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Policy & SafetyDiscord Transparency Report: July - September 2022
Discord Safety
December 15, 2022
Tags
Transparency Reports

Our mission at Discord is to give people the power to create belonging in their
lives. We recognize that safety enables people to find belonging, and that’s why
safety is one of our most important investments and priorities.

Safety is a collaborative and cross-functional effort at Discord. Our
Engineering, Data, and Product teams build products with safety principles in
mind. Our Policy team takes a nuanced and sophisticated approach to developing
our Community Guidelines and forms strategic partnerships with academics, civil
society, industry peers, and community moderators to advance our collective
understanding of online safety. Our Safety team works with cutting-edge
technology to detect and respond to abuse, both proactively and from reports
received from users, moderators, and trusted third party reporters.

Safety is a vital priority for our company. Around 15% of all Discord employees
are dedicated to this area and every employee shares in the commitment to
keeping Discord safe. Thes e Transparency Reports provide insight into our
continued investment into keeping Discord a safe place for people to find
belonging.

This Transparency Report, our ninth since 2019, covers the third quarter of
2022, from July to September.
‍




COMMUNITY GUIDELINES ENFORCEMENT

Discord publishes and maintains a comprehensive set of Community Guidelines that
explains what content and behavior is and isn’t allowed on Discord. We invest
heavily in our proactive efforts to detect and remove abuse before it’s reported
to us. Through advanced tooling, machine learning, specialized teams, and
partnering with external experts, we work to remove high-harm abuse before it is
viewed or experienced by others.

We encourage users, moderators, and trusted reporters to submit reports if they
believe an account or server is violating our Community Guidelines. We analyze
these reports to determine if the content or behavior violates our Guidelines.
We may take a number of enforcement actions including but not limited to issuing
warnings; removing content; temporarily or permanently disabling or removing the
accounts and/or servers responsible; and potentially reporting them to law
enforcement.

This report details the actions that Discord has taken on accounts and servers
that have violated our Community Guidelines and Terms of Service.


ACTIONS TAKEN ON ACCOUNTS AND SERVERS


ACCOUNT AND SERVER WARNINGS

Discord issues warnings with the goal of preventing future violations of our
Community Guidelines. For some high-harm issues such as Violent Extremism or
Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) - a subcategory of Child Safety - we do not
issue warnings but rather immediately disable the account and remove the
content. In the case of CSAM, we also report the account to the National Center
for Missing and Exploited Children.


The above chart breaks down warnings issued to individual accounts, servers, and
server members. A text version of this chart is available here.

We issue two types of warnings for accounts: Individual Account Warnings, which
are issued to individual users, and Server Member Warnings, which target
multiple members of a server and may be issued when warning or removing a server
from Discord.

Individual accounts were issued 17,809 warnings, an increase of 31% when
compared to the previous quarter. The number of warnings issued to servers
decreased by 11% to 2,330, and warnings issued to server members decreased by
16.5% to 1,290,964 accounts warned.


ACCOUNTS DISABLED


A text version of the number of accounts disabled by category chart is available
here.

We disabled 185,756 accounts between July and September 2022 for policy
violations not including spam, a 74.5% decrease when compared to 726,759
accounts disabled in the previous quarter.

The Child Safety category accounted for 90% of this decrease in accounts
disabled. This decline is a direct result of our ongoing improvements in our
efforts to detect and proactively remove child exploitative content from
Discord. Our ability to more rapidly detect networks of bad actors limits the
number of accounts engaging with the content, resulting in fewer accounts
disabled overall. An in-depth look at each of these categories, including Child
Safety, can be found in the Enforcement Trend Analysis of this report.

Accounts disabled for spam or spam-related offenses increased to 50,510,769.
This is an increase of 82% from the previous quarter when we disabled 27,733,948
spam accounts. Our proactive anti-spam efforts continue to improve and become
more sophisticated, creating a better user experience on Discord for all.


SERVERS REMOVED


The above chart breaks down the number of servers removed by category and if
they were removed proactively or reactively. A text version of this chart is
available here.

