Discordant

The management of Discord has already announced that it is aware that the app has been blocked in Russia and is looking into the matter. The head of the State Duma Committee on Informational Policy, Technologies and Communications Alexander Khinshtein has indicated that the service could be unblocked “if it meets its legal requirements” under Russian law. 

What are the real reasons behind blocking Discord, what problems has the service encountered in other countries, and why do both the Russian and Ukrainian militaries regard it as a vital tool? 

From gamers to game changer

Discord began life in 2015 as a platform on which cyberathletes could communicate during practice and competition, quickly becoming popular for its excellent sound quality, minimal use of computer memory and its simple interface. It later became popular with gamers.

Over time Discord was developed to offer its users functions that its competitors did not have, such as full video calls and screencasts, as well as native streaming of games directly in the app. Text chats allowed users to send images and GIFs, while a user’s profile status could show which game was being played at any given time.

However, Discord’s breakthrough popularity came about thanks to its servers — closed communities that could only be joined by invitation. Each server is a group with its own topic sections and rules. All messages are written in text channels, separate group chats, the topic of which is determined by the users themselves.

Besides text channels, there are also voice channels, which can also be given different names. The audio quality on Discord is excellent: the app uses special AI tools for noise reduction. The voice channels can also be used for screencasts or game streaming: Discord users often use this function to watch films online or to play a video on YouTube.

The main feature of Discord is its social component. Each server is user-administered: the administrators set the rules, and members are blocked for breaking them. Administrators are assisted by moderators, volunteers who read all the messages in the text channels and monitor the audio chats. The administrator sets a hierarchy for members and assigns them roles designated in different colours.

Discord encourages confidentiality: for example, administrators are able to create private channels for certain participants who will be invisible to other members on the server. The app also does not block adult content in communities: if they wish, server administrators can give certain channels the tag NSFW (Not Safe for Work).

The app’s convenience meant that it was soon being used for far more than simply playing video games, and many users began to use it as a social network and a dating site. Discord’s public servers, some of which have hundreds of thousands of users, have even been monetised — the administrators and moderators of large communities may sell VIP statuses for access to private channels, while freelancers of all types frequently use Discord to seek out new clients.

It is hardly surprising that over the years Discord has grown increasingly popular outside the gaming community. During the pandemic, the program became a popular substitute for Zoom that was preferred by many as Discord set no time limits on video calls, making it convenient for meetings, lessons and lectures. 

In 2020, company CEO Jason Citron announced that the app would no longer pitch its services exclusively to gamers, and would become a platform for diverse groups of people with a variety of interests. In the first four months of the global lockdown, Discord brought in €347 million in venture capital.

Victim of its own success

Discord soon began to face serious problems in multiple jurisdictions worldwide due to its lack of proper content moderation and its refusal to cooperate with law enforcement bodies in the US and EU, very similar issues to those encountered by popular Russian messaging app Telegram.

Last year NBC News reported a growth in the number of cases involving the sexual exploitation of minors on Discord: in some cases minors were tricked into making and sharing explicit images of themselves, after which they would be threatened with them being posted online unless they continued to take and share new photos. 

Crimes involving child pornography on Discord were also reported by CNN in 2022, while a study by the Washington Post also found that groups of paedophiles were active on the platform.

Discord sets out its own rules for cooperating with law enforcement bodies in the US and EU, though the precise number of people moderating its communities is unknown. Following the sacking of some 170 employees earlier this year, Discord has a staff of just 830 people, an insufficient number of moderators for its 200 million worldwide users per month.

It is practically impossible to provide automated moderation of legal violations: the company itself states that all messages are encrypted. Thus, the only way of reporting a legal violation is to send a complaint to moderators.

Many countries view Discord’s lack of content regulation as problematic, and the day after the platform was blocked in Russia, Turkish Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç announced that an Ankara court had also blocked access to Discord in Türkiye over its alleged content related to “sexual violence towards children and indecency”.

