Discord has up to date its coverage meant to guard youngsters and teenagers on its platform after studies got here out that predators have been utilizing the app to create and unfold youngster sexual abuse supplies (CSAM), in addition to to groom younger teenagers. The platform now explicitly prohibits AI-generated photorealistic CSAM. As The Washington Publish not too long ago reported, the rise in generative AI has additionally led to the explosion of lifelike photographs with sexual depictions of kids. The publication had seen conversations about using Midjourney — a text-to-image generative AI on Discord — to create inappropriate photographs of kids.

Along with banning AI-generated CSAM, Discord now additionally explicitly prohibits every other sort of textual content or media content material that sexualizes youngsters. The platform has banned teen courting servers, as nicely, and has vowed to take motion in opposition to customers partaking on this habits. A earlier NBC Information investigation discovered Discord servers marketed as teen courting servers with members that solicited nude photographs from minors. 

Grownup customers had beforehand been prosecuted for grooming youngsters on Discord, and there are even crime rings extorting underage customers to ship sexual photographs of themselves. Banning teen courting servers fully might assist mitigate the problem. Discord has additionally included a line in its coverage, which states that older teenagers discovered to be grooming youthful teenagers shall be “reviewed and actioned underneath [its] Inappropriate Sexual Conduct with Kids and Grooming Coverage.”

Apart from updating its guidelines, Discord not too long ago launched a Household Middle software that folks can use to regulate their children’ exercise on the chat service. Whereas mother and father will not be capable of see the precise contents of their children’ message, the opt-in software permits them to see who their youngsters are mates with and who they discuss to on the platform. Discord is hoping that these new measures and instruments may help preserve its underage customers secure together with its outdated measures, which embrace proactively scanning photographs uploaded to its platform utilizing PhotoDNA.