Discord has updated its hateful conduct policy to ban behaviors that go against its goal of promoting acceptance and inclusivity. The newly added bannable behaviors include deadnaming or misgendering a transgender person. According to TechCrunch, Discord started internally implementing its expanded policy in 2022, but has just now made it public to increase transparency.
Discord spokesperson stated, “As part of our ongoing efforts to ensure Discord remains a safe and fun place for people to hang out with friends, we continually evaluate potential harms and update our policies. We often work with organization and subject matter experts to ensure our policies accurately encompass a holistic view of how these issues manifest across the internet and society.”
In addition to misgendering and deadnaming trans people, Discord also considers expressing contempt or disgust towards members of protected groups, perpetuating negative stereotypes about them, repeatedly using slurs to degrade them, threatening or promoting violence against them, as well as calling for their segregation and exclusion as hateful behaviors. LGBT organization GLAAD has praised Discord for recognizing deadnaming and targeted misgendering as hate speech.
GLAAD also points out that among the biggest social networks today, TikTok is the only one that explicitly prohibits intentional misgendering and deadnaming. Notably, Twitter implemented a rule against the behavior in 2018, but quietly removed that section in its hateful conduct policy under Elon Musk’s leadership.
Discord won’t be banning users who violate its hateful conduct policy after just one infraction. Under its warning system, users who go against its rules will receive a direct message detailing their offense, with the platform weighing each violation differently based on the “severity of harm.” Users can see their account standing in their settings page. If they have one or more violation, their accounts will be marked “at risk,” while they could be permanently suspended if they’re marked as having “severe or repeated” violations.
