Why is Discord moderation important?

Originally launched as a chat platform for the gaming community back in 2015, Discord has grown over the last eight years to become one of the most popular online messaging platforms. 

What is Discord?

Sitting somewhere between a forum and an instant messaging solution, today Discord boasts more than 150 million monthly active users and more than 500 million registered users. And the platform's following shows no signs of slowing: it’s predicted that the number of monthly active users will increase to 196 million by the end of 2023.

Discord’s popularity lies in its ‘servers’: unique thematic communities dedicated to certain subjects from gaming to music to learning (think video game smash-hits like Minecraft and music sensations like K-pop), which can draw hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of members. 

In these spaces, people with a shared passion talk about the thing they love. There’s a conversational feel to Discord which sets it apart from other social networks and offers something different for users.

And for the creators behind the communities, Discord is a unique chance to connect with their brand’s biggest champions and learn what makes them tick.

To give you an idea of just how popular some Discord servers are, take the app’s biggest community, Midjourney. The generative AI tool’s server has a whopping 14 million members as of August 2023, and it’s only getting bigger. Fortnite, Genshin Impact and Minecraft also boast more than 1 million community members.

Why should game developers be on Discord?

The sheer size and activity of Discord’s server communities makes it a no-brainer for gaming studios to be present on the platform. For the gaming industry, each server holds a wealth of information about what their players love, and don't like so much, about their games. With every message sent, gaming companies can better understand their players' needs and get their thoughts on rival games, putting them at a competitive advantage.

But whilst Discord can be a useful tool for game developers, it's not without problems. Servers give members endless opportunities to connect with one another, but they also allow some users to share toxic content which can spoil the experience of the entire community and negatively affect a game's image. Gamers are known to be fiercely passionate about their favourite games, and toxicity can be easily triggered when emotions run high. For younger players and gaming newbies in particular, this can be upsetting (and deter them from playing again).

The nature of Discord also means it’s easy for toxic users to post spam and scam content: and with the platform attracting a younger demographic (almost two-thirds of registered users are between the ages of 16 and 34), its users are particularly vulnerable to this kind of content. 

So, how can game developers leverage the benefits of Discord servers whilst offsetting the risk of toxicity within their communities? Both can be successfully navigated with content moderation for Discord. 

Why is Discord moderation important?

Moderating content on Discord is the best way for gaming studios to control the narrative around their game and protect their community (which come with their own unique challenges) from toxicity.

Bodyguard’s Discord moderation solution uses AI technology and Natural Language Processing, supported by human moderators, to automatically detect and remove toxic content, and capture data that developers can use to inform future decision-making.

Because companies on Discord can have lots of servers, and each server usually has many channels, Bodyguard lets users apply a different set of rules, not only per server but per channel. Users can also decide the tolerance level that they want to apply to their communities, from permissive to balanced, strict or very strict, depending on its unique characteristics and needs.

Bodyguard can be used to moderate Discord and all social media networks, from the OG Facebook to Gen-Z favourite TikTok, all in one place, making it a single pane of glass for both content moderation and analytics. Bodyguard's dedicated Dashboard also allows users to compare interactions between their social networks to see how activity differs and the kind of interactions which take place on each one.

As well as providing these useful insights, Bodyguard gives companies the power to professionalise their content moderation and leverage it to their advantage by providing data on what their communities are talking about, not only regarding toxicity and undesirable content but positivity around a video game. This information can be particularly useful ahead of a new game launch and allows companies to identify the lovers as well as the haters! 

Next steps

Already using Bodyguard to moderate your other social media platforms? Find out how we can protect your Discord community and give you more valuable insights with our Discord moderation and analytics. 

New to content moderation? We’d love to tell you more about how Bodyguard works!

Wherever you’re at on your content moderation journey, contact us today.