State Sues Discord for Failing to Protect Children from Online Predators, Harmful Content

NEW JERSEY — Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin and the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs filed a lawsuit on April 17, 2025, against Discord, Inc., accusing the popular social messaging platform of deceptive business practices that left New Jersey’s children vulnerable to sexual predators, explicit content, and online exploitation.

Filed in Essex County Superior Court, the complaint follows a multiyear investigation and alleges that Discord violated the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act by misleading users about the effectiveness of its safety features and failing to take adequate measures to protect children, particularly those under 13, from harm.

“Discord markets itself as a safe space for children, despite being fully aware that the application’s misleading safety settings and lax oversight has made it a prime hunting ground for online predators seeking easy access to children,” said Attorney General Platkin. “These deceptive claims regarding its safety settings have allowed Discord to attract a growing number of children to use its application, where they are at risk. We intend to put a stop to this unlawful conduct and hold Discord accountable for the harm it has caused our children.”

Discord, based in San Francisco, operates a text, voice, and video communication platform that is widely used by children and teenagers. While Discord claims to prohibit use by anyone under 13 and to offer tools like Safe Direct Messaging to scan and block explicit content, the complaint asserts these systems were ineffective and poorly enforced.

The complaint highlights a series of default platform settings and design choices that, according to the State, facilitated inappropriate interactions between children and potentially predatory users. These include:

• Allowing direct messages (DMs) from any user within shared virtual communities;

• Making “My friends are nice”—a limited message scanning setting—the default for all new users;

• Enabling friend requests from strangers by default;

• Failing to verify users’ ages beyond a simple date-of-birth entry; and

• Permitting users to easily create multiple accounts to bypass bans or safety blocks.

Between 2017 and 2023, Discord promoted its Safe Direct Messaging feature as a means of automatically detecting and removing explicit content from user DMs. However, according to the complaint, this feature often failed to detect or block harmful material, despite Discord’s public assurances to the contrary.

“Discord claims that safety is at the core of everything it does, but the truth is, the application is not safe for children. Discord’s deliberate misrepresentation of the application’s safety settings has harmed—and continues to harm—New Jersey’s children, and must stop,” said Cari Fais, Director of the Division of Consumer Affairs. “By filing this lawsuit, we’re sending a clear message that New Jersey will not allow businesses to grow their customer base through unlawful and deceptive practices, especially when those practices put children at grave risk.”

The lawsuit also asserts that Discord’s user experience and promotional strategies deliberately targeted younger audiences through kid-friendly features like personalized emojis, sound effects, and communities based on popular children’s games such as Roblox. Discord also launched “student hubs” to connect classmates, further increasing the platform's appeal among minors.

While Discord’s terms of service state that users must be at least 13 years old, the platform does not require substantive verification of age. As a result, children under 13 have been able to create accounts and interact on the platform, sometimes with devastating consequences. Law enforcement reports cited in the complaint describe instances of predators using Discord to contact, manipulate, and exploit minors, including through methods such as sextortion.

The State is seeking injunctive relief to halt further violations of the Consumer Fraud Act, civil penalties, and the disgorgement of profits Discord made through its allegedly unlawful practices in New Jersey.

This lawsuit marks the latest in a series of legal actions by New Jersey’s Office of the Attorney General targeting online platforms accused of endangering children. Previous actions have included suits against TikTok and Meta Platforms for allegedly promoting harmful engagement patterns among young users.

Deputy Attorneys General Mandy Wang, Ethan Rubin, and Kathleen Riley are representing the State, under the supervision of Data Privacy & Cybersecurity Section Chief Kashif T. Chand and others in the Division of Law’s Affirmative Civil Enforcement Practice Group. The investigation was conducted by Investigator Aziza Salikhova of the Office of Consumer Protection.

For more information on online safety and digital consumer protection, visit njconsumeraffairs.gov.

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