The state of New Jersey has filed a lawsuit against controversial messaging platform Discord on Thursday, accusing it of deceiving underaged users and their parents by misleading them about its safety features, leaving them vulnerable to abuse.
The suit accuses Discord, which was cited by Pew Research as the sixth-most-popular social app among teens in 2023, of a number of business violations, including unconscionable and abusive commercial practices.
“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,” New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin said in a press release announcing the suit.
The platform has gained popularity among the gaming community and amassed over 200 million users. It also made headlines in 2023 when 22-year-old Jack Teixeira shared some of the Pentagon’s most classified military secrets with other users on the platform.
And in February, Wired reported that Elon Musk’s team used Discord servers and other online chat groups to recruit young software engineers for President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, which is tasked with making harsh federal cuts.
The lawsuit alleged that “from the start, Discord designed its Application to appeal to children,” citing personalization features such as custom emojis, stickers, and soundboard effects. The state says these features were “intended to make chats more engaging and kid-friendly.”
According to its website, Discord has several safety guidelines to protect underaged users, as well as a zero-tolerance policy toward users who exploit minors. However, the lawsuit criticizes the platform, claiming it lacks barriers to prevent children under 13 from registering an account.
The platform has recently launched an experimental age verification process in the U.K. and Australia in response to local laws, which scans a user’s face or ID in order to view sensitive content, The Verge reports.
The lawsuit accused Discord of knowing its platform is unsafe but continues to put children at risk. The state cites several reports alleging that the application poses a danger to youth, including an incident in which Richard Densmore, a member of the extremist group 764, created communities on the platform to coerce children into performing sexual acts.
A spokesperson for Discord told HuffPost in a statement that the company “is proud of our continuous efforts and investments in features and tools that help make Discord safer.”
“Given our engagement with the Attorney General’s office, we are surprised by the announcement that New Jersey has filed an action against Discord today,” the statement read. “We dispute the claims in the lawsuit and look forward to defending the action in court.”