Discord Emerges at the Center of the Leak of Classified U.S. Documents

There has been an investigation by the federal government into the leak of highly classified U.S. government documents that has drawn the attention of social-media outlets popularized by videogame enthusiasts. 

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There are many private, invitation-only groups or servers that users can join on Discord Inc.'s online platform in which they can talk about games, investments, and other topics. There has been a struggle at times, like other companies in the social media industry, to rein in bad actors on the platform.  

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There have been accusations that Discord has been used to share child pornography as well as having played a role in the violence that took place in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017. This company has stated that the safety of its users is its highest priority and that any violations of its policies will be investigated and addressed to the best of its ability.

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There is a government probe that was launched on Friday, at the request of the Defense Department, which is looking into how dozens of images that appear to show secret documents have been posted on Discord. 

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This is shaping up to be one of the most damaging intelligence leaks that we have seen in decades. Depending on the results of the disclosure, Ukraine's spring offensive could be complicated, as well as the readiness of foreign allies to provide U.S. government with sensitive information could be affected.

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The San Francisco-based Discord has approximately 150 million monthly users worldwide, which places it far behind the social media leaders such as Facebook from Meta Platforms Incorporated and TikTok from ByteDance Ltd., which both have over one billion, monthly users.

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The Discord service was created in 2015 as a way for gamers to communicate while playing online games in a more convenient way than ever before. Since it was an early mover, it grew in popularity by providing a variety of ways to interact and gradually expanded its appeal to all kinds of users, who say it offers higher-quality audio than other chat services, resulting in its rapid growth. 

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The Discord software, available for both desktop computers and mobile phones, allows users to set up servers from which they can chat via video, audio, or text. Private servers are the majority, but there are also public servers that can be found. Despite being completely free to use, Discord makes money by selling enhanced versions of its chat software, starting at $2.99 a month for users who want more features.

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It is not only a popular tool for chatting while playing games, but it is also used by friends for watching movies and doing homework together as well. A significant part of its infrastructure consists of servers dedicated to games such as Riot Games Inc. 's 'Valorant' and those on the Roblox platform, as well as artwork created with the use of generative artificial intelligence. Also, the platform hosts a number of communities that support the cause of Ukraine. 

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As of April 2021, Discord has ended discussions regarding a possible acquisition offer that could be made by Microsoft Corp. PitchBook Data Inc. estimates that the company had a value of $14.7 billion as of September 2021, and it had raised $1.1 billion as of March 2022. 

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According to Discord, it is cooperating with law enforcement on the investigation of the leak of classified documents and is working with them. 

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There seem to have been hundreds of leaked documents, which have been circulated among the members of the tiny Discord group until early March when another Discord member decided to repost several dozen of them to a group with a much larger audience. Approximately 10 of the files migrated from there to a much larger community that was focused on the computer game Minecraft, which is a popular game today.

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Document leaks have become a common tactic used by the Ukrainian military during the course of the war. Researchers at Google, an Alphabet Inc. subsidiary, concluded in September that some activist groups that were divulging information to the public were probably doing so with the cooperation of Russia's military intelligence agency, the FSB.

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Analysts say the leak of what appeared to be U.S. intelligence files on Discord was different from other leaks they are aware of. There are a number of U.S. intelligence assessments included in the latest leaked reports, some of which are not related to the war in Ukraine for example.

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“It seemed like someone was just taking some pictures and uploading them to Discord,” Thomas Rid, a professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University. 

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Discord employs a combination of machine learning, employees, and volunteer moderators in order to weed out behaviors that are in violation of its policies. There are about 900 employees at the company, of which 15% work in the trust and safety department. 

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There have been occasions when Discord has drawn unwanted attention, such as when it played a part in the violence that erupted at the 2017 "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, which resulted in the death of one person. Following the discovery of Discord chats suggesting the leader of a white supremacist group encouraged violence at the event, the FBI obtained a warrant for the account of the leader of the group. After the incident, Discord declared that it had banned servers that promote the ideology of neo-Nazis.

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In 2021, Discord's chief executive, Jason Citron, stated in a Wall Street Journal interview that the company has a zero-tolerance policy for hate crimes and online extremism.

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A number of sex predators have been accused of using Discord to share child pornography with minors and communicate with them through the use of it. There is a minimum age requirement of 13 to be able to use Discord. 

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Discord said it always finds and removes abhorrent content from its platform. It said it uses the latest technology to find such content and punishes users that post it by banning them and sometimes reporting them to authorities.

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“To ensure the safety of our users, we invest continuously in technological advancements and tools that are designed to detect harmful content in a proactive manner," according to a spokesperson for the company.

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During Discord's most recent transparency report covering the fourth quarter of 2022, it was reported that it issued fewer warnings to individual users and groups compared to the previous quarter. During the same period, the company stated that it had disabled fewer individual users' accounts for policy violations excluding spam, but that it had removed more groups for the same reason. 

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Keeping track of conversations on social media is a challenging task. However, despite the fact that the major platforms police their users through both human and automated moderation, they get accused of not doing enough and going too far in order to do so. 

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There are some critics who say that Discord and other chat platforms are too reliant on users to report problems. There isn't enough user participation in this strategy to make it effective. That's according to Rachel Kowert, the research director at Take This, a nonprofit that focuses on mental health in video games.