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In the US, August is back-to-school month. For students and parents alike it's usually filled with long to-do lists and mentally preparing for new courses and any extracurricular activities planned. New schools and teachers usually come with new norms, rules, and even charters.
Well, teachers aren't the only ones who've been thinking about what's best for their spaces and the people who spend time in them — Discord has, too! That's why we're excited to reveal our new Teen Charter and Guardian’s Guide, both created to further empower teens to thrive on Discord.
At Discord, we’re constantly working to make our platform the best place for our users, including teens, to hang out with their friends online. An important part of doing this the right way is listening to teen users' concerns and ideas directly.
Since the end of 2023, we’ve conducted 30 focus groups globally to speak with teens about their firsthand experiences and perspectives on how to shape Discord’s features to meet their needs. We collected ideas from teens and global organizations specializing in teen safety — like Digital Wellness Lab, NoFiltr’s Youth Innovation Council, and ThinkYoung — to create an aspirational charter that helps us understand how teens want to feel on Discord.
We learned about what tools — like muting a conversation or tailoring who can send you a friend request — are most helpful for teens to remediate uncomfortable situations. We also heard new ideas for additional safety and privacy features that have helped shape our product focus.
Teens have spoken, and we have taken what they said to heart. We learned a ton when speaking with our teen users, and we’re excited to reveal our co-created Teen Charter.
The Teen Charter outlines the principles that matter most to them: authenticity, inclusivity, privacy, and transparency. This set of principles represents the expectations teens have of each other and of Discord.
While our Community Guidelines explain what is and what isn’t allowed on Discord, we hope the Teen Charter principles will ultimately guide users to take on a shared responsibility in creating a fun and comfortable space to play and chill with their friends. These principles will also help inform product and policy improvements on Discord, serving as a guiding beacon for us to help teen users thrive.
We want to help teens forge and maintain genuine friendships, and we know that can only happen when they feel safe connecting with one another on our platform.
We’re excited to announce the launch of our Guardian’s Guide to help guardians and parents better understand Discord, how the platform works, and equip them with the tools needed to check in with teens and start conversations about building positive online behaviors.
We know guardians have a lot of great resources to help their teens navigate the online world, but we wanted to provide a resource about Discord, from Discord. The Guardian’s Guide is a centralized asset that helps adults who are raising teens understand the latest highlights of how Discord works, information on how their teen might spend time on Discord, and shares tips and resources to talk to teens about keeping their online experiences comfortable. We consistently offer updated info on our Safety Center, but this resource helps streamline these topics.
We’re excited about the resources we shared today. Like, really excited. In fact, we’re so excited that we’re doing a giveaway!
Today, guardians and teens based in the United States can enter to win our giveaway on TikTok, X or Instagram for a chance to win a back-to-school pack, including exclusive items such as a Teen Charter pickleball paddle and a Guardian’s Guide brochure. Start the new school year with some Discord flare!
To learn more about how we approach safety and privacy here at Discord, we have plenty of more resources in our regularly-updated Safety Center.
