Social media platform Discord recently released its quarterly security report, which notes that approximately 55,573,411 accounts and 68,379 servers were “shut down” between January and June 2022. According to the company, the vast majority of them were disabled for “spam or spam-related violations.”
The number of accounts disabled for non-spam reasons pales in comparison, at 1,821,721. Bans in this category were mostly posed as issues related to “child safety” or “exploitation and objectionable content.”
Discord, at least in general, considers it justified to disable these accounts and shut down the affected servers. Successful appeals were just two percent in the first quarter and less than one percent in the second quarter of this year, meaning that out of 235,945 users who applied for a re-examination of their ban, only 3,098 of them were reinstated on the platform.
“Our mission at Discord is to create a welcoming space where people can find their belonging. We understand that security allows people to find belonging, which is why security is one of our biggest investments and priorities,” Discord’s latest report says. Security is a vital priority for our company. “About 15 percent of all Discord employees are employed in this area, and every employee shares the responsibility of keeping Discord secure.”
Discord apparently took action on 24 percent of violations reported between January and March, as well as 22 percent of violations reported between April and June this year. “Discord allows users to appeal actions taken against their accounts if they believe the enforcement was improper,” the company noted in the same report. “We welcome appeals and take them seriously when they bring up context or information that we may not have been aware of. We review appeals and reinstate accounts if we determine that a mistake has been made, or if, based on the appeal, we believe that the user has acknowledged a violation admitted on a low-risk occasion”.
