Discord was designed to bring people together. It is our hope that users on our platform are able to meaningfully connect with others around common interests. Partnerships with individuals, organizations, or brands can greatly assist our effort to create belonging based on the partners our users care about.

We expect those partners and our revenue sources to meet the standards of our values, specifically integrity, impact, and compassion, and policies, such as our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines. We created this policy to articulate what kinds of partnerships we prohibit, consideration we will have when partnering, and ways to mitigate issues that may arise.

Partners are companies/entities that our community, talent, BD, branded communities teams directly engage with to support them in the creation or maintenance of a server on our platform.

Thus, Discord prohibits partners who:

• Inconsistent with our Policies:
  • Target those under 13 years of age.
  • Infringe on someone else’s copyright, trademark, or intellectual property.
  • Engage or attempt to engage in any transaction involving controlled or regulated substances
  • Promote gambling, especially to minors.
  • Conduct harmful off-platform behaviors related to credible violent extremism, violent threats, and child abuse.
  • Promote hate speech or hateful conduct.
  • Share violence and gore with the intent to harass or shock non-consensually.
• Inconsistent with our Values:
  • Promote pharmaceutical products or specific healthcare services, such as diet products.
  • Spread misinformation around COVID-19, vaccines, climate change denial, or election information.
  • Share or focus on sexually explicit content.
  • Conduct illegal or unethical business practices.
  • Promote the sale, exchange, or building of weapons and weapon accessories.

Additional considerations for partnership, such as a partners’ commitments to diversity, equity, & inclusion, human rights, and sustainability, are included. Policy also suggested mitigations of potentially prohibiting content for account managers to get their partners to compliance.

Our Values

Values are quite simply the behaviors that we value in ourselves and the partners we would with. These are the fundamental truths that we hold which guide our decision making and behavior in all our work, especially with the brands, organizations, individuals, and causes we associate ourselves to. 

The values we hold ourselves to are integrity, collaboration, excellence, impact, speed, transparency, and compassion. Of our values, we will focus on ensuring partners have integrity, have a positive impact, and are compassionate.

• Integrity: The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.
  • We have always believed that being honest, honoring commitments, and doing what's morally right in the long run is the best way to live life, even when it's painful in the short term.
• Impact: The effect or influence of one person, thing, or action, on another
  • We want our time on this Earth to mean something. We want to contribute to improving the human condition, and be a force for good by doing something that leaves the world a little bit better than we found it. This means a relentless focus on what is true, what matters, and building value over time through compounding leverage.
• Compassion: Empathy and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others.
  • We are all human and with that comes all the challenges and tribulations of life. Work takes up a lot of time for most of us, but is it not the entirety of our experiences. In order to show up and give our mission its all, people need to be able to be themselves - both on good days and bad. Let's not force people to be half of themselves. Instead, let's be mindful and supportive of each other, knowing that we all are striving to do the best for ourselves, our families, our company, and our communities.

Our Policies

In addition to Partnership Guidelines, Partners must follow Discord’s Terms of Service, Community Guidelines, and all the policies on our Help Center governing our service. Please take a moment to review them.  

Overall, Discord and our partners, their accounts, and their servers should be in compliance with our policies, aligned with our values, and a Force for Good for our users in the communities they live. 

Partnership Policy

Prohibit Content or Purposes

Below are prohibited content and partner purposes. If a partner violates any of the below, they cannot partner with Discord. There are some types of prohibitions that can be mitigated, so please check the Mitigations section for more information. 

