Attorney General launches Investigation into Discord
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Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has opened a civil investigation and subpoenaed Discord, a popular online chat platform.
The subpoena demands documents and information related to the platform’s practices in marketing to children, enforcing age-verification requirements, content moderation, parental control features, and reporting of exploitative activity.
“Many of our criminal investigations into internet child predators lead to one place: Discord,” Uthmeier said in a release following a press conference in Sarasota. “Groomers and predators seem to believe that they can get away with targeting children on Discord — and we are going to find out why. Discord owes us an explanation on the overwhelming use of its platform among predators, and what they are doing to protect children.”
“Investigations show that offenders are using platforms like Roblox and Discord as an access point to reach children. Parents should know we are taking this seriously,” said Sarasota County Sheriff Kurt A. Hoffman. “My message is clear, we are committed to protecting our kids, and predators have no safe place in our community. If you exploit children, we will find you, arrest you, and hold you accountable.”
“Discord is widely used for online communication via messaging, audio, and video calls. The platform has increasingly been identified as a service that predators use to communicate with children and distribute and collect child sexual abuse material,” the release states.
“There have been many concerning reports indicating that predators initially contact minors on other platforms, including video games like Roblox and Fortnite, and then encourage them to move communications to Discord, which may be due to insufficient protections for children.
“The subpoena seeks information and documents regarding Discord’s practices in safeguarding children from being exposed to harmful content and being targeted by child predators. The filing suggests that Discord has potentially violated Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.”
Uthmeier is demanding Discord produce documents, including, but not limited to:
• Marketing and promotional materials that represent the platform’s safety, suitability, and appropriateness for children.
• Documents relating to the marketing of Discord directly to children.
• Procedures relating to content and communication moderation.
• Records of complaints alleging exploitation, and records of responsive steps taken.
• Documents describing age-verification processes and parent control features.
• Records of criminal cases involving children.
• Data on how many children are utilizing the platform.
“This investigation is part of Attorney General Uthmeier’s effort to investigate and bring accountability for the exploitative environment that has been created for children on social media websites and gaming platforms,” his office stated.