NEWSLETTER
Discord is introducing new safeguards to protect young users. On Thursday, the company announced Teen Safety Assistant. The launch will take place in the coming weeks and consists of two features: automated alerts and content filters.
In the future, when a user a teen hasn’t chatted with before sends a direct message, Discord will display a security alert if the platform’s automated systems suspect the teen’s safety might be at risk. The message will push the young man to reconsider whether she wants to respond to the message and will direct her to the app’s blocking feature and related safety tips.
By default, Discord will now also automatically blur potentially sensitive images of a teen’s friends. Young people can disable the feature through an option in Discord’s settings menu. Meanwhile, adults can enable filters themselves, if they want additional protections.
The introduction of Teen Safety Assist comes amid increased scrutiny of Discord’s efforts to limit the spread of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and protect young users from predatory adults. In June, NBC News identified 35 cases over a six-year period in which adults had allegedly used the platform to kidnap, groom or sexually assault minors. The outlet also found 165 cases in which authorities were prosecuting adults for sharing CSAM through Discord or allegedly using the platform to extort young users into sending sexual images of themselves.
In the wake of the report, Discord banned teen dating servers and changed its security policies to prohibit the sharing of ai-generated CSAM. It also announced new rules that explicitly prohibit any other type of text or media that sexualizes children. At the same time, the company introduced Family Center, a dashboard for parents and guardians to track what their teens are doing on Discord.
“Teens are still in the process of learning about themselves and what it means to be online, and our new safety features are built around giving them agency on the platform, to give them ways to learn and grow in a safe and secure online environment.” appropriate for his age. spaces,” said Savannah Badalich, senior policy director at Discord. “These newest features are part of an ongoing, multi-year effort to continually evolve and improve security on Discord.”
At the same time, Discord is introducing a new warning system for people who violate its policies. Aside from incidents involving the most “extreme” violations, the company is moving away from permanent bans. It does so under the belief that most users will choose to be better citizens online if given the opportunity and proper guidance.
In practice, the system will notify a person when they have violated one or more of Discord’s policies and detail the restrictions on their account. It will also be linked to the company Terms of Service, Community Principles and appeal mechanism. A new “Account Status” tab within the settings menu will allow users to view all of their current and past policy violations.
“We believe we’ve created the most nuanced and proportionate reporting system,” Badalich told Engadget, adding that the company hopes other platforms will look to what Discord has created for inspiration related to their own law enforcement efforts. “We believe that people, especially teenagers, have the ability to grow.”
On the other hand, Discord announced a number of new features and improvements that will arrive in the near future or in the future. For starters, the platform’s in-app store, which Discord began testing last month with Nitro subscribers, will soon be available to all users. The marketplace features digital elements that people can use to decorate their avatars and profiles. Discord will offer in-store discounts to Nitro members, as part of a new sign-up benefit.
This week, the company will also begin a broad rollout of a feature called remix. It allows users to edit an image directly within the Discord mobile app and share it with their friends and servers. The company spent much of the last year improving its Android and iOS clients. A recent update improved app launch times on both platforms. In the near future, Discord says people can expect a new “Midnight” dark mode that the company claims reduces battery consumption on devices with OLED displays, more functional notification tabs, and a new search feature for the menu. settings to make it easier to find the exact information. option you are looking to modify.
Last but not least, the company says it will begin rolling out Premium app subscriptions to eligible developers in the UK and Europe, following a rollout that began in the US a few weeks ago. On the topic of third-party apps, bots, and add-ons, the company said it is in the process of exploring how to make them accessible in almost all parts of Discord. He provided few details about the effort, but said the goal is to allow people to access their favorite apps and bots without those experiences being restricted to select servers.
“We’re experimenting with a few different things, but the goal is for developers to reach more people with the amazing experience they’re creating. For users, we don’t want to prevent them from having these personalized experiences at their fingertips,” Cherry Park, Discord’s director of product marketing, told Engadget. “In terms of the way we design and build it, there are a couple of solutions. Some are easier, some are harder and you will see us experiment with some of them over the next few quarters.”
Discord promised to share more about its efforts around app portability in the near future. Meanwhile, Nitro subscribers will have the opportunity to try out new features before they become available to the public.
Update, October 20, 2023, 11:20 am ET: This story has been updated to note that these features will be rolling out in the coming weeks, not this week as the post originally stated. We also removed the mention that Discord would automatically remove potentially sensitive content from strangers. This was originally part of a briefing we received about the new features, but was not included in the final version.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/discords-latest-teen-safety-blitz-starts-with-content-filters-and-automated-warnings-150031569.html?src=rss
