According to his last transparency report, Discord says it has removed more than 2,000 servers for violent or extremist content in the second half of 2020. In total, it has removed 2,212 servers dedicated to movements like the Boogaloo Boys and other similar groups, along with its Trust and Safety team. proactively removing those 1504. He also deleted over 30,000 accounts for similar violations.
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To put those numbers into perspective, the company deleted a total of 27,410 servers and 266,075 non-spam accounts in the second half of the year. The number of communities it has banned for extremist or violent content has increased by nearly 93% from the first half of 2020. Discord attributes that jumps to a more proactive approach on its part and the growth of extremist movements more generally. For example, it indicates that 334 servers had connections to QAnon. “We continue to believe that there is no room on Discord for groups that organize around hatred, violence or extremist ideologies,” the company said in the report.
Once an app you used to chat with your friends while playing a game, Discord has since evolved into a place where you can find people hosting everything from book clubs at jam sessions. Additionally, since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, people have flocked to the service. And with that growth, Discord has set its sights on mainstream success, rebranded midway through last year to render its service more accessible to non-players. The report and the actions it details come at a time when Microsoft is said to be in talks to buy the platform for more than 10 billion dollars. Going back to the history of these types of potential acquisitions, you have examples like Twitter. In one Interview 2019Former Disney CEO Bob Iger said Disney backed off the deal in part because of all the “nastiness” on the platform.