Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
Rantburg.com maintains a Discord server, ostensibly to be used in the event Rantburg.com is down.
It should be noted that Discord's primary attraction amongst gamers is its voice applications and its screen sharing applications, both of which I use frequently.
Discord also is used by gaming companies to receive feedback on their products and for suggestions for improvements and for debugging.
I have yet to see any terrorists on any of the Discord channels I follow.
by Pavel Kiselev
[REGNUM] Roskomnadzor demanded that the administration of the online platform Discord remove 947 illegal materials, including calls for extremism, propaganda of Nazism, drugs, LGBT and even child pornography.
Since March of this year, the platform has been included in the register of social networks, whose administrators themselves are obliged to search for and remove illegal content published by network users.
Discord is a free American online platform that provides the ability to communicate by creating user servers. It was created in 2015 as a platform for gamers, but subsequently gained popularity among a wider audience. This turned Discord into one of the largest social networks for exchanging messages and calls. According to various estimates, the platform's Russian audience ranges from 2.62 million to 4.83 million users.
RECRUITMENT - FROM "DEPOSITORS" TO TERRORIST ATTACK PERPETRATORS
The social network is most popular among children and teenagers, which is used by criminals, “recruiting minors to ‘stash’ drugs, convincing them that their use is normal,” Roskomnadzor notes.
The criminals here are not only running networks selling illegal substances. In the summer of 2022, it became known that a group of hackers was using popular teenage channels on Discord and YouTube and offering them the opportunity to distribute malware through these online platforms.
Here, young people are also drawn into extremist cells and into committing terrorist attacks in the country’s regions, department representatives indicated.
Thus, in August 2022, the Safe Internet League revealed that messages with false information about the mining of schools and kindergartens in Russia, the purpose of which was to disrupt the start of the school year, were being distributed through Discord and Telegram chats. And this distribution of fakes can still be considered relatively “harmless”.
Most recently, on October 1, the FSB reported that its employees, together with representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Investigative Committee, detained 39 people aged 14 to 35 during a special operation. Being supporters of Ukrainian terrorist organizations banned in Russia, they incited children and teenagers to attack people. Including nine teenagers preparing attacks on schoolchildren and teachers. One of the detainees prepared a detailed plan for an attack on classmates, selected a possible weapon, and also outlined the sequence of actions. The teenagers received these instructions from Kiev via Discord.
THEY CONSIDER LGBT TO BE THE NORM
“This network also frequently encounters cases of harassment and the inducement of minors to engage in sexual, including non-traditional, relationships,” Roskomnadzor also states.
Discord employees refuse to moderate content with LGBT propaganda and pedophilia because they do not consider LGBT a threat, Andrey Masalovich, president of the Inforus consortium and developer of the Avalanche internet intelligence platform, explained to Regnum.
"As for pedophilia, they believe that it is not an 'international concept', since the age of majority is different in different countries. These are such clever tricks," the expert explained.
The “free” attitude of the social network’s administration towards the content that circulates there leads to the fact that neo-Nazi symbols, LGBT* pornography, and propaganda of the Ukrainian “Legion of Freedom of Russia”**, which is banned in the Russian Federation, are freely available on Discord.
The fact that a platform created with a harmless purpose - as a resource for communication between players - has turned into an extremely toxic and dangerous environment is due to the very “architecture” of Discord.
MAGNET FOR CYBERCRIMINALS
"Discord is especially convenient due to its mechanics of servers that are accessible only by invitation. This prevents proper content moderation and introduces an element of anonymity, the inappropriateness of which on the Internet has long been obvious," explained State Duma deputy, member of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, IT and Communications Anton Nemkin.
Even if the user is not from a risk group, not one of those who might fall into the networks of drug dealers, pedophiles or Ukrainian recruiters, he is still in danger.
Spy Pet, a service that has been operating since April 2024, collects huge amounts of data from Discord, including user messages and their activity. This data is sold to anyone who wants it, including crypto payments, for a small amount. Spy Pet monitors information from more than 14,000 servers and provides access to billions of messages.
The discovery revealed that Discord messages may be more vulnerable to surveillance than previously thought.
In 2022, Russian antivirus company Kaspersky Lab reported that scammers were deceiving people on the American platform. The extortionists sent out messages about winning free bitcoins and used a network of fake news sites for this scheme.
Some hacker groups also use the service to distribute malware and sell stolen information.
It should be noted that this is pointed out not only by Russian, but also by Western experts in protection against network threats.
In February this year, the American company Intel 471, one of the leading providers of cyber threat analysis solutions, published a report that showed that hackers use the Discord platform to coordinate their actions, share stolen data, and teach each other new hacking methods. Discord’s anonymity and convenience, including the ability to easily restore communities, make it attractive to criminals, which poses a serious threat to users and organizations.
"The Discord platform has long since become a real magnet for cybercriminals. It is easy to find malware, phishing attacks and other threats here. Users regularly become victims of fraud, and the platform does not take active measures to protect them," says Ilya Gogua, an expert at the Regional Public Center for Internet Technologies (ROCIT).
There is no protection from either attackers or destructive content, the distribution of which is difficult to control due to the very principle of the platform. In other words, security in Discord is an illusion, the expert concluded.
FINES DON'T HELP
At the same time, the owners and management of Discord either completely ignore the requirements of Russian legislation, or comply with them extremely selectively, reminds journalist Alexander Malkevich, head of the department of social communications at the Azov State Pedagogical University (Zaporizhia region).
