Safety Library

1. Secure your account

Choose a secure password

• A strong password is key to protecting your account. Choose a long password with a mix of uppercase letters, lowercase letters, and special characters that is hard to guess and that you don’t use for anything else.
• We recommend checking out password managers like 1Password (Mac) or Dashlane (Windows), which make creating and storing secure passwords extremely easy.
• Discord will require your password to be at least 8 characters long. Certain regions in the world may have additional requirements.

Consider enabling two-factor authentication (2FA)

• Two-factor authentication (2FA) is the most secure way to protect your account. You can use Google Authenticator, Authy, and other authenticator apps on a mobile device in order to authorize access to your account. Once 2FA is enabled, you’ll have the option to further increase your account’s security with SMS Authentication by adding your phone number to your Discord account.

You can enable 2FA in your User Settings. You can also refer to this article for more information.

2. Set your privacy & safety settings

Your settings are very important. They give you control over who can contact you and what they can send you. You can access your privacy and safety settings in the Data & Privacy section of your User Settings.

We know it’s important for users to understand what controls they have over their experience on Discord and how to be safer. This article covers settings that can help reduce the amount of unwanted content you see on Discord and that promote a safer environment for everyone.

Sensitive media

At any time, you can further configure personal settings to blur or block content in DMs that may be sensitive. The “blur” option in our sensitive content filters applies to all historic and new media. For teen users, by default, Discord will blur media that may be sensitive in direct messages (DMs) and group direct messages (GDMs) from friends, as well as in servers. Adults can opt into these filters by changing their sensitive media preferences in User Settings > Content & Social section. Learn more about how to do this here. For all users, the default configuration is “block” for direct messages (DMs) and group direct messages (GDMs) from non-friends.

‍At any time, you can also ignore or block the user responsible. You can also report content that breaks our rules.

DM spam filter

Automatically send direct messages that may contain spam into a separate spam inbox.

These filters are customizable, and you can choose to turn them off. By default, these filters are set to “Filter direct messages from non-friends.” Choose “Filter all direct messages” if you want all direct messages that you receive to be filtered, or select “Do not filter direct messages” to turn these filters off.

Direct messages (DM) settings.

• By default, whenever you are in a server with someone else, they can send you a DM.  However, you can toggle off the"Allow direct messages from server members" setting to block DMs from users in a server who aren’t on your friends list. When you toggle this setting off, you will be prompted to choose if you would like to apply this change to all of your existing servers. If you click "No," you’ll need to adjust your DM settings individually for each server that you have joined prior to toggling this setting off.
• To change this setting for a specific server, select Privacy Settings on the server’s dropdown list and toggle off the "Allow direct messages from server members" setting.

Friend request settings

Discord also enables you to control who can send you a friend request. You can find these settings in the Friend Requests section of your User Settings.

• Everyone - Selecting this means that anyone who knows your Discord username or is in a mutual server with you can send you a friend request.
• Friends of Friends - Selecting only this option means that for anyone to send you a friend request, they must have at least one mutual friend with you. You can view this in their user profile by clicking the Mutual Friends tab next to the Mutual Servers tab.
• Server Members - Selecting this means users who share a server with you can send you a friend request. Deselecting this while "Friends of Friends" is selected means that you can only be added by someone with a mutual friend.

If you don’t want to receive ANY friend requests, you can deselect all three options. However, you can still send out friend requests to other people.

You should only accept friend requests from users that you know and trust — if you aren’t sure, there’s no harm in rejecting the friend request. You can always add them later if it’s a mistake.

3. Follow safe account practices

As with any online interaction, we recommend following some simple rules while you’re on Discord:

Be wary of suspicious links and files

• DON'T click on links that look suspicious or appear to have been shortened or altered. Discord will try and warn you about links that are questionable, but it’s no substitute for thinking before you click.
• DON'T download files or applications from users you don't know or trust. Were you expecting a file from someone? If not, don’t click the file!
• DON'T open a file that your browser or computer has flagged as potentially malicious without knowing it’s safe.