We removed 30,456 servers between July and September 2022, an increase of 7%
from the 28,370 servers that we removed during the previous quarter. 

We continue to invest in our ability to proactively detect and remove servers
before they’re reported to us, especially for high-harm categories. We’re proud
to share that 92% of servers removed for Child Safety were removed proactively,
with CSAM servers being removed proactively 99% of the time. Overall, 71% of
removed servers were removed proactively.


APPEALS


The above chart shows the total percentage of disabled accounts that submitted
an appeal, and the percentage of those appeals that were granted. A text version
of this chart is available here.

Discord allows users to appeal actions taken on their accounts if they believe
that the enforcement was incorrect.

We welcome appeals and take them seriously when they raise context or
information that we may not have known. We review appeals and reinstate accounts
if we determine that a mistake was made, or if we believe, based on the appeal,
that the user has recognized the violation made for a low-harm issue and will
abide by our Community Guidelines once back on Discord. We received appeals from
15.5% of disabled accounts, or 28,736 appeals. This was around the same
percentage of appeals received during the previous quarter. From these appeals,
we reinstated 1,334 accounts or 4.64% of users who submitted an appeal.
‍


REPORTS


REPORTS RECEIVED BY CATEGORY AND ACTION RATES OF REPORTS


A text version of the reports received chart is available here.

Reports received during the third quarter of 2022 decreased to 134,663 when
compared to 153,550 reports received during the second quarter of 2022.

Overall, 20,388 or 15% of the total reports received, identified violations of
our Community Guidelines leading to action taken.

We also received 8,685,638 one-click reports for spam on 4,818,261 unique
accounts during this reporting period.
‍


ENFORCEMENT TREND ANALYSIS


CHILD SAFETY

Discord has a zero-tolerance policy for anyone who endangers or sexualizes
children. Child-harm content is appalling, unacceptable, and has no place on
Discord or the internet at large. We work with industry peers, civil society,
and law enforcement to ensure that this effort extends beyond Discord. Discord
is an active supporter of cross-industry programs such as the National Center
for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and is a member of the Technology
Coalition, a group of companies together to end online child sexual exploitation
and abuse. We’re also a frequent sponsor of events dedicated to increasing
awareness of and action on child safety issues such as the annual Dallas Crimes
Against Children Conference.

We invest heavily in advanced tooling and education so parents know how our
service works and understand the controls that can contribute to creating a
positive and safe experience on Discord for their children. As part of our
ongoing commitment to parent engagement, Discord is a proud sponsor of the
National Parent Teacher Association and ConnectSafely. We continue to be a
member of the Family Online Safety Institute, contributing to and learning from
its important work.

Users who upload abuse material of children to Discord are reported to NCMEC and
removed from the service. We deeply value our partnership with NCMEC and their
efforts to ensure that grooming and endangerment cases are quickly escalated to
law enforcement.

In the third quarter of 2022, we reported 14,366 accounts to NCMEC. 14,303 of
those reports were media (images or videos), of which many were flagged through
PhotoDNA – a tool that uses a shared industry hash database of known CSAM. 63
high-harm grooming or endangerment reports were also delivered to NCMEC.


A text version of the reports filed to NCMEC chart is available here.

Discord disabled 42,458 accounts and removed 14,451 servers for Child Safety
during the third quarter of 2022. This was a 92% decrease in the number of
accounts disabled when compared to the previous quarter.

Our investment and prioritization in Child Safety has never been more robust.
These decreases are the result of improvements in our efforts to detect and
proactively remove child exploitative content from Discord. Specifically, better
operating procedures and enhanced detection capabilities have enabled our team
to identify these servers faster. 

By targeting and proactively removing networks of bad actors from Discord before
they grew in size, fewer accounts participated in these spaces, and as a result,
fewer accounts were disabled.

We were able to remove servers hosting CSAM content proactively 99% of the time.
Removing CSAM content is one of our top priorities, and we are proud of the
cross-functional efforts that have enabled us to achieve this proactive takedown
rate for CSAM.


