New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin filed a lawsuit against Discord on Thursday, alleging the popular messaging app misled parents about its safety features.
The complaint follows a multiyear investigation, which claims Discord violated New Jersey consumer protection laws while exposing child users to sexual and violent content, the New Jersey attorney general's office wrote in a release Thursday.
The complaint, filed in New Jersey Superior Court, alleges Discord was aware of its safety features and policies but did not take action to protect young users.
“Discord markets itself as a safe space for children, despite being fully aware that the application’s misleading safety settings and lax oversight has made it a prime hunting ground for online predators seeking easy access to children,” Platkin wrote. “These deceptive claims regarding its safety settings have allowed Discord to attract a growing number of children to use its application, where they are at risk. "
The lawsuit makes New Jersey the first state to file suit against Discord, which hosts more than 200 million users monthly.
The platform, which launched in 2015, offers users the option to chat with each other via chat rooms or direct messaging. It is especially popular within the online gamer community.
Discord differs from other social media platforms in that it does not have features for "endless scrolling," like counts, or the ability to "go viral, while allowing users to decide the individuals and communities they join.
The San Francisco-based company pushed back against the suit's claims and said Friday it was surprised to learn of the complaint.
“Discord is proud of our continuous efforts and investments in features and tools that help make Discord safer," a company spokesperson told The Hill. "Given our engagement with the Attorney General's office, we are surprised by the announcement that New Jersey has filed an action against Discord today."
"We dispute the claims in the lawsuit and look forward to defending the action in court," the spokesperson added.
The suit takes specific aim at Discord's Safe Direct Messaging feature, stating the tool "was designed to automatically scan and delete private messages containing explicit media content."
The company allegedly misrepresented the effectiveness of this tool, according to the complaint.
The tool was launched in 2017, but improvements have been made throughout the years that followed and preceded New Jersey's investigation, according to Discord.
The company boasts several safety features that have since been rolled out, including safety alerts, content filters, and a "Family Center tool" that educates parents and guardians about their teens' experiences on Discord.
The complaint also targets Discord's age verification process.
The minimum age to access Discord is 13, and users are asked to confirm their date of birth when creating their account, according to the company's safety guidelines.
Despite this, Platkin's suit claims some of the criminal cases related to sexual exploitation of children on Discord involved users under the age of 13.
By only requiring users to enter a birth date, the suit argues children under 13 have been allowed on the app and exposed to graphic or violent content as a result.
"Simple verification measures could have prevented predators from creating false accounts and kept children under 13 off the app more effectively," Platkin's office wrote.
It comes amid a larger debate over age verification processes and whether the onus falls on the apps themselves or the online marketplaces that offer the apps.
Discord is the latest app to face legal scrutiny over its safety features.
Late last year, the Justice Department sued TikTok and its parent company ByteDance for allegedly violating children's online privacy law, while Meta — the parent company of Facebook and Instagram — faces state-led suits accusing the tech giant of knowingly designing and deploying harmful features.
Discord was among the various companies represented at a dramatic hearing at the start of last year, when the Senate Judiciary Committee grilled technology leaders over their platforms' impact on young users.
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