In November 2021, Roskomnadzor included Discord Inc. in the List of Foreign Persons Operating in the Russian Segment of the Internet. The company was required to create a branch, register a personal account on the Roskomnadzor website, and post an electronic form for sending requests from Russian citizens and legal entities. None of the requirements were met.
Therefore, since August 2021, search engines operating in Russia, on the instructions of Roskomnadzor, have been informing: Discord is a violator of our legislation.
Discord continues to ignore demands to stop distributing illegal content. In July 2023, a Moscow court fined the company 6 million rubles for failing to remove pornographic content featuring minors. The platform has been subject to sanctions for failing to remove prohibited content, including extremist content and drug-making instructions.
Yes, sometimes the company meets the authorities' demands halfway - for example, the year before last, 55 million users were blocked for sending spam or engaging in pedophilia. According to Roskomnadzor's demands, 933 links with prohibited materials were removed. But this is rather an exception to the rule.
Discord continues to spread a large amount of prohibited information, which for some reason the management is in no hurry to block.
Thus, just recently, on September 30, the Tagansky Court of Moscow fined the platform 3.5 million rubles for failure to comply with requirements to remove prohibited content.
“When a company refuses to comply with laws and remove fakes and destructive content, this is always an alarming signal,” emphasizes Rifat Sabitov, head of the commission for the development of the information community, media and mass communications of the Public Chamber of Russia.
In such cases, the authorities still strive to move the dialogue into a constructive direction and do not try to solve the problem with multi-million dollar fines, following the example of their European colleagues, noted a member of the Public Chamber.
But when the law is violated systematically, and administrative cases continue to accumulate, then the only logical action is a thorough inspection of the platform’s activities – and then appropriate decisions are made, Sabitov added.
"Please note that no one asked Discord for anything supernatural - the discussion included materials related to pedophilia and 18+ content. It is difficult to understand the principled refusal to remove even such content," the public figure emphasized.
It should be noted that it is not only the Russian authorities who have accumulated claims against Discord. This year, the French National Commission on Information Technology and Human Rights fined the platform 800 thousand euros for violating the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Secret documents from the Pentagon and US intelligence in 2023 also leaked through Discord - the company is currently cooperating with the US authorities in investigating this incident. But "the deed is already done."
We could say that the problems of our Western "non-partners" do not concern us, if the freedom in Discord did not threaten Russians as well. Discord has become a toxic and, moreover, unnecessary platform for Russian users.
This is also pointed out by "specialized" legislators. "How can Discord continue to operate if the messenger constantly violates Russian laws and does not protect its users? Destructive content remains, fraud flourishes, and the company does not even try to comply with the requirements for removing prohibited information," notes State Duma deputy Anton Nemkin.
Naturally, after all the warnings and attempts to establish a dialogue, a thorough inspection of the messenger by Roskomnadzor is a logical decision, the parliamentarian emphasized.
“Roskomnadzor is doing everything right by stretching sanctions against Discord over several stages: first a warning, then a fine, and soon a possible slowdown and blocking,” notes Andrey Masalovich, president of the Inforus consortium and developer of the Avalanche internet intelligence platform.
NO GREAT LOSS
Calls to block Discord, as has already been done with other Western Internet resources, are already spreading in RuNet. This opinion is shared, for example, by popular blogger Dmitry "Goblin" Puchkov.
"There is such a simple concept in the Russian language - "has played itself out". It is fully applicable to Discord, which took the warnings of the authorities and the desire to speak like humans for weakness," Puchkov believes. He is sure that in its current form, this platform is a real breeding ground for fakes and destructiveness. "I don't know what censored word can be used to describe moderation that turns a blind eye to materials related to pornography and pedophilia," the blogger noted.
And everything positive that is in Discord is easily replaced by Russian analogues, Puchkov explained.
"Want to play with friends? Call them in any domestic messenger. Want to conduct an online lesson? Try the same calls or specialized services. I definitely do not see a problem in the absence of Discord in Russia, if the messenger is suddenly blocked," the blogger emphasized.
Rifat Sabitov, head of the OP commission for the development of the information community, media and mass communications, shares a similar opinion. He is confident that the possible blocking of Discord in Russia will not be a loss for users.
It is quite easy to replace the functionality of Discord. Voice communication and group calls can be arranged in many domestic messengers, so choosing a suitable alternative will not be difficult, the head of the relevant commission of the OP noted.
Deputy Nemkin also points to this. "Even if the only way out of the situation is to block the service, Russians have nothing to worry about. Among domestic platforms, it is easy to find a solution for communicating with friends during the game, as well as a program for group calls and distance learning," the parliamentarian said.
So many public figures are either neutral or positive about the closure of Discord. Perhaps this will be the only way out if the company continues to ignore the urgent requests and demands of Roskomnadzor and "not notice" how the resource has turned into a comfortable environment for extremists, perverts and cyber fraudsters.
"Discord is an example of a major threat to Russian society. Firstly, because it is popular among young people, and this is the most pliable audience that the enemy can influence. Secondly, it is dangerous because it spreads hacker infection and through it you can easily hack users' computers," summarizes Andrey Masalovich, developer of the Avalanche Internet intelligence platform. Finally, - adds the interlocutor of IA Regnum, - Discord moderators are not friends with the Russian authorities, which is why they have ignored calls to remove illegal content for so long.
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