Oct 29, 2024

Türkiye has blocked access to Discord 12 Türkiye blocked access to the US communications platform Discord on October 9. The platform is rife for sharing criminal content and allegations of blackmail and abuse against children. Discord was released in May 2015. Initially, many players used the platform to chat by voice while playing games. Discord is a platform that allows its users to set up “servers” where they can create chat rooms. These servers, customizable in many ways, can be set to be open to the public or accessible only by invitation. If you are a member of a server, you can participate in text or voice chat rooms called “channels” on that server, wherever you are in the world. Users can also communicate individually or in groups of up to 10 people via “direct messages” without entering the servers. You must be at least 13 years old to register on the platform. If the minimum registration age according to a country’s social media laws is higher than this, the conditions of the local legislation are taken as the basis for registration on Discord. The platform became popular among gamers when it was first released. However, with the addition of features like broadcast and video calling, its base has grown from hundreds of thousands to tens of millions over the years. Today Discord is a platform used by many different communities, from companies to schools, from groups of friends to institutes, as well as by players, to communicate and share content. There are over 150 million monthly active users of the Discord platform. The dark side of the platform As with some other social media platforms, there are those who abuse Discord. The platform’s name has been associated with allegations of cybercrime, online bullying and sexual abuse, both in Türkiye and around the world. Discord became a topic of discussion after the brutal murder of two 19-year-old women named İkbal Uzuner and Ayşenur Halil by Semih Çelik of the same age in Istanbul on Friday, October 4. It was claimed that Çelik was in contact with an Incel group (Involuntary Celibate Project) via Discord. Following the murders, it was claimed that there were many groups sharing criminal content on Discord and similar platforms, and that some of them encouraged their members to commit crimes. Access to the platform was blocked on October 9 due to “sufficient suspicion that crimes of child sexual abuse and obscenity have been committed.” Journalist and communications consultant Mehmet Şafak Sarı said that Çelik, the perpetrator of the murders that shocked society, and people like him who could not find a place in society, used Discord and similar platforms to share violent content that they cheered and encouraged each other. . BBC TurkishIn an interview with , Sarı said that these people do not prefer to share their posts in public applications because they receive reactions or are blocked by the platform’s rules. Communications consultant Sarı warned that this behavior could be further encouraged by blocking access to Discord, and that children who would like to engage in such activities “may turn to an even more closed channel.” Sarı cited Turkey’s ban on the gaming platform Roblox in August as an example. Access to Roblox was blocked because it “contained content that would cause child abuse.” Sarı said, “When Roblox was banned, kids turned to different sites. We can experience the same thing on Discord.” A day before access to Discord was blocked in Türkiye, Russia also banned the platform nationwide because it violated the law and did not remove inappropriate content. In 2023, it was determined that some leaked documents from the US Department of Defense were first shared by a soldier on a Discord server. Are Discord’s security measures sufficient? Discord had not yet responded to BBC Turkish’s questions about blocking access in Türkiye and the security of the platform at the time the story was published. However, detailed explanations of the type of precautions taken by the platform are provided on the “Policy and Security” page. According to Discord, harassment, threats, disclosure of personal information, hate speech, extremism, child exploitation, sharing sexual content with users under 18, encouraging suicide and self-harm, and sharing extremely violent images are prohibited on the platform. The rules also state that in some cases, such as in the case of child abuse or sharing of illegal content, you can contact local law enforcement. You can find many detailed captions about these cases on the Discord website. The platform also says it is working to block content and users who violate the Community Rules. So, are the measures taken by the platform sufficient to stop criminal activities on the servers? According to Mehmet Şafak Sarı, the enforcement or control mechanisms in the process of implementing the rules of Discord and similar companies are quite limited: “Companies manage processes in a way that they determine entirely, without consulting people and institutions. Some states also propose security and personal rights policies and act in different directions.” Sarı says the public was not given a say in this process. Transport Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu, in a press statement at Turkey’s Grand National Assembly on October 9, said that Discord was blocked because it refused to share information such as IP addresses and content with relevant government units. Sarı said that users’ privacy could be at risk if data was shared. The communications consultant stressed that both companies like Discord and public institutions should carry out such processes “in a completely transparent and reliable way in terms of freedom in society.” Related news October 29, 2024