Never give away your account information

• DON'T give away your Discord account login or password information to anyone. We’ll never ask for your password. We also won’t ask for your token, and you should never give that to anyone.
• DON'T give away account information for any account you own on any platform to other users on Discord. Malicious individuals might ask for this information and use it to take over your accounts.
• DO report any accounts who claim to be Discord staff or who ask for account information to the Trust & Safety team.

Again, Discord will never ask you for your password either by email or by Discord direct message. If you believe your account has been compromised, submit a report to Trust & Safety here.

4. Block other users when needed

We understand that there are times when you might not want to interact with someone. We want everyone to have a positive experience on Discord and have you covered in this case.

How blocking works

• When you block someone on Discord, they will be removed from your friends list (if they were on it) and will no longer be able to send you DMs.
• Any message history you have with the user will remain, but any new messages the user posts in a shared server will be hidden from you, though you can see them if you wish.

How to block a user

On desktop:

• Right-click the user's @Username to bring up a menu.
• Select Block in the menu.

On mobile:

• Tap the user's @Username to bring up the user's profile.
• Tap the three dots in the upper right corner to bring up a menu.
• Select Block in the menu.

If you have blocked a user but they create a new account to try and contact you, please report the user to the Trust & Safety team. You can learn more about how to do this at this link.

Discover how to use Discord's Ignore feature - a helpful tool that lets you make space from specific users without fully blocking them or letting them know. With Ignore, you can hide new messages, DM and server message notifications, profiles, and activities from those specific users, giving you more control over your experience on Discord.

General Tips to Protect Against Spam and Hacking

• Never click on unfamiliar or unexpected links. If you leave Discord by clicking on a link that takes you elsewhere, it's possible that the external site can access your personal information. We recommend scanning any unfamiliar links through a site checker like Sucuri or VirusTotal before clicking on it. You may also consider running all shortened URLs through a URL expander to ensure you know exactly where you will be directed.
• Never download unfamiliar files from anyone you don't know or trust.
• Be careful about sharing personal information. Discord is a great way to meet new friends and join new communities, but as with any online interaction, protect yourself by only sharing personal information with people you know and trust.
• Discord will only make announcements through our official channels. We do not distribute information secondhand through users or chainmail messages.

If you believe your account has been compromised, submit a report to our Safety team here.

If you’re getting unsolicited messages or friend requests, this article explains how to change your settings.

Spam

Discord uses a proactive spam filter to protect the experience of our users and the health of the platform. Sending spam is against our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines. We may take action against any account, bot, or server using the tactics described below or similar behavior.

Direct Message (DM) spam

Receiving unsolicited messages or ads is a bad experience for users. These are some examples of DM spam for both users and bots:

• unsolicited messages and advertisements
• mass server invites
• multiple messages with the same content over a short period of time

Join 4 Join

Join 4 Join is the process of advertising for others to join your server with the promise to join their server in return. This might seem like a quick and fun way to introduce people to your server and to join new communities, but there’s a thin line between Join 4 Join and spam.

Even if these invitations are not unsolicited, they might be flagged by our spam filter. Sending a large number of messages in a short period of time creates a strain on our service. That may result in action being taken on your account.

Joining many servers, sending many friend requests

While we do want you to find new communities and friends on Discord, we will enforce rate limits against spammers who might take advantage of this through bulk joins or bulk requests. Joining a lot of servers simultaneously or sending a large number of friend requests might be considered spam. In order to shut down spambots, we take action against accounts that join servers too frequently or send out too many friend requests at one time. The majority of Discord users will never encounter our proactive spam filter, but if, for example, you send a friend request in just a few minutes to everyone you see in a thousand-person server, we may take action on your account.Instead of joining too many servers at once, we recommend using Server Discovery to find active public communities on topics you’re passionate about.

