This week I’ll be talking about Discord. Discord is an online platform for communication. If you ever used BBS’s or AOL chat rooms as a kid – this is the evolution of those systems.
Discord is very similar to the professional tool called ‘slack’ that many companies now use. There are different chatrooms you can join and post messages, memes, or images. There are voice chatrooms you can join talk over voice or share your screen.
I play World of Warcraft Classic with a guild full of other parents from across the country. We use discord to organize and meet for our raids twice a week. I’ve suggested to the community and political organizations I’m a part of to adopt this tool because it’s amazing for this role of coordination.
Users can join any discord server they have an invite to. Most discord communities post their public info online so anyone can join them. You can go to “disboard.com” and see a list of hundreds of thousands of servers to join.
Most public servers have a set of rules and regulations that must be followed, and if a community member breaks those rules – such as bullying or offensive language their discord account will be banned from the server.
You might have already seen the drawback of this for tweens and teens. While discord servers for companies like Larian Studios or Owlcat Games will be highly monitored and regulated, there are tens of thousands of discord servers with little or no regulation.
These are the servers where neckbeards post images of classified files. Last year when I was talking to the principal of Gideon Wells, he expressed how concerned he was about discord servers and tweens – and with good reason.
As a parent, I let my kid use discord servers, but I have the access to his account and I can go and look at any servers he has joined and any discussions on those servers. Like with a phone, I call him into my office and ask him to show me all of the servers he’s joined and tell me about them.
I’ve found this approach to work really well because he can get excited to tell me about what groups he’s a part of and it allows me to engage with him. I don’t sneak behind his back and look at his discussions because that would cause him to lose trust in me.
Personally I don’t take the approach of telling my child “You can’t use discord” because I know they will just find a way to get around that rule and then I’ll have no ability to review what they are doing.
I hope these tips help you understand how discord works and provide an example of how to approach the issue with your kids.
Last week I had someone ask me for digital copies of these letters. I’ve placed them all on GlastonburyVoter.com under the ‘Articles’ tab.