Florida AG subpoenas Discord in child safety investigation
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has opened a civil investigation into Discord and subpoenaed the online chat platform for records related to child safety, saying the state wants to know how the service is being used by predators and what protections are in place for minors.
The subpoena was announced Wednesday. The filing says Discord may have violated Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.
Discord is a widely used platform for text, audio and video communication. Florida officials said it has increasingly appeared in criminal investigations involving child predators and child sexual abuse material, with some offenders allegedly contacting minors on other platforms before moving conversations to Discord.
“Many of our criminal investigations into internet child predators lead to one place: Discord,” Uthmeier said. “Groomers and predators seem to believe that they can get away with targeting children on Discord—and we are going to find out why. Discord owes us an explanation on the overwhelming use of its platform among predators, and what they are doing to protect children.”
According to the attorney general’s office, the subpoena seeks records including marketing and promotional materials describing Discord as safe or suitable for children, documents related to any marketing directed at children, and records showing how the company handles content and communication moderation.
It also seeks complaints alleging exploitation and the steps taken in response, documents describing Discord’s age-verification and parental control tools, records of criminal cases involving children, and data showing how many children use the platform.
Sarasota County Sheriff Kurt A. Hoffman said investigators have seen offenders use services such as Roblox and Discord to reach children.
The Discord investigation follows a Florida lawsuit filed in December against Roblox Corporation, accusing the gaming platform of failing to protect children from sexual predators despite aggressively marketing its services to minors.
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
