Supreme Court Decision Reaffirms Discord’s Right to Keep Your Online Spaces Safe

Today, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that moderation decisions are protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

As we shared in last December’s post, ‘Defending Your Online Spaces,’ the cases Moody v. NetChoice, et al. and NetChoice et al. v. Paxton challenged the constitutionality of two recent laws in Texas and Florida. These laws would significantly restrict the ability of online services to remove content that is objectionable to the sites and their users and would force us to keep a wide range of “lawful but awful” content on our platform. While Discord is not a traditional social media service, these laws - if upheld - would have had a significant impact on services like ours.

In issuing its decision, the Court recognized the wide range of services that could be impacted by these laws and instructed lower courts to evaluate fully the impact of these laws. The Court rightly emphasized that the First Amendment protects moderation decisions and that the government cannot force a service to present views it does not want on its platform in order to rebalance the marketplace of ideas.

While this does not end the journey for these cases, it is an important step towards protecting users and online safety, which has always been one of Discord’s top priorities. And we were pleased to see our amicus brief cited by one of the Justices.

Discord’s mission is to be the best communication service for people to hang out and talk together. Today, we’re celebrating because this ruling will help us continue our work to keep your communities fun and safe by not allowing harmful content on the Discord platform. 

We wouldn’t be doing this without all of you—our users and community moderators—and we are committed to continuing to defend your right to create the online spaces you want. 

For more tips about how to stay safe online, please visit our Safety Center.