DECEPTIVE PRACTICES

Using Discord for the purpose of distributing malware, sharing or selling game
hacks or cheats, theft of authentication tokens, or participating in identity,
investment, and financial scams is a violation of our Community Guidelines.

We disabled 8,800 accounts and removed 2,137 servers for Deceptive Practices
during the third quarter of 2022. This was an increase of 43% and 27%
respectively. 


EXPLOITATIVE AND UNSOLICITED CONTENT

It is a violation of our Community Guidelines to share or promote sexually
explicit content of other people without their consent.

We disabled 47,570 accounts and removed 1,837 servers for Exploitative and
Unsolicited Content. This represents a 55% decrease in accounts disabled and a
21% decrease in servers removed when compared to the previous quarter. 

This decrease was driven by our ability to identify and remove a specific abuse
pattern, resulting in a decrease of servers created to host that content, and
consequently, fewer accounts disabled for engaging with that content.


HARASSMENT AND BULLYING

Harassment and bullying have no place on Discord. Continuous, repetitive, or
severe negative comments, circumventing bans, suggestive or overt threats, the
sharing of someone’s personally identifiable information (also known as
doxxing), and server raiding are violations of our Community Guidelines.

During the third quarter of 2022, 11,347 accounts were disabled for
harassment-related behavior, and 555 servers were removed for this issue.


HATEFUL CONDUCT

Discord doesn’t allow the organization, promotion, or participation in hate
speech or hateful conduct. We define “hate speech” as any form of expression
that denigrates, vilifies, or dehumanizes; promotes intense, irrational feelings
of enmity or hatred; or incites harm against people on the basis of protected
characteristics. You can read our latest policy blog post to learn more.

During the third quarter of 2022, 7,104 accounts and 829 servers were removed
for hateful conduct. Compared to the previous quarter, this was an increase of
24% and 16%, respectively.


IDENTITY AND AUTHENTICITY

Using Discord for the purpose of coordinating and participating in malicious
impersonation of individuals or organizations is a violation of our Community
Guidelines.

We disabled 3,561 accounts and removed 13 servers for this issue. This was a
significant increase as we continue to improve our methods  for detecting and
removing malicious bots.


MISINFORMATION

In February 2022, we published a blog post discussing our new policy prohibiting
the sharing of false or misleading information on Discord that is likely to
cause physical or societal harm. This blog post discusses the new policy and our
enforcement criteria in more detail.

We disabled 385 accounts and removed 52 servers for misinformation.


PLATFORM MANIPULATION

Spam, fake accounts, and self-bots are examples of platform manipulation that
damage the experience of our users and violate our Community Guidelines.

During the third quarter of 2022, 1,197 accounts and 656 servers were removed
for platform manipulation-related issues not related to spam. An additional
50,510,769 accounts were disabled for spam or spam-related offenses.

We're focused on combating spam and minimizing users’ exposure to spammers and
spam content on Discord. We have a dedicated cross-functional anti-spam team
building sophisticated anti-spam measures, and as a result of this work, 90% of
accounts disabled for spam were disabled proactively, before we received any
user report.

You can read more about how Discord fights spam here. You can also read this
blog post published in September about Automod, a new safety feature that
enables server owners to automatically moderate certain abuse, including spam.


REGULATED OR ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES

Using Discord for the purpose of engaging in regulated, illegal, or dangerous
activities is strictly prohibited, including selling or facilitating the sale of
prohibited or potentially dangerous goods or services.

We disabled 37,284 accounts for engaging in this behavior, an increase of 35.5%
from the prior quarter. A total of 6,950 servers were removed for this category
with a proactive removal rate of 63%. 


SELF-HARM CONCERNS

Using Discord to glorify or promote suicide or self-harm is not allowed under
any circumstance. We recently expanded our Self Harm Encouragement and Promotion
Policy which you can read more about here. 

Actions may be taken on accounts or servers encouraging people to cut themselves
or embrace eating disorders, or otherwise manipulating and coercing other users
to engage in acts of self-harm. These actions are only taken on accounts
glorifying or promoting acts of self-harm, not on users seeking help or in need
of medical attention.

