Amsterdam, The Netherlands, July 13, 2023. User safety and policy intertwine at Discord, an online community platform that fosters a space for voice and video communication. Meet INHOPE's newest annual funding partner of 2023. Founded in 2015, Discord is not new to the online community space, and with over 150 million active monthly users globally, the company views safety as a key priority with 15% of all Discord employees dedicated to Trust & Safety, Safety Policy, Safety Engineering, and Product Safety.


Companies today must be agile when it comes to user design and have the ability to adapt to user needs and user safety. Of equal importance, they must create new products for their platforms with safety-by-design in mind. Discord has a safety-by-design process in place and will continue to use this approach moving forward.

As part of keeping users safe online, the importance of content moderation has been increasingly raised in conversation in recent years and the INHOPE Network is proud to receive support from a company that continues to prioritise this area. Our new partner, Discord, utilises community guidelines to enforce proactive and reactive safety measures, community moderation that is aided by moderation tools and user controls which provide users with fundamental control over who they communicate with, what content they see, and what communities they join as part of a three-tiered approach to moderation. As part of Discord’s partnership with INHOPE, Discord has expanded its Safety Reporting Network to ensure our hotlines are able to participate and flag content directly to Discord’s Safety team for review.


“Discord’s proactive investment in user safety minimises user exposure to harmful content. We are excited to see that these efforts by Discord make use of advanced tooling, specialised training, and external experts to then process any reported content against their community guidelines. We welcome Discord's commitment to investing in human and tech solutions to meet online safety challenges” - Samantha Woolfe, Head of Network Expansion and Global Partnerships at INHOPE


Having a zero-tolerance policy regarding the sharing of material that relates to child sexual abuse material (CSAM), allows Discord to take direct and clear action against this content and behaviour. Their Trust and Safety team are dedicated to reviewing high-harm content specifically related to sexual exploitative content, reporting any illegal content as well as grooming to INHOPE’s US hotline, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), for further investigation. In Q4 of 2022, Discord reported 11,589 accounts to NCMEC of which many were flagged through PhotoDNA – a tool that uses a shared industry hash database of known CSAM. Additionally, 69 high-harm grooming or endangerment reports were delivered to NCMEC.


“Safety is a collaborative and cross-functional effort at Discord and is one of our most important investments and priorities. We are looking forward to working with INHOPE to combat the sexual exploitation of children and to create a safer internet for all.”- Liz Hegarty, Teen Safety Policy Manager at Discord

In their latest quarterly transparency report from Q4 of 2022, Discord disabled 37,102 accounts and removed 17,426 servers for Child Safety. Discord was able to remove servers hosting CSAM content proactively 99% of the time. Whether the content is exploitative, unsolicited, harassment, hateful, or CSAM our newest partner Discord takes a robust no-tolerance approach to harmful and illegal content on their platform.

About Discord
Founded in 2015, Discord is a voice, video, and text communications platform that brings people together over shared experiences and gives everyone a place to belong. With over 150 million monthly active users globally across 19 million servers, Discord helps friends and communities of all sizes come together to hang out and explore their interests. Discord offers a premium subscription called Nitro that gives users special perks like higher-quality streams and fun customizations.

About INHOPE
INHOPE is the global network combatting online Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM). The Network consists of 52 hotlines in 48 countries that provide the public with a way to anonymously report illegal content online with a focus on CSAM. INHOPE is based in the Netherlands and our member Hotlines operate in all EU member states, Russia, South Africa, North & South America, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. In a borderless digital world, CSAM has global consequences. As CSAM increases, so do our efforts and those of our partners to combat it, aided by funding from the European Commission under the Better Internet for Kids Programme.
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