Discord is facing a new lawsuit from New Jersey, which declares that the chat application is participating in fraudulent and conscientious business activities, making young users in danger.
The casePresented on Thursday, after a years of investigation of the New Jersey General Office. AG's office announced that they have discovered evidence that, although Discord's policies to protect children and young people, popular messaging apps are making young people at risk.
We are the first state in the country to sue Discord, the general attorney Matthew Platkin told Wired.
Platkin said there were two catalysts for the investigation. One is individual: A few years ago, a family friend who came to Platkin, was surprised when his 10 -year -old son could register Discord, although the banned foundation for children under 13 years old.
The second is the mass shooting in Buffalo, in New York nearby. The culprit used discord as his personal diary in the attack and Livestream slaughter Directly to the chat and video application. (The video was quickly deleted.)
These companies have been intentionally, intentionally, making profits from the interests and happiness of our children, according to Mr. Plat Platkin.
AG's office declared in the lawsuit that violated the state's consumer fraud law. The allegations, have been submitted on Thursday morning, enabled a series of policies accepted by Discord to keep children under 13 years old from the foundation and to keep adolescents safely from sexual exploitation and violent content. The lawsuit is only the latest time in a list of lawsuits from countries against large social media companies, the way that has been proven to be quite effective so far.
Discord's safety and teenage policies are very clear: Children under 13 are banned in messaging apps, while it is more prohibited than any sexual interaction with minors, including young people who end themselves. It also has operating algorithm filters to stop Unwanted live live messages. The company's safety policy is based in California, Published in 2023The state, we have built discord to be different and constantly work to turn it into an interesting and safe space for teenagers.
But New Jersey said that Discer's promises have decreased, and continued to fall, flat.
The attorney general pointed out that Discord has three safety levels to prevent young people from unwanted messages and exploit from adults: keep me safe, where the platform scans all messages into the user's inbox; My friends are very good, where it does not scan messages from friends; And do not scan, where there are no messages.
Even for teen users, the allegations, the default foundation for my friends is very good. The attorney general claims this is a intentional design representing the threat to young users. The lawsuit also accused that the discord was failing when not verifying the age to prevent children under 13 years old for the service.
In 2023, Discord added new filters to detect and block unwanted sexual content, but AG office said the company should activate my safe keeping option by default.