POLICY & SAFETY
STAY CONNECTED WITH YOUR TEEN USING DISCORD’S FAMILY CENTER
Discord Safety
July 11, 2023
Discord is about hanging out with friends. Millions of people across the world come here to build community and discuss all sorts of topics, play both casual and competitive games, and sometimes even learn something new! It's a space where people can be themselves and spend time with others who share their interests and hobbies. We want everyone to experience the joy of Discord, find belonging, and build community. That’s why we’ve made safety a top priority.
In addition to building safety features that
both parents and teens can use to customize their Discord experience, we regularly
update our community guidelines to further efforts to protect our users, especially teens, and recently launched a new
Safety Center containing more information and resources on building a safer Discord experience.
Everyone’s online safety needs and expectations are different, which is why we broadly invest in diverse sets of tools and resources to support our users. That’s why as a next step we’re excited to introduce the
Family Center.
Discord's
Family Center is a new opt-in tool that makes it easy for teens to keep their parents and guardians informed about their Discord activity while respecting their autonomy. Similar to how parents know who their teens are friends with and what clubs they’re a part of at school, Family Center helps them learn more about who their teens are friends with and talk to on Discord. Our goal with Family Center is to help foster productive dialogue about safer internet habits, and to create mutually beneficial ways for parents and teens to connect about experiences online.
Read on to learn more about Family Center, how parents, guardians and teens can set up the new tool and learn what’s shared (and what isn’t).
For Parents and Guardians: Setting Up Family Center
Discord’s Family Center has two major components: a new activity dashboard accessible from Discord at any time, and a weekly email summary containing high level information about your teen’s activity. You’ll find the Family Center in
User Settings > Family Center.
To get started, we require both you and your teen to complete setup through the official Discord app. Each step in the setup process is designed to protect your teen’s account. Teen account activity is not shared in Family Center without their consent.
After you and your teen have discussed using this feature together, you’ll need to ask them for a QR code easily generated in Family Center. It’s important to know that these QR codes are unique and only active for a short amount of time. So if another parent is ready to connect their account with your teen they’ll have to repeat these steps. Once you complete setup, we’ll notify you every time a new parent is connected to your teen in Family Center.
Teen accounts connected to yours via Family Center will share the following information with you in a dashboard that is accessible in-app at any time:
Once your teen has accepted your connection request, the Family Center will populate with details about their activity on Discord within the last seven days. This includes the
number of users they’ve messaged or called, the number of new friends they’ve added, and how many servers they’re actively participating in. Family Center won’t contain a complete archive of activity and will only highlight activity occurring after your teen has accepted your connection request.
In addition to the in-app Family Center, you’ll also receive a weekly recap of this information via email. Keep an eye out in the email address associated with your Discord account for the latest activity updates.
The Family Center is designed to help trusted guardians stay informed on how their teens use Discord at a high level. As such, it’s important to remember that
with the Family Center, you’ll know which users your teen is talking to and what Discord communities they’re participating in, but you won’t be able to see the contents of the conversations themselves.
If you have questions or concerns about the people or servers your teen is engaging with, we encourage you to have a conversation with them directly about maintaining healthy online habits or ask them about their newest friends or communities.
For additional guidance on setting up the Family Center, take a look at the Family Center
support article.
Supporting Healthy Online Habits with Family Center
This new tool is just the beginning of our family-first initiatives. We encourage parents and guardians to use the information provided by the Family Center to open up conversations about online safety with your teen.
For parents who are searching for more resources from trusted organizations, we also highlight partner resources to Discord from ConnectSafely and National PTA in our new
Parents Hub. Our expert partners have been crucial to informing our prioritization of building this tool and overall approach to keep our younger users safe. Additionally, we published
an article highlighting our commitments to teen and child safety including a look at our safety and product philosophy and an in depth look at our teen and child safety policies.
And of course, we’re always listening — if you have any ideas for features to help families stay connected and safe on the platform, you can reach out to us here.
Hear From Our Partners
"Family Center provides parents with what they need to help guide their teen's use of Discord without being too invasive. It's like the physical world where you know who your kids are hanging out with and where they're going but not listening in on their conversations or micromanaging their relationships. Tools like Family Center can help parents help their teens develop the habits and critical thinking skills that apply not only to Discord but all of life." - Larry Magid CEO ConnectSafely.org
“It is essential that families are empowered with knowledge, tools and resources so they can support healthy digital habits for their children. When platforms offer resources like Discord’s new Family Center, this information helps facilitate meaningful conversations between teens and their parents and caregivers about how to be safe, responsible and respectful online. National PTA will continue to work with our partners including Discord to create a healthier digital environment for teens and families.” - National PTA President Yvonne Johnson