Servers dedicated to spamming actions

Servers dedicated to mass copy-paste messaging, or encouraging DM advertising, are considered dedicated spam servers.

Many servers have popular bots which reward active messaging. We don’t consider these to be spambots, but spam messages to generate these bot prompts is considered abuse of our API and may result in our taking action on the server and/or the users who participate in mass messaging. Besides cheating those systems, sending a large number of messages in a short period of time harms the platform.

Invite rewards servers

Invite reward servers are servers that promise some form of perk, often financial, for inviting and getting other users to join said server. We strongly discourage this activity, as it often results in spamming users with unsolicited messages. If it leads to spam or another form of abuse, we may take action including removing the users and server.

Bots and Selfbots

If a bot contacts you to be added to your server, or asks you to click on a suspicious link, please report it to our Trust & Safety team for investigation.

We don’t create bots to offer you free products. This is a scam. If you receive a DM from a bot offering you something, or asking you to click on a link, please report it.

We understand the allure of free stuff. But we’re sorry to say these bots are not real. Do not add them to your server in hopes of receiving something in return as they likely will compromise your server. If anything gets deleted, we have no way of restoring what was lost.

Using a user token in any application (known as a selfbot), or any automation of your account, may result in account suspension or termination. Our automated system will flag bots it suspects are being used for spam or any other suspicious activity. The bot, as well as the bot owner’s account, may be disabled as a result of our investigation. If your bot’s code is publicly available, please remove your bot’s token from the text to prevent it from being compromised.

Hacking incidents, DDoS attacks

If you believe your account has been compromised through hacking, here are some steps you can take to regain access and protect yourself in the future.

1. Reset your password.

• Choose a long password with a mix of uppercase letters, lowercase letters, and special characters that is hard to guess and isn’t used for anything else. We recommend using a password manager which can make creating and storing secure passwords extremely easy.
• If your account’s token has been compromised, reset your password to generate a new token. You should never give your account password or token to anyone. Discord will never ask for this information.

2. Turn on Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)

Two-factor authentication (2FA) strengthens your account to protect against intruders by requiring you to provide a second form of confirmation that you are the rightful account owner. Here’s how to set up 2FA on your Discord account. If for some reason you’re having trouble logging in with 2FA, here’s our help article.

3. DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks

A distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack floods an IP address with useless requests, resulting in the attacked modem or router no longer being able to successfully connect to the internet. If you believe your IP address has been targeted in a DDoS attack, here are some steps you can take:

• Reset your router via its manufacturer instructions.
• Unplug your modem for 5-10 minutes and then plug it back in. This can cycle your IP address to a new one.
• Contact your internet service provider (ISP) for assistance. Your ISP might also be able to tell you where the attack came from. Please note that Discord does not have this information.
• If you believe this attack is coming from a user on Discord, please file a report with Trust & Safety.
• Please note: Discord never shares your IP address with other users. Bad actors might send malicious links such as IP grabbers or other scams in an attempt to get your IP address. Never click on unfamiliar links and be wary about sharing your IP address with anyone.

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Labeling age-restricted content properly on Discord

To help keep age-restricted content in a clearly labeled, dedicated spot, we’ve added a channel setting that allows you to designate one or more text channels in your server as age-restricted.

Anyone that opens the channel will see a notification that it might contain age-restricted content. To access the channel, they'll need to confirm that they are over 18.

Any content that cannot be placed in an age-gated channel, such as avatars, server banners, and invite splashes, cannot contain age-restricted content.

Age-restricted content that is not placed in an age-gated channel will be deleted by moderators, and depending on the rules broken, the user posting that content may be banned from the server.

It's worth mentioning that while having a dedicated place for your age-restricted content is permitted, there is still some material that isn't appropriate anywhere on Discord. For example, content that sexualizes minors is never allowed anywhere on Discord. If you're unsure of what is allowed on Discord, check out our Community Guidelines.

