Are Discord’s efforts enough to protect us?

Discord’s quarterly safety report gave us a lot to think about. The report revealed 55.5 million accounts were banned and 68.3 thousand servers were disabled. Those large numbers don’t necessarily mean users are safe.

The web3 community has chosen Discord as the place to congregate. An interesting and unexpected selection that pushed CEOs, founders and big brands to follow suit by joining Discord and creating their own server. As companies joined Discord, even more users joined the niche platform.

With many communication resources, structures and entertainment, Discord has been home to a multitude of projects in recent years. However, like other social apps, malefactors have found loopholes and ways to harm people.

From unsolicited DMs, to breached accounts and servers, the amount of damage and funds stolen totals millions of dollars.

Discord’s quarterly safety report painted a picture of safety in web3 spaces. With 27.7 million accounts disabled and labeled as spam, it’s become clear that phishing and scamming is abundant on Discord. Taking into consideration blockchain business models and how volatile crypto is, 27.7 million accounts diabled is very scary. It only takes one successful hack to compromise an entire operation and drain a lot of money.

The most troubling statistic is the number of accounts that have been removed for breaking Discord’s child safety policies. Over half a million accounts were removed from Discord last quarter for violating Discord’s policies on child safety.

On the bright side, it is evident that communities are engaged and dedicated to combating phishing and scams by educating newcomers, enforcing new protection methods and being very diligent to verify new Discord members. Discord’s report shows that the platform is putting a lot of effort into becoming safer and more secure.

Unfortunately, new practices are remedying already damaged situations. Situations that have already cost web3. There is growing anxiety and concerns about the safety of assets. Even links from friends have started to raise red flags.

A lot of users have left Discord. Some users are migrating to other platforms or starting to develop their own platforms. Some individuals are attempting to create platforms that are better aligned with the decentralized ethos of web3 and providing the necessary security.

Onboarding people through web applications like Discord has been more successful and more palatable than going through the process of setting up a web3 wallet to access a social app. This may indicate that only applications and technologies that allow for fast and easy onboarding will see user growth.

As Discord and other communication platforms improve, what can users do to make communities safer? Users must remain vigilant to scams, as well as inform and educate newcomers of the do’s and don’ts of web3.