Making Discord (relatively) safe for a younger teen
September 20, 2024 4:58 AM   Subscribe

Our eldest is a keen player of Minecraft (and some other online games). They are 13 and lately have been asking permission to sign up for Discord. It seems to be where most Minecraft chat happens. They also want to use it for voice chat with their friends. Is this a good idea? How can we keep them safe? Is it even possible?

My limited knowledge of Discord is that it's based around joining different servers which represent distinct communities. So presumably we could limit (through tech or through agreement with the teen) which servers they can join.

But beyond that is there *any* moderation or are there any guardrails in place to keep younger folks safe-ish?

If you've done this for your child or know something about the risks in Discord we'd appreciate your help.

Some things on our mind:
What risks should we be aware of?
What sensible boundaries might help?
What account settings in Discord should we think about using to keep the young one safe but not clip their wings too heavily?
Is this whole thing a terrible idea?
posted by JohnnyForeign to Computers & Internet (7 answers total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
I permitted my then 14 year old to join a discord Server for playing Minecraft. Two years on so far no regrets. He is however a very cautious person.
Before he joined i made sure he understood that he must not share any personal data in the Chat or elsewhere, eg. his real name, our physical address, his phone number. Never share photos.
He told me i was underestimating him... And that his irl friend (i know the boy and his parents) who he wanted to play with would also never doxx him, something that had not occured to me.
He created a dedicated e-mail account for this, to which he volunteered access for me.
He has since twice shared with me that he reported someone for creepy behaviour.
So, overall i do not regret giving my permission. It did however increase how much time he spends online.
posted by 15L06 at 5:22 AM on September 20 [1 favorite]


Do they want to join to chat with friends or to join a public server? For the former, I would make sure to know who the friends are / how old the others are. Discord makes invitations very easy so that a small server of a few friends can quickly balloon into a bigger one of friends-of-friends-of-friends. There are also public servers like the official Minecraft one which is specifically moderated to be safe for kids.

Voice (and sometimes video chats) are also a big part of Discord, so I'd be sure to talk to them about that.

The truth is that there's a lot of bullying on Discord, but it can be a fun place as long as you stay in the right places.

Source: I've been on it for 8 years now (also for Minecraft)
posted by lianove3 at 6:14 AM on September 20


I think you should make a Discord account of your own and poke around so that you at least have some understanding of how the platform works. Discord is not like Facebook in that you can't just make a Discord account and then start posting. It's more like if Facebook consisted entirely of groups (both public and private; these are Discord's "servers") along with instant messaging between people who have each others' contacts already (either due to being Discord Friends or being on the same server; the latter depends on how each user has set their own instant messaging settings).

Like lianove3 says, some servers are kept entirely private, some advertise their existence on "find a Discord server" web directories, and some post their "join this server" link in public or semipublic places (like on Reddit forums). Active moderation of servers is NOT done by Discord staff (though they do apparently respond when people report other people for terms-of-service violations). When a person sets up a server they become the primary moderator, and can also assign others the moderator role. In practice this is done by the server's own community. No moderation is happening when the moderators of a particular server are not logged in. If your kid joins a server created by their friends, it will be moderated by one or more of those friends.

I actually like Discord way more than Facebook, but the servers of which I am a member are vigorously well-moderated and/or have access restricted to people with a certain professional credential, which is verified by the moderators whenever a new person requests to join. The most active of the former still has regular incursions by scammers, trolls, and neo-Nazis (usually quickly booted by the very diligent mods), and has recently taken down its "server discovery" links from the major platforms like Disboard to reduce this.
posted by heatherlogan at 6:30 AM on September 20


Mefi comments might be helpful, but I suspect that the best resource for your concerns is Discord's own Parent Hub guide for guardians of youths who use Discord.

For what it's worth, I agree with the other commenters that it's probably a good idea to let your teen use Discord, with some guidelines and cautiousness. When I was your kid's age, my parents allowed me to use Mumble (an older app that Discord has largely replaced) to talk to game-mates online. It ended up being a formative social experience for me, because I was able to spend quality time with my friends and expand into new social circles at school without having to have access to a car or be driven places.
posted by gunwalefunnel at 6:35 AM on September 20 [3 favorites]


Our eldest got Discord around that age, mostly for talking about a favorite book series. It has been a great outlet for them in terms of art and finding others in communities they have interest in. We had some very serious conversations around online communication generally, we block all internet use after 9pm during the week, and they understand that at any moment I can ask for their devices and they need to e handed over without another move. I periodically ran through the servers they were on and checked things out, same as I do for texts and other things. They are now almost 16 and I monitor much less. I think for us that worked out well, because it let us help provide guardrails during those formative years.
posted by dpx.mfx at 7:54 AM on September 20


It's not a terrible idea - I think it's actually a good idea, for a couple of reasons.

The first is that your kid is thirteen, which is a good age to start learning to protect themselves on the internet. If you keep them locked up behind safety fences until they're "old enough" to fend for themselves, miss a lot of opportunity to support and guide them as they ease into having more freedom. The second is that kids are a lot more physically isolated these days than they used to be, and being able to connect to friends online can be a real lifesaver. It's not that there are no risks, it's that there are benefits that are important too.

But to answer what are probably your concrete questions about the platform:

Discord doesn't have parental controls. The user is the one that controls what they see, by choosing which servers they're going to be a part of, and what kinds of content they want to see, and what kinds of contact they allow. The parental hub that was linked upthread gives a good overview of these settings.

Discord is basically just a platform where users can host their own chatrooms (servers). If you were ever on IRC, it's kind of like that, but with a modern UI and additional features like voice chat. Each server is moderated by the person who set it up and the people they made co-moderators; discord does not have staff moderators overseeing people's servers. Discord only gets involved if you're reporting someone for violating the TOS.

Each of these servers is its own little world. It might be a private server with five friends, or it might be a public server with fifty thousand people. It might allow adult content, and it might not. It might be run by moderators who take a real interest in making it a safe and healthy space for younger users, or it might be run by a fifteen year old who thinks the funniest thing in the world is to spam "BOOBS" fifty times before banning you.

So to keep your teen safe, I would suggest signing up for a Discord account yourself and learning how the platform works. Maybe lurk in a few servers about things you're interested in yourself. Then help your teen set up their own account, going over which settings are appropriate. Talk to them about general online safety. Try to find the line between violating their privacy (e.g. reading their private chats with friends) and support and supervision (e.g. talking about what they're up to, checking out the servers they're on). And try to be the type of home where if your teen does see something uncomfortable, they can react to it appropriately because they were raised in an environment of mutual trust and support.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 11:52 AM on September 20


You should make them aware of the common discord scams. In particular, if a friend contacts them and says he "reported you by mistake" it's a scam.
posted by mmoncur at 5:24 PM on September 20


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