If you’re an adult (18+) and want to customize the sensitive content you see

You can choose to show, blur, or block potentially sensitive image-based media across both filter categories:

• Mature Sexual Media Filter: Detects image-based media that may contain sexually explicit or suggestive material involving adults
• Graphic Media Filter: Detects image-based media that may contain violent or potentially disturbing visual content

Adults can customize their sensitive content filters by changing their preferences in Content & Social settings. There are options to either show, blur, or block image based-media detected by the filters, and each filter (Mature Sexual Media and Graphic Media) has separate controls:

• Direct messages from friends
• Direct messages from others
• Messages in server channels

Default settings for Adults:

• DMs from friends: Show sensitive image-based media
• DMs from non-friends: Block sensitive image-based media
• Server channels: Show sensitive image-based media

Note: In servers, you can only choose to "show" or "blur" image-based media detected by the filters. Blocking is controlled by each server's individual safety settings.

If "Blur" is selected, image-based media detected by the filters where you are chatting will not be shown to you unless you choose to unblur it.

Adults can press on the eye icon to unblur the image-based media, or press the eye icon one more time to hide the media behind a blur again.

For multiple images sent in one message, the blurring will only be applied to the specific images that are detected across either filter category.

You can learn more about our sensitive content filters here, including the teen user experience.

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Our Approach to Delivering a Positive User Experience 

The core of our mission is to give everyone the power to find and create belonging in their lives. Creating a safe environment on Discord is essential to achieve this, and is one of the ways we prevent misuse of our platform. Safety is at the core of everything we do and a primary area of investment as a business: 

1. We invest talent and resources towards safety efforts. From Safety and Policy to Engineering, Data, and Product teams, about 15 percent of all Discord employees are dedicated to working on safety. Creating a safer internet is at the heart of our collective mission. 

2. We continue to innovate how we scale safety mechanisms, with a focus on proactive detection. Millions of people around the world use Discord every day, the vast majority are engaged in positive ways, but we take action on multiple fronts to address bad behavior and harmful content. For example, we use PhotoDNA image hashing to identify inappropriate images; we use advanced technology like machine learning models to identify and remedy offending content; and we empower and equip community moderators with tools and training to uphold our policies in their communities. You can read more about our safety initiatives and priorities below.

3. Our ongoing work to protect users is conducted in collaboration and partnership with experts who share our mission to create a safer internet. We partner with a number of organizations to jointly confront challenges impacting internet users at large. For example, we partner with the Family Online Safety Institute, an international non-profit that endeavors to make the online world safer for children and families. We also cooperate with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), the Tech Coalition, and the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism.

The fight against bad actors on communications platforms is unlikely to end soon, and our approach to safety is guided by the following principles:

• Design for Safety: We make our products safe spaces by design and by default. Safety is and will remain part of the core product experience at Discord.
• Prioritize the Highest Harms: We prioritize issues that present the highest harm to our platform and our users. This includes harm to our users and society (e.g. sexual exploitation, violence, sharing of illegal content) and platform integrity harm (e.g. spam, account take-over, malware). 
• Design for Privacy: We carefully balance privacy and safety on the platform. We believe that users should be able to tailor their Discord experience to their preferences, including privacy.
• Embrace Transparency & Knowledge Sharing: We continue to educate users, join coalitions, build relationships with experts, and publish our safety learnings including our Transparency Reports.

Underpinning all of this are two important considerations: our overall approach towards content moderation and our investments in technology solutions to keep our users safe. 

Our Technology Solutions 

We believe that in the long term, machine learning will be an essential component of safety solutions. In 2021, we acquired Sentropy, a leader in AI-powered moderation systems, to advance our work in this domain. We will continue to balance technology with the judgment and contextual assessment of highly trained employees, as well as continuing to maintain our strong stance on user privacy.

