Discord is an app that allows groups of people to communicate with each other at any time. It has branded itself as being a messaging app built for gamers. If you would like to teach your gamer the brain hacks and marketing ploys built into games, check out our GKIS Screen Safety Essentials Course. This program offers powerful teaching tools through weekly coaching videos designed for parents and the entire family. The Screen Safety Essentials Course encompasses a variety of valuable resources for keeping families informed about the various pitfalls of the digital world in addition to providing tools for fostering open communication and family connectedness.
How long has Discord been around, and how popular is it?
Discord was launched in May of 2015 by Jason Citron and Stanislav Vishnevskiy. In 2020, Discord earned $130 million, with over 100 million active monthly users. Most of the revenue comes from a service called Nitro, which allows users to pay for upgrades to their servers. About 850 million messages are sent every day on Discord.[1]
Getting Started with Discord
Discord requires users to be over the age of 13 before they are allowed to create an account. This is a simple birthdate check and can be easily faked by children under the age of 13. Discord can be downloaded on the App or Google Play stores on mobile or by going to the Discord website and installing the application on a computer. Discord can also be used on any internet browser.
Before letting your child use any sort of messaging app, we recommend our Connected Family Course to help teach your child about the potential dangers of the internet and how to avoid falling victim to them.
Features of Discord
Basics
When a new user opens Discord, they won’t have a lot of options. To get connected with peers, Discord servers have a link that can be sent out that works as an invite. When an individual clicks that link, Discord will open, and they will be prompted to join the server.
In each server, there can be multiple text and voice channels. These different channels can be used to keep larger servers on topic. For example, creating a specific voice channel for gaming is a common occurrence.
Users often have screen names instead of their actual names displayed. This can make it hard to keep track of who you are talking to, especially if other users change their display names frequently.
Nitro
Discord allows users to ‘boost’ a server with Nitro. This gives various benefits to the server and its members, including higher quality audio chat, exclusive and customizable emojis, and higher quality video sharing.
This costs a user $9.99 a month to boost a server. Servers may be boosted by multiple users for improved benefits.
Private Servers vs Public servers
Private servers require users to be approved by a moderator or be given a password to access the server.
Public servers are joinable by anyone.
Many game companies, such as Sims, Call of Duty, Among Us, and Fortnite have public Discord servers for their fans to join.
Private Chats
Discord allows users to individually message others based on their privacy settings. Explicit content can be filtered out at the user’s discretion.
Messages from complete strangers can be prevented completely by changing one’s privacy settings.
Controversies
During its relatively short lifespan, Discord has found itself at the center of several different controversies. Most recently and famously, it was discovered that several members of the 2021 Washington D.C. occupation used Discord to discuss and organize the Capitol Hill incident. Their server was subsequently deleted.[2]
In addition, numerous Discord servers are solely dedicated to the sharing of various types of pornography. Those servers are often easy to find and join, with little age verification required. So long as the user’s account says they are over 18, they are able to join these servers with no issue.
Benefits of Discord
Discord allows individuals to communicate with their friends easily. Discord does not inherently cost anything, so it is appealing to those with a limited budget. It helps the individual feel connected to their friends and gives them a place to chat how and when they desire. If you like a certain game, joining a public discord to talk with similar-minded people can be exciting and fun. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of servers dedicated to discussing video games, movies, books, or even mythology. Discord provides a broad range of groups.
Discord also offers features to protect privacy. Specifically, it provides settings to prevent instances of bullying, spam, or harassment from strangers. Users just need to know to turn them on.
Risks of Discord
Discord presents some apparent risks. The anonymity of users allows for cyberbullying to be very easy to get away with. Children are often targeted by older members of gaming communities. Users may block other users once they feel threatened, but this does little to prevent cyberbullying from happening. It simply prevents it from happening again.
In addition, the ease of access to pornographic content is a big issue. If a child wanted to look up pornography but didn’t want it to show up on their internet history, Discord can provide it discretely. If you are worried about what websites your child is visiting, consider browsing our article on red-light websites.
GKIS rates Discord as a red-light app. This means that children under the age of 18 are not recommended to use this app. We came to this conclusion based almost solely on the ease of access to explicit content. Perhaps with careful parent supervision, it could be considered a yellow-light app. So long as parents are able to monitor what servers their children are in and who they are talking to, Discord has no more risk than texting or Facebook messaging. GKIS encourages parents to talk to their children and make an informed decision on whether or not Discord is appropriate. For help choosing and programming parental controls and management programs, our Screen Safety Toolkit is a comprehensive research guide with GKIS recommendations and special offers and discounts.
Thanks to CSUCI intern Dakota Byrne for researching Among Us and co-authoring this article.
I’m the mom psychologist who will help you GetKidsInternetSafe.
