Discord Adds New Parental Controls to Strengthen Teen Safety

• Discord adds new Family Center tools for parents to monitor teen activity.
• Guardians can now view activities of their children with interlinked dashboards.
• The update promotes teen safety while protecting their privacy and freedom.

In an important move aimed at boosting teen safety, Discord has rolled out enhanced parental controls and teen-friendly features through its Family Center dashboard. 

The features, which are set to launch from next week, will enable guardians to see a dashboard depicting a user's past week’s activity, including "purchases, total call minutes (voice and video), and top contacts and servers." This essentially means that the users and their guardians will have interlinked accounts and will receive these updates via email.

The new features in the Family Center will now also provide teen users the option to notify guardians when they report another user or piece of content to Discord.

Discord Family Center Strengthens Transparency Without Invading Privacy

Discord revealed that the new parental controls can only be modified by the guardians. With this unidirectional feature, the guardians can see how sensitive content is filtered and how teen data is used (even for ad-curation).

However, there is a catch. Despite parental control, the young users can retain some autonomy over their direct message content and reports. In their latest blog, Discord noted that "guardians can’t see the content of the messages."

“The information they see helps keep you safe,” Discord addressed the young users. “You’ll see the same in Family Center for transparency.” The company also encouraged the users and the guardians to engage in “open conversations” for setting up this interlinked feature in a way that works fine for both parties.

Discord's Family Center was first launched in the year 2023 as an opt-in tool. During its launch, the company stated, “Similar to how parents know who their teens are friends with and what clubs they’re a part of at school, Family Center helps them learn more about who their teens are friends with and talk to on Discord.”

Discord previously stated that through Family Center, they want to achieve the goal of fostering “productive dialogue about safer internet habits, and to create mutually beneficial ways for parents and teens to connect about experiences online.”

Discord's new Family Center update comes at a time when the platform is facing mounting public and legal questions about child safety. Legal actions such as State of New Jersey v. Discord, Inc. (April 2025), which charged the company for failing to shield children from dangerous content and grooming, shows how important parental checks are. 

Similar concerns regarding inadequate moderation and age checks were brought up by a family last month in October this year, where their 13-year-old was allegedly exploited. An offender posing as a 16-year-old befriended the younger one while playing a "Pet Simulator!" game on Roblox, and apparently sent him gift cards in exchange for explicit photos via Discord. The offender also tried to blackmail the child.

Since then, the father had pressed charges against both companies. While Discord did not immediately comment on the ongoing matter, they reaffirmed in a statement to CBS that they are "deeply committed to safety," and work hard to "prevent the spread of exploitation and grooming."

Discord’s new update, therefore, attempts to show compliance and restore trust by providing parents with all the features that are required for the safety of young users while maintaining the privacy of the communications.