Discord is also blocked in China, and accessing it with a VPN is a criminal offense. Surprisingly enough, Discord is still accessible in Iran, where users gather in large public communities. But from time to time the authorities block access, usually during protests. Discord is also partially restricted in the UAE, where neither voice chats nor video calls can be made, though users have various ways to circumnavigate the block by changing their region using a VPN.

Building a case

The Russian authorities spent several months laying the groundwork for its eventual blocking of Discord. On 12 March Roskomnadzor included the platform on its register of social networks, and on 30 September a Moscow court issued it with a fine of 3.5 million rubles (€33,300) for violations of a law on the self-monitoring of social networks.

A day after the fine, Roskomnadzor announced that it had sent the platform a request to delete some 947 materials it deemed illegal “including ones containing child pornography, calls for extremism, inciting minors to commit illegal acts, encouraging suicide, LGBT propaganda, pro-drug content.” Just a week later, Roskomnadzor announced that it had blocked the site entirely.

This draconian measure appears to have been taken despite the fact that Discord complied with Roskomnadzor’s requests to block certain content, such as the servers of the femboy community, a subculture of men who wear women’s clothing, which were blocked in March. Neither Roskomnadzor nor Discord specified which communities the Russian authorities had complaints with.

It’s likely, of course, that the alleged “illegal” content on Discord was simply used as a pretext for blocking the service in Russia, and that, in fact, the authorities were far more interested in ensuring Discord’s new end-to-end encryption of voice and video chats would never be made available. The feature was first announced on 17 September, just two weeks before Roskomnadzor received its first fine in Russia. 

The statement made by Alexander Khinstein, the head of the State Duma Committee on Informational Policy, Technologies and Communications, also suggested that Roskomnadzor’s objections were privacy related. Khinshtein said that the app could be unblocked if the company deleted illegal materials on it and was more rigourous about user verification. 

This may mean compulsory logins by phone number for accounts on the Russian service, similar to those already required by social media giant VK or search engine Yandex. However, Discord’s compliance with such demands would effectively allow law enforcement officers to listen in to all calls made by Russian users and to monitor their chats.

From Discord to Revolt

One unexpected consequence of Discord’s blocking was the effect it would have on Russia’s war in Ukraine. In August, photographs of a drone control centre run by the Russian military were posted online, which showed Russian drones being operated via Discord video calls. It also seems that the Armed Forces of Ukraine have been using the platform for the same purposes since 2022.

Though neither side has officially declared Discord to be an instrument of war, it appears to be the most convenient platform for reliably broadcasting videos of drone strikes, thanks to its high sound quality and lag-free images. Despite its location in the US, Discord also seems to be a neutral player and is not known for cooperating with the US authorities. In fact, Discord was the platform used in a massive leak of classified US government documents from the Pentagon last year. 

“From a military standpoint, the main problem with the ban on Discord is not just that some command posts may no longer receive drone strike video feeds,” war correspondent Mikhail Zvinchuk wrote last week on the pro-Kremlin Telegram channel Rybar that he runs, “It’s that the Defence Ministry has no plans to provide troops with an alternative.”

“Discord is an absolutely hostile resource. No one disputes that. But our soldiers used the service extensively to carry out important military tasks. Without going into details, if we compare the situation with aikido, for example, our fighter has been deprived of a powerful move. I hope the situation will be solved as soon as possible to our soldiers’ advantage,” said State Duma Deputy Yevgeny Popov.

Yekaterina Mizullina, who heads the Kremlin-affiliated pro-online censorship organisation The Safe Internet League, said that blocking Discord would be a mistake. She said that the platform was used to watch videos from drones and other equipment, and that video feeds on this service provided the highest quality picture. Later she refused to comment on Roskomnadzor’s decision and said that “she did not take any decisions on blocking whatsoever.”

It is unclear at present whether the Russian military will find a replacement for Discord. The anonymous pro-war Telegram channel Condottiero reports that at present the army is testing Revolt, a similar service with the same functions, however.