Turkey, Russia ban Discord over child abuse allegations

Türkiye and Russia have moved to ban popular communication platform Discord, citing concerns about child abuse and other criminal activities.

Authorities in Turkey have blocked access to Discord following a court decision linking the platform to incidents of child sexual abuse and sexually explicit content, as confirmed by Reuters today.

Public outrage intensified following reports of violent content circulating on Discord, including posts about a recent double murder.

While Turkish Minister of Justice Yılmaz Tunç emphasized the country’s determination to protect children and society from harmful online material in an

“Social network providers and websites broadcasting in our country and having millions of users must also comply with the laws and rules of the Republic of Turkey. “No one has privilege.”

Yılmaz Tunç wrote.

A judicial investigation has been initiated by the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office regarding criminal content on some social network providers and websites.

The emergence of this content and the provision of information about it, the social network providers and internet providers who implement the trial decisions…

— Yılmaz TUNÇ (@yilmaztunc) October 8, 2024

Turkey’s ban came just hours after Russia also banned Discord as part of its broader crackdown on noncompliant tech companies. The Russian government had previously fined Discord for failing to remove banned content, and has now stepped up its actions by banning the platform entirely.

The moves come at a time when foreign tech companies in Russia are under increasing scrutiny, with Discord joining the banned list of other major platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.

Meanwhile, Discord has also been linked to crypto-related crimes in recent years. Reports have emerged of crypto scams being organized through private channels on the platform. Kaspersky warned of a scam targeting Discord users in 2021, directing them to fake crypto exchanges.

Scammers have also leveraged Discord to promote pump-and-dump crypto schemes. The US Department of Justice previously filed a lawsuit against seven X users who ran a $100 million pump-and-dump crypto scheme using Discord.

Some nefarious individuals also took advantage of a fake Discord channel for crypto project Access Protocol to defraud investors of $880,000. Moreover, other cryptocurrency projects like OpenSea, Renzo, and Polygon have witnessed breaches in their Discord accounts as hackers aim to use these accounts for criminal activities.