time
Discord has landed itself on the Dirty Dozen List once again for a number of exploitative practices. The platform’s Community Guidelines explicitly prohibit sexual interactions involving minors and grooming behavior, yet these behaviors are still pervasive. Why? Because Discord’s design – private servers and smaller invite-only spaces – creates an environment where grooming can predictably unfold out of sight.
Because of this, sextortion, grooming, child sexual abuse material (CSAM) trading, other forms of exploitation are rampant. Predators often make initial contact with children on other gaming platforms, like Roblox or Fortnite, and then prompt them to move to Discord where the conversations often turn sexual and dangerous. Tragically, connections on Discord can also lead to the predators meeting up with the children in person and physically abusing them. Read specific examples of sextortion and exploitation on Discord.
While the platform does have parental controls, they are wildly insufficient. First and foremost, Teens must actively opt in to link to a parent via Family Center, and they can disconnect at any time, meaning parents often have no oversight at all. And once the accounts are connected, parents can only see who their child is chatting with and which servers they ask to join. They are unable to see the messages and images being shared and they also can’t remove friends or kick teens out of risky servers.
All of this combined with easy-to-fake age verification and the platform’s lack of traditional supervision tools like chat logs or screen-time limits, mean that, despite the promise of teen safety features, parents often cannot meaningfully protect their children on Discord.
Learn more about Discord and take action at endsexualexploitation.org/Discord.