Here is an overview of some of our key investments in technology:

• Safety Rules Engine: The rules engine allows our teams to evaluate user activities such as registrations, server joins, and other metadata. We can then analyze patterns of problematic behavior to make informed decisions and take uniform actions like user challenges or bans.
• AutoMod: AutoMod allows community moderators to block messages with certain keywords, automatically block dangerous links, and identify harmful messages using machine learning. This technology empowers community moderators to keep their communities safe. 
• Visual Safety Platform: This is a service that can identify hashes of objectionable images such as child sexual abuse material (CSAM), and check all image uploads to Discord against databases of known objectionable images. 

Our Partnerships

In the field of online safety, we are inspired by the spirit of cooperation across companies and civil society groups. We are proud to engage and learn from a wide range of companies and organizations including:

• National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
• Family Online Safety Institute
• Tech Coalition
• Crisis Text Line
• Digital Trust & Safety Partnership
• Trust & Safety Professionals Association 
• Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism

This cooperation extends to our work with law enforcement agencies. When appropriate, Discord complies with information requests from law enforcement agencies while respecting the privacy and rights of our users. Discord also may disclose information to authorities in emergency situations when we possess a good faith belief that there is imminent risk of serious physical injury or death. You can read more about how Discord works with law enforcement here.

Our Policy and Safety Resources

If you would like to learn more about our approach to Safety, we welcome you to visit the links below. 

• Safety homepage
• How we enforce our rules 
• How we investigate issues on our platform
• Latest Transparency Report
• Latest policy update
• Role of administrators and moderators 
• How our Trust and Safety team addresses violent extremism on Discord

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1. Let your teen know that the same rules apply online as offline.

• The same common sense and critical thinking they use offline should be used online too. For example, only accept friend requests from people you know. If something doesn’t seem right, tell a trusted adult. Behavior that’s not okay at school is also not okay online.
• Review Discord’s Community Guidelines with your teen and help them understand what is and isn’t permissible on Discord.
• Review their security and privacy settings and the servers they belong to with them so they fully understand who can interact with them on Discord.

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2. Talk about what content they see and share online

• Much of our teens’ lives take place online today, including romances.
• Sharing personal images online can have long-term consequences and it’s important for teens to understand these consequences. Help them think about what it might feel like to have intimate photos of themselves forwarded to any number of peers by someone they thought they liked or trusted. Make them aware of the risk of sharing intimate pictures with anyone.
• Review your teen’s content filters on Discord. Have a discussion about who is on their friends list, who they’re messaging, and what information they are sharing about themselves.

3. Set limits on screen time with your teen.

• iOS and Android operating systems offer parental controls that can help you manage your teen's phone usage if needed. Apple and Microsoft offer similar controls for computers.
• If you are worried about how much time your teen spends online, set ground rules - for example, “no social media after 10 PM,” or “no phone at the dinner table.”

4. Try Discord for yourself

• Most of the services that your kids use online aren’t limited to teens. You might find that you also enjoy using them, and might even find new and fun ways to communicate as a family.
• You will also understand how these apps work from the inside, and will be more easily able to talk to your teens about staying safe online.
• You can download Discord and create a Discord account right here.
• We suggest asking your teen to give you a tour of Discord using your new account! Some prompts you can use to get started are:

• Show me how to add you as a friend!
• Show me how to create a server together.
• Show me your favorite features.
• Show me how you stay in touch with your friends.
• Show me your favorite emojis or gifs.

5. Third party resources

Many online safety experts provide resources for parents to navigate their kids’ online lives.

ConnectSafely published their Parent’s Guide to Discord which gives a holistic overview of how your teen uses Discord, our safety settings, and ways to start conversations with your teen about their safety.

For more information from other organizations, please go directly to their websites:

• Connect Safely
• Common Sense Media
• Family Online Safety Institute
• Internet Matters
• Be Internet Awesome

Sensitive Content Filters

Discord offers user settings that can help reduce the amount of unwanted content you see on Discord and promote a safer environment for everyone.

For teen users, image-based media filters are automatically enabled