eSafety Parents & Carers Webinars

What is Discord? Is your child using it?

Discord is a free social communications platform that lets users text, talk, video chat, and share screens with one another. It was initially used largely by gamers (and still is), but over the years it’s spread to other groups thanks to its ease-of-use and wide variety of useful functions. 

Can Children Use Discord?

Discord’s Terms of Service states that only users must be 13 years or older.

 If a user is reported as being under 13, Discord will lock the user out of their account until they can verify their age with an official ID.

Make sure your kids know to never, ever lie about their age when signing up for Discord or any other platform! It may be helpful to explain to them that this is not about denying them access to something, but rather making sure that they stay safe online and that their data remains protected. 

Can Strangers Interact With My Children on Discord?

It depends on your child’s account settings. When your kids join a server, others in that server can send them direct messages. You can, however, disable this feature in the account settings under the Privacy & Safety tab.  You can also select who can send your child a friend request, for example, you can choose everyone, friends of friends, or only other server members.

Discord recommends that users accept friend invites only from people they know. Keep in mind that users do not have to use their real names on Discord, so it may take one extra step to confirm who’s sending an invite. There’s also an option to scan messages and delete those that have explicit content. Should your kids ever encounter someone behaving inappropriately, Discord allows you to block the person in question, which prevents them from sending your kids direct messages and hides their messages in any shared servers. You can also create an invite-only server and invite only people you or your children know personally.

Should your kids ever interact with someone behaving abusively (i.e., violating Discord’s Community Guidelines, Terms of Service, etc.) you can also report them. Remember to include screenshots of the incident if possible so the team at Discord can manage the report efficiently.

Dear parents and carers,

The eSafety Commissioner (eSafety) is Australia’s independent regulator for online safety. They are a government agency dedicated to keeping people safer online.

The eSafety Commissioner is running free webinars for parents and carers. These live webinars give parents and carers the knowledge, skills and tools to support their children to have safe online experiences.  The webinars include a broad range of topics that will be delivered by eSafety expert education and training teams.

Dates, times and the links to register are below. 

Kind regards,

Nick Hoare

Digital Technology Leader

nhoare@sjvmulgrave.catholic.edu.au