In my 25 years of psychology practice, I have treated many kids and teens victimized by online predators and cyberbullies. And in many of those cases, there were steps the parents could have made to prevent this type of digital injury. First, parents must block inappropriate games and content using the rating system and parental controls. Second, teach the red flags that kids must look for to spot dangerous inquiries. That’s why I created the Cybersecurity and Red Flags Supplement to add to our free Connected Family Screen Agreement (available on the home page of GetKidsInternetSafe.com). Finally, maintain a close parent-child relationship with ongoing topics for learning (offered in your GKIS weekly articles). To help, parents have to learn what’s out there and accept that kids will make mistakes. Today’s article will discuss the risks in the multiplayer gaming world, expertly written by a young female gamer.
What is a multiplayer game?
“Multiplayer games” refers to video games where an individual player can join a team in defeating a computerized enemy or can battle it out against other gamers. To play multiplayer games, Xbox and PlayStation require gamers to purchase memberships.
Battle Royale Style of Gaming
Battle royale is a relatively new genre of multiplayer gaming that can have over 100 people competing on a large map. These games embody a survival element as players are dropped onto a map with little armor or weapons. Players can either battle their way through the game with friends or fight solo. The ultimate goal is to be the last player standing.
Before the likes of Fortnite and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, battle royale was a concept heavily influenced by the popular movie The Hunger Games. In the early days, the only way to play battle royale was by downloading modifies to a base game. This modification was extremely popular in Minecraft as it added an extra dose of flair and made the game more challenging and intriguing.
Brenden Greene made battle royale mods for the hit games DayZ and Arma III, which quickly became huge sensations. In 2017, he released PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, which paved the way for other games like Fortnite and Apex Legends.[3]
Who plays multiplayer games?
In 2018, 28% of gamers were under 18 years old, 45% of gamers were female, and 55% were male.[5] Although multiplayer games are entertaining and fast-paced, there are dangers young gamers could be exposed to including chatting with random strangers, bullying, and child grooming by sexual predators.
Create a party for you and your friends.
One of the ways kids can gain access to voice chat over the PS4 console is to be invited via “party.” Partydirectly sets up friend invites using your friends list. People can also request to join a party, but the creator has the option to deny specific player access. On PlayStation, the creator must specify whether the party is private or open to the public. Opening to the public will allow anyone to join the voice chat, meaning child players could be exposed to bad actors.[4]
Xbox one has the same features, except if the person receiving the invite does not accept it within a five-minute window, Xbox Live will cancel the invitation, and the person who sent the request will have to resend it.[5] Voice chat can be a great way for socially isolated or anxious kids to connect with others. However, there are dangers as well.
Meeting Strangers in the Lobby
A lobby is where players wait to join a team game in multiplayer games. This feature is also known as matchmaking because it randomly assigns players to teams.
While in the lobby, you can communicate with other joining players. In some instances, you can also check out what the other player characters look like and view their cache of weapons. You can also communicate with other players in the lobby if you have the microphone enabled.
When I play multiplayer games, I disable the microphone feature (mainly by not plugging my headset in), unless I am playing with friends because, even as an adult, I don’t feel comfortable chatting with strangers online.
Bullying, Abuse, and Harassment
People can be cruel over voice chat for no reason. Insulting gaming skills or using racial slurs and sexual comments are typical. I’ve been in lobbies where players threaten to find and kill you as a form of intimidation. Younger kids seem to get the brunt of it.
While scouring the Internet for answers as to why kids are harassed on gaming platforms, I came across blogs and forums dedicated to how annoying young children can be online. A majority of these posts were made by people in their late teens or older. One of the biggest complaints is the profanity and racist comments from younger gamers. While many gamers just hit the mute button, some will take it to the extreme and harass the younger kid until they leave.
As a female gamer, I’ve experienced an unbelievable amount of harassment and abuse, ranging from people calling me names to more extreme measures like asking for sexual favors or making inappropriate noises.
Predators
According to ABC News, predators are grooming kids by making friends with them online and then gaining their trust so that they can meet in person. Fox News has also reported that Fortnite has recently become a favorite place to target young kids because of the volume of people who are playing online all at once.
The interactions between the young child and the predators are not always sexual. For instance, Breck Bednar was 14 years old and loved to play video games with a tight-knit group of people. The only person that was unknown to the group was Lewis Daynes, an adult who developed a strong relationship with Bednar over time. This chilling and disturbing “friendship” came to an end when Daynes lured Bednar to his home and killed him.[6]
Parental Features on Gaming Consoles
There are many ways to keep child gamers safe while playing video games and many of these features are available on the gaming console itself.
Thank you to CSUCI intern, Kassidy Simpson for providing parents with the information they need to help keep their kids safe on multiplayer games. If you learned something fun from this article, please “like” our GetKidsInternetSafe Facebook page so other parents can find us!
