Discord has reportedly shut down several notable alt-right, white nationalist servers as the company works hard to purge toxic content from its platform, Polygon reports. Though the company didn’t confirm which groups it banned, the server banned groups that include the neo-Nazi terrorist group Atomwaffen Division, Nordic Resistance Movement, Iron March, and European Domas.
“Discord has a Terms of Service (ToS) and Community Guidelines that we ask all of our communities and users to adhere to,” a Discord representative told Polygon. “These specifically prohibit harassment, threatening messages, or calls to violence. Though we do not read people’s private messages, we do investigate and take immediate appropriate action against any reported ToS violation by a server or user. There were a handful of servers that violated these ToS recently and were swiftly removed from the platform.”
The news comes six months after Discord shut down realist accounts on its platform in the wake of the Charlottesville protests in order to ‘take action against white supremacy, nazi ideology and all forms of hate.’ The company backed off from calling out particular groups. Instead, it moved to remove a number of unwanted groups because of violations of terms of services.
Discord has had a different approach to how it monitors hate speech on its platform because it’s a private chat company. Its handling is arguably more lax than most other companies like Twitter and Facebook.