In September we announced a new partnership with Crisis Text Line, a nonprofit
that provides 24/7 text-based mental health support and crisis intervention via
trained volunteer crisis counselors. Crisis Text Line is currently available to
those in the United States and is offered in both English and Spanish. You can
read more about this partnership here.

We disabled 1,297 accounts and removed 610 servers for Self-Harm concerns.


VIOLENT AND GRAPHIC CONTENT

Real media depicting gore, excessive violence, the glorification of violence, or
animal cruelty with the intent to harass or shock others is not allowed on
Discord.

In the third quarter of 2022, 12,300 accounts were disabled for posting violent
and graphic content. We also removed 1,313 servers for violent and graphic
content.


VIOLENT EXTREMISM

We consider violent extremism to be the support, encouragement, promotion, or
organization of violent acts or ideologies that advocate for the destruction of
society, often by blaming certain individuals or groups and calling for violence
against them. 

This blog post discusses our methods to address violent extremism. Through
partnering and engaging in cross-industry work with Tech Against Terrorism, the
Global Internet Forum To Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), the European Union Internet
Forum, and other organizations, we’ve made progress in our tooling, policy, and
subject matter expertise to ensure that violent extremism does not have a home
on Discord.

In the third quarter of 2022, 12,489 accounts and 1,053 servers were removed for
violent extremism.
‍


INFORMATION REQUESTS

When appropriate, Discord complies with information requests from law
enforcement agencies while respecting the privacy and rights of our users.

Law enforcement must provide valid legal documentation for the requested
information. We review each information request to ensure legal compliance. 

Discord may also disclose user data to law enforcement in emergency situations
when we possess a good faith belief that there is an imminent risk of serious
physical injury or death. You can read more about how Discord works with law
enforcement here.


LEGAL REQUESTS

Discord received 1,450 pieces of legal process during the third quarter of 2022,
finding 1,342 both legally valid and specific enough for us to identify an
account and produce relevant information. We work to limit disclosures of user
information and content so they match the specific circumstances dictated by
each request.


A text version of the requests from law enforcement chart is available here.


EMERGENCY REQUESTS

Discord received 213 emergency disclosure requests from law enforcement during
this period. These requests originated from law enforcement agencies around the
world. We disclose user data to law enforcement absent legal process only when
there is imminent risk of serious physical injury or death. We were able to
identify 197 accounts based on the information provided by law enforcement for
these requests and disclosed basic subscriber information in response to 111
emergency disclosure requests.
‍


INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY REMOVAL REQUESTS

Our Community Guidelines and Terms of Service prohibit the sharing of content
that infringes third-party intellectual property rights. In accordance with the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Discord will remove content and/or
accounts in connection with claims of copyright infringement on Discord.

We review each DMCA notice to ensure that reports are valid and complete and
that they are made in good faith.

Discord received 872 facially valid DMCA takedown notifications, of which 732
provided information sufficient for content removal upon request. 
‍


OUR COMMITMENT TO SAFETY AND TRANSPARENCY

Creating a place where you can talk, hang out with friends, and find belonging
in a welcoming and safe environment requires collaboration and dedication from
all of us at Discord.

We’re proud of the work that we do to help keep people and communities on
Discord safe. We hope that as a result of this work, you’re able to find
belonging in the communities on Discord that you call home.

We hope that these Transparency Reports, as well as our Safety Center and Safety
Blog, will continue to educate and inspire others toward building a safer
digital world.



Contents
IntroductionCommunity Guidelines EnforcementActions Taken on Accounts and
ServersReportsEnforcement Trend AnalysisInformation RequestsIntellectual
Property Removal RequestsOur Commitment to Safety and Transparency

THE AUTHOR
Discord Safety
The Safety team works to ensure that Discord is a great place to find belonging
in the communities you call home.

MORE FROM
Policy & Safety
Policy & Safety
Discord Transparency Report: April - June 2022
Policy & Safety
An Update on our Mental Health & Belonging Work
Policy & Safety
Discord Transparency Report: January - March 2022


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