James Uthmeier
TALLAHASSEE — Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has opened a civil investigation into Discord, a popular online chat platform.
The subpoena demands documents and information related to the platform’s practices in marketing to children, enforcing age-verification requirements, content moderation, parental control features and reporting of exploitative activity.
“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.”
Sarasota County Sheriff Kurt A. Hoffman said investigations show offenders are using platforms such as Roblox and Discord as an access point to reach children.
“Parents should know we are taking this seriously,” Hoffman said. “My message is clear, we are committed to protecting our kids, and predators have no safe place in our community.
“If you exploit children, we will find you, arrest you and hold you accountable.”
Discord is an online communication that uses messaging, audio and video calls. Officials say the platform has increasingly been identified as a service that predators use to communicate with children and distribute and collect child sexual abuse material.
Uthmeier’s office says there have been many concerning reports saying predators initially contact minors on other platforms, including video games such as Roblox and Fortnite, and then encourage them to move communications to Discord, which may be due to insufficient protections for children.
The AG’s office subpoena seeks information and documents regarding Discord’s practices in safeguarding children from being exposed to harmful content and being targeted by child predators. The filing suggests Discord has potentially violated Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.
Uthmeier is demanding Discord produce documents, including, but not limited to:
· Marketing and promotional materials that represent the platform’s safety, suitability, and appropriateness for children.
· Documents relating to the marketing of Discord directly to children.
· Procedures relating to content and communication moderation.
· Records of complaints alleging exploitation, and records of responsive steps taken.
· Documents describing age-verification processes and parent control features.
· Records of criminal cases involving children.
· Data on how many children are utilizing the platform.
Uthmeier said the investigation is part of his office’s effort to investigate and bring accountability for the exploitative environment that has been created for children on social media websites and gaming platforms.
