Discord gets sued for allegedly violating child safety laws

The state of New Jersey has filed suit against Discord claiming the company engaged in “deceptive and unconscionable business practices” that put children at risk. The suit was filed Thursday and alleges the popular messaging app of not doing enough to keep its youngest users safe from predators and violent content. Here’s a link to the complaint.

The suit claims that Discord’s existing protections for children are either inadequate or are easy to circumvent. For example, while Discord prohibits users under the age of 13 from making an account, it does nothing to verify users are the age they claim.

“All Discord does to verify a new user’s age is require the user to enter a birthdate — meaning any 8-year-old can access the application merely by saying they are 13,“ the lawsuit reads. Additionally, Discord has settings that will filter messages based on the sender. However by default, the the app lets any message from a user’s friends get through without being scanned. This feature, the lawsuit claims, when combined with the ability to receive friend requests from anyone, permits children to receive inappropriate messages.

Discord has been sued before for allegedly not taking enough steps to protect its youngest users. This suit from the New Jersey attorney general represents the first state action taken against the app and is one of several legal actions taken against large gaming-centric platforms centered on protecting children from exploitation, violence, and sexual content.

Discord has recently implemented an experimental pilot program that scans a user’s face or ID in order to access sensitive content in accordance with local child safety laws in the UK and Australia. In an email to The Verge, Discord spokesperson Jillian Susi wrote, “Discord is proud of our continuous efforts and investments in features and tools that help make Discord safer. 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.”