Just recently, Discord released new policies regarding text channels and personal messages. These changes include a new Report button, a new Community Guidelines policy, and restricting access to minors from using the service. Discord modified their The Privacy Policy and Terms Of Service to reflect those changes. Here are five changes to expect with Discord.

1. Reporting Users Is Now Easier

Discord now provides a Report button to make it easier to report message that have offended you. The user you are reporting cannot be on your friends list, and you must unfriend them first by right clicking on their username and selecting “Remove Friend“. To report a message, click on the hamburger icon next to the offensive message, and selecting “Report“. From there, you will see this message:

Here, you can select from several different reasons to be sent to the Discord abuse team for review. The following reasons are provided: Illegal Content, Harassment, Spam or Phishing Links, Self Harm, or NSFW (Not Safe For Work) content. In addition, learn more with this article about how to report a user, and this article about the recent changes.

2. Hiding NSFW Content

In addition, Discord now requires that users put all NSFW content into a marked channel. Users can opt-out ahead of time thanks to this. Therefore, users now need to verify themselves to see the content as part of the updates to their policies. This puts the user at ease so they won’t get their co-workers and bosses upset. Users will see this image when they access an NSFW channel:

From here, users may continue to see this content. Users may also click “Nope“, if they wish, as described above if they do not wish to see the content. However, the system will send them back, in this case, to the main chat. Considering if the channel has inappropriate content, Discord may therefore boot them back into the announcements or rules channel if the main channel has inappropriate content. Finally, this content will only be available for those users above eighteen (18).

3. Discord New Age Requirement

Additions to the Privacy Policy require users to be thirteen (13) or older in order to be able to sign up for a Discord Account. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act bans children under 13 from the platform to comply. Therefore, in order to comply with”COPPA“, Discord will delete knowingly collect personal information. Parents who believe that their children may have exposed personal information may contact Discord staff by clicking here. It is unknown how this affects children who use Discord to this day. Discord recommends parents be aware of their child’s use of the internet in order to keep them safe online.

4. Advertisement Data Collection

In other positive news, users are entitled to stop having data collected from Discord’s advertisements on other services. Updates to the Privacy Policy now entitle users to exercise opt-out programs administered by third-parties such as Network Advertising Initiative (NAI), and the more common Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA).

On May 1st, 2017, they will enact the new Privacy Policy. Users must read and accept it in order to use their services, as well as the Terms Of Service. Therefore, read the privacy policy and the terms of service, as well as the support article discussing this.

5. New Community Guidelines

Discord now has a Community Guidelines page, just like YouTube does. The guidelines can be found here. These guidelines talk about the rules of Discord. They explain the consequences for violating such rules, which can include suspension of the service for a certain amount of time, and/or account deletion. Discord makes it clear that misconduct is not tolerated, in simple terms, and that they will punish those who disobey.

Conclusion

How do you feel about these new policies? Perhaps the policies are too strict for you? Feel free to leave your thoughts down in the comments section below. If you would like to see more blog posts like this one, please subscribe so we can get the latest posts to you as soon as possible. Thank you for reading this article, and stay safe!