Lesson 1: Basics: Your Responsibilities as a Moderator

Here are some rules for content on Discord:

You must apply the NSFW label to channels if there is adult content in that channel. Any content that cannot be placed in an age-gated channel, such as avatars, server banners, and invite splashes, may not contain adult content.

• Isolated incidents where NSFW content is posted outside of an NSFW channel should be taken care of on a server level. If a server regularly fails to remove NSFW content posted outside of NSFW channels, the server may be reported for this behavior. Other NSFW content outside of age-gated channels, such as the content described in this guideline, may also be reported.
• You may not sexualize minors in any way. This includes sharing content or links which depict minors in a pornographic, sexually suggestive, or violent manner, and includes illustrated or digitally altered pornography that depicts minors (such as lolicon, shotacon, or cub). We report illegal content to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
• Content with minors being sexualized is taken very seriously and should be reported and removed as soon as possible. Be aware that some borderline content may be more subjective in terms of whether the depicted content involves minors or not. In this case, this includes material where the content reported as being of the “sexualized” nature is ambiguous or hard to definitively identify as such.
• You may not share sexually explicit content of other people without their consent, or share or promote sharing of non-consensual intimate imagery (also known as revenge porn) in an attempt to shame or degrade someone.
• The above content should always be reported to Discord’s Trust & Safety team.
• You may not share content that glorifies or promotes suicide or self-harm, including any encouragement to others to cut themselves, or embrace eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia.
• Small, one time offenses, or users who talk about self-harm in reference to themselves should be handled on a server level. Users who continue to promote self-harm either for themselves or others should be reported.  Users who are in physical danger due to a potential suicide attempt or self-harm should be reported as soon as possible. You should consider calling law enforcement if you believe the user may be in imminent danger to themselves or others.
• You may not share images of sadistic gore or animal cruelty.
• You may not use Discord for the organization, promotion, or support of violent extremism.
• The above content should always be reported. Violent extremism is any content that supports extreme religious or political views that potentially put other people in danger. This content is typically encapsulated by the behavior described in guidelines one and three.
• You may not operate a server that sells or facilitates the sales of prohibited or potentially dangerous goods. This includes firearms, ammunition, drugs, and controlled substances.
• Servers that do this should always be reported to Discord’s Trust & Safety Team.
• You may not promote, distribute, or provide access to content involving the hacking, cracking, or distribution of pirated software or stolen accounts. This includes sharing or selling cheats or hacks that may negatively affect others in multiplayer games.
• Users or servers that are involved in the above should be reported if there is significant evidence to prove that they are involved, such as explicit distribution of any of the above items or services. Users who talk about the topic but aren’t clearly involved should be handled by the server.
• In general, you should not promote, encourage or engage in any illegal behavior. This is very likely to get you kicked off Discord, and may get you reported to law enforcement.
• Most common cases involving illegal behavior are covered in other guidelines. If you encounter illegal behavior not covered in the other guidelines which could potentially pose a serious threat, it should be reported. If a user jokes about illegal behavior or does not appear to be involved in illegal behavior, you may consider handling the situation on a server level.

Finally, we ask that you respect Discord itself:

You may not sell your account or your server.

• Users who want to buy or sell an account or server should be reported. Again, try to be sure they are serious about it before reporting.
• You may not use self-bots or user-bots to access Discord.
• Users who use a self-bot or user-bot in a malicious way should be reported.Self-botting in this case includes users setting up a bot or automations that allow them to perform actions on Discord faster than any human is physically capable of. Discord prioritizes reports of self-bots where there is some malicious behavior, such as nitro-sniping or data collection.
• You may not share content that violates anyone’s intellectual property or other rights.
• In general, this guideline should be handled by the users involved, usually by means of a DMCA request. Instructions on properly filing a DMCA takedown request can be found in Discord’s Terms of Service, and must be initiated by the rights-holder of the intellectual property or an authorized representative. You may handle these situations on a server level if you wish.
• You may not spam Discord, especially our Customer Support and Trust & Safety teams. Making false and malicious reports, sending multiple reports about the same issue, or asking a group of users to all report the same content may lead to action being taken on your account.
• If you have evidence of users participating in this behavior, you should report it. Users impersonating Discord employees may also fall in this category. When submitting a report ticket about an issue, reply to the support ticket to bump it, but do not create a new ticket as you may end up violating this community guideline.

Extra Considerations

There are some things you might encounter that are not explicitly mentioned in the community guidelines. Here is a short list of some common situations that you might encounter while on Discord:

• Bot Advertisements/Solicitations – If a bot is being used to advertise/solicit, you should report the bot. This is most commonly done in DMs.
• User Advertisements/Solicitations – Users can be reported for advertising and soliciting in DMs as well. However, if a user is advertising in a server, they should be dealt with on a server level, provided they are not advertising something that breaks another community guideline.
• Discord Nitro Scams – Any scams being spread about getting free Discord Nitro or server boosts should be reported if they contain a potentially malicious link, or if being spread by a bot. If you see any messages that claim to give users Discord Nitro or server boosts through other means, such as putting a command in the console, you may handle those cases on a server level. It is recommended, however, that you remove these messages swiftly, as it is likely a ploy to get users to reveal their account token, which can give other users access to their account.
• Chain Mail – You may encounter messages that are created to scare users and spread rapidly. Common phrases in these messages are “Look out for Discord user ____” or anything claiming a user or bot might DDoS you or steal your IP. These messages will usually say they were written by Discord as a scare tactic. This is not true. Any important messages from Discord will be posted on their social media, or in a system message and nowhere else. System messages are identifiable by the system tag seen next to the user that sends them. Any chain mail sent is not reportable, but should be dealt with on a server level. It is recommended that you delete these messages and inform users that they are fake.