Discord users accessing the Discord app via iOS will now face restrictions on adult content that extend beyond those for other platforms. The gaming-focused social networking app, which allows users to create public or private servers for chatting via text, image, voice and video live streaming, announced this week that “all users on the iOS platform (including those of 18+) will be blocked from joining and accessing NSFW servers. iOS users 18 and older can still join and access NSFW communities on the desktop and web versions of Discord.”
That NSFW designation can be set by the server owner or by Discord itself, in accordance with community guidelines that require the “adult content” label. Individual channels within a server may be designated as NSFW without imposing limits on the entire server, but an entire server may be designated as NSFW” if the community is organized around NSFW themes or if the majority of the server’s content is + is,” the company said.
Discord has launched an appeals process for server owners to challenge an NSFW designation. Individual users may also contact Discord if they are inadvertently identified as minors during an age verification process. But that age change will still be pointless on iOS, where users of all ages will be banned from NSFW content.
Discord didn’t specify why iOS users are treated differently than those on other platforms, but Apple’s iOS developer guidelines say that apps with user-generated content “ultimately being used primarily for pornographic content…don’t belong in the Op To app.” to beat.” The guidelines allow “occasional” NSFW content generated by users on web-based services if “the content is hidden by default and only displayed when the user enables it through your website,” a warning that apparently isn’t enough for the comfort of Discord.
Discord’s move follows Apple’s removal of the iOS Tumblr blogging app in 2018. At the time, Tumblr said the takedown was due to “media involving sexual exploitation and child abuse” slipping through its automated filters. Weeks later, however, Tumblr decided to ban all adult content from the service, a move that preceded a quick return to the iOS App Store.
Discord uses a lighter touch here, identifying and separating NSFW content from iOS users rather than banning it altogether. Prevent anyway adults of access grown up content on one platform specifically seems like a counterintuitive way to stay in Apple’s favor in this regard.
“Apple’s regressive stance on sexual content available on the largest platform borders on a complete moral panic, and it’s truly disgusting,” former Tumblr product manager Matthew Bischoff wrote on Twitter† “Entire businesses and communities have been crushed by it, and it often hurts queer and trans communities the most. When we covered this at Tumblr, it became my full-time job for weeks to find incredibly complex ways to appease Apple’s censors. happened every time they found a sexy blog they didn’t like. It’s absurd.”
Discord is reportedly in the late stages of acquisition talks — which could value the service at $10 billion — with Microsoft and other parties. The service has more than 140 million monthly users and 300 million registered accounts.
List image by Kyle Orlando