Discord is implementing a NSFW server designation that could decimate communities

Jeff Weisbein -

Discord, the community-based chat app, just announced a new a policy for its platform and it has many server owners very worried. The new policy states that server owners must designate their server as NSFW if the server is organized around NSFW themes or if the majority of the server’s content is 18+.

The designation alone isn't that big a deal, however, any server with the NSFW designation will be dealt a massive blow to their community on the platform. This is because in addition to the designation, users on the iOS platform (including those aged 18+) will be blocked from joining and accessing NSFW servers. The policy goes on to read, "only NSFW server owners and moderators will be allowed to view and manage these servers on iOS. All other users will still be able to join and access NSFW servers on the desktop and web versions of Discord."

Oof.

Being an avid Discord user I can tell you that this will impact a lot of servers and tons of users, I don't have any specific knowledge at the moment in terms of how many users will be affected by this change but I've reached out to Discord to see if I can find out. I'd have to imagine it could be hundreds of thousands to millions of users. That's a lot.

Bottom line: this is extremely disruptive to the Discord ecosystem.

Discord's NSFW server policy rollout

The new policy by Discord seems extremely rushed and very poorly rolled out. It seems to be that Apple is in someway behind this and frankly it's a bummer. I love Discord, hell I run a server that has NSFW elements to it so this news really hits home for me. My social server is 700+ people, many of whom use iOS to chat with us. If we're forced to designate as a NSFW server, it will absolutely have severe negative impact on the community, but also countless others out there where people congregate to chat and have fun.

I do have a few questions for Discord that I'd love to get some feedback on:

  • How do you know if your server is designated as NSFW?
  • How many servers will be/are affected?
  • Is it automatic or manual? If manual, what if you refuse to designate your server as NSFW?
  • What are server owners supposed to tell their users? Buy Android phones?

Apple is behind this

The last thing I'll say on this topic is that it's clear that Apple is behind this move by Discord, which is even more reason why Apple should be looking to acquire Clubhouse and keep it iOS exclusive. There's still time before the Android version drops next month (rumored)!

What are your thoughts on Discord's new NSFW server policy with respect to iOS? Will you be moving to Android? Let me know in the comments!