N.J. attorney general sues Discord messaging app over child predator concerns
New Jersey has sued the social gaming platform Discord for allegedly failing to adequately protect underage users from predators, the first state to do so.
The heavily redacted civil suit, filed Thursday, accuses Discord of violating the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act by making it easy for children to create an account and by not taking more steps to prevent adult users from finding and contacting minors.
Discord is designed as a hub for gamers to chat through text, audio and video, and has become popular as an app for chatting while playing video games, including ones particularly popular with children like Roblox and Minecraft. Calling itself a 'fun and safe space for teens,' Discord bans anyone under the age of 13, and says it has a zero-tolerance policy toward people who exploit minors.
New Jersey's attorney general, Matthew Platkin, accused Discord of not making it hard enough for children under 13 to get on the platform and for predators to find and contact underage users.
'They've waged a very extensive PR campaign to tell the public all the features that they put in place to protect kids on their app,' Platkin told NBC News. 'They know that they're not working, and they know that they're not actually protecting kids the way they say they are.'
In an emailed statement, a Discord spokesperson defended the company's measures against child exploitation.
'Discord is proud of our continuous efforts and investments in features and tools that help make Discord safer,' the spokesperson said.
'Given our engagement with the Attorney General's office, we are surprised by the announcement that New Jersey has filed an action against Discord today. We dispute the claims in the lawsuit and look forward to defending the action in court,' the spokesperson said.
Many of Discord's policies to protect kids are easily circumvented, Platkin said. A child under 13 can still create an account if they simply check a box saying they're older. Discord's "Sensitive Media" filter, an option to have the company blur material that might be explicit, often doesn't work, Platkin said.
'Even when it's enabled, it's very easy to evade it,' he said.
While states have increasingly sued tech companies over accusations they fail to adequately protect children, those suits tend to focus on larger companies like Google and Facebook.
Discord has, however, come under increased scrutiny in the past two years. An NBC News investigation in 2023 found 35 cases where adults were prosecuted on charges of kidnapping, grooming or sexual assault that allegedly involved communications on Discord, and more than 100 additional cases of child sexual abuse material.
The company's CEO, Jason Citron, publicly called those reports 'horrifying,' and Discord soon updated its child safety policies, including banning teen dating and artificial intelligence-generated child sexual abuse material.
In January 2024, the Senate Judiciary Committee questioned Citron about Discord's child safety policies, as well as leaders from Meta, Snap, TikTok and X.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
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