• Age: Discord prohibits inappropriate content targeting minors and users under 13.
  • Inappropriate content based on targeted user age.
    • For example: Alcohol content, sexually explicit content, etc for minors.  
  • Under 13 year olds
    • No partners or their products that feature children under 13 or primarily target children under 13 for their product. A child-related brand, like a children’s TV network, can be a partner if the content in the server is NOT designed to reach or market to under 13.
• Community Guidelines: Discord prohibits content or activity within the partner’s server or account that violate our Community Guidelines.
  • Past Violations: We should not partner with accounts or servers that have violated our Community Guidelines.
    • If a partner’s account or server violated any of our highest harm Commuinity Guideslines (Violent Extremism, Violent Threats, or Child Sexual Abuse) in the past, they cannot partner with us.
    • If a partner’s account or server violated any of our other Community Guidelines in the last 3 months, they cannot partner with us until 3 months has passed or they express regret and rehabilitation.
• Copyright & Trademark: Discord prohibits the infringement on others’ copyright, trademark,  intellectual property rights, or that promotes the sale of counterfeit goods.
• Controlled & Illegal Substances: Discord prohibits the sale, buying, trading, or organizing the distribution of controlled, regulated, or illegal substances through our service. We define a controlled substance as any drug or chemical compound that is controlled or otherwise regulated by the US federal government.  A non-exhaustive list of such goods includes: alcohol, tobacco (including vaping products), marijuana, pharmaceuticals without a prescription, narcotics, and other drugs.
  • Discussion of legal, controlled substances is allowed in age-restricted spaces.
• Gambling Content: Discord prohibits the promotion of gambling content. We define gambling content as placing bets or wagers on games of chance for prizes with real-world value. Discussions of gambling and gambling themes do not by themselves constitute a violation of this policy. Special consideration should be given in instances of suspected gambling that appear to target vulnerable populations (e.g., minors, at-risk gamblers) or that feature forms of addictive gameplay.
• Harmful Off-Platform Behaviors: If we become aware of specific off-platform high harm activities with credible evidence committed by a Discord user, we will take the reported off-platform harmful activities into account when assessing a partnership.
  • This policy applies to our highest harm Community guidelines: Violent Extremism, Violent Threats, and Child Sexual Abuse.
• Hateful Content: Discord prohibits the user or promotion of hate speech or hateful conduct. We define hate speech as any form of expression that denigrates, vilifies, or dehumanizes; promotes intense, irrational feelings of enmity (“hatred”); or incites harm against people on the basis of protected characteristics. This includes the use of hate symbols as well as claims casting doubt on mass atrocities.
• Specific Healthcare Products: Discord prohibits the promotion of all pharmaceutical products and services, and some healthcare products and services. Restrictions are based on the specific product or service being promoted, as well as the country that the campaign is targeting.
  • Diet products: A partner cannot be focused on or promote a product focused on dieting, losing weight, or miracle cures for obesity. This content is sensitive and can promote disordered eating and self-harm.
• Misinformation: Discord prohibits the sharing of some types of  false or misleading information (otherwise known as misinformation). Content that is false, misleading, and can lead to significant risk of physical or societal harm may not be shared on Discord. We specifically prohibit:
  • Health misinformation, particularly vaccine misinformation or COVID misinformation.
  • Climate change deniers and misleading information.
  • Election misinformation, including incorrect information around voting registration requirements, due dates for registration, and date or logistics related to voting day.
• Sexually Explicit Content: Discord prohibits the partnership with partners who primarily produce or are trying to promote a specific server featuring sexually explicit content. Sexually explicit content is defined as simulated, drawn, or real media (images, audio, video) or text of pornography, sexual acts (including with sex toys), full nudity, implied nudity, and soliciting or offering sexual services. This content is shared with the explicit and exclusive purpose of sexual arousal.
• Illegal or Unethical Business Practices: Discord prohibits partnering with individuals, organizations, or brands with a history of illegal or unethical business practices.
  • Illegal Business Practices is any criminal history or current criminal investigations around business or labor practices.
  • Unethical Behaviors include actions that strongly endanger the human rights of their employees, contractors, or communities they work. Such as a partner with known supply chains featuring slave labor.
• Violence & Gore: Do not share real media depicting gore, excessive violence, or animal harm, especially with the intention to harass or shock others.
  • Fictional, drawn, or video game violence is OK as long as it is not meant to harass and is gated properly for specific ages.
• Weapons and Weapon Accessories: Discord prohibits the promotion of weapons and weapon accessories. This includes 3D printed weapons, such as 3D printed guns and instruction manuals to print your own. 

Considerations

We will also consider the following dimensions when assessing an individual, organization, or brand to partner. Many of these considerations align closely to our values and would boost the benefit of such a partnership. However, they are not requirements or blockers to partnerships. We will review the following:

• Diversity & Inclusion Commitments: The partner has made external commitments or shown their diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts internally for their teams and externally in their impact on the world. This includes:
  • External diversity statements and messaging
  • Commitment to or current progress on ensuring diversity in leadership
  • Commitment to or current progress on ensuring diversity in the great employee base. 
• Human Rights & Ethics Commitments: The partner has made external commitments or shown their human rights standards and ethical business practices internally for their teams and externally in their impact on the world. 
  • Business & Human Rights Practices
    • Non-profit or BCorporations
    • Companies with high ratings with Better Business Bureau: https://www.bbb.org/
• Ethical Labor Practices
  • Feedback from employees and contractors, such as Glassdoor reviews.
  • Recent press coverage of labor practices
  • Formal complaints to government regulators. 
• Political Partners and Content.
  • Partnerships with government, politicians, public officials, and other institutions are OK, as long as the partners do not violate other parts of this policy. Political content remains a highly sensitive content type due to regional tensions, crises, upheavals, and other human rights concerns, so we should review with caution.
• Sustainability Commitments: The partner has made external commitments to be sustainable and lessen their impact on climate change.  
  • Climate Change Commitments
  • Supply Chain Sustainability

Mitigations

When working with a partner who may have content, products, or audiences that may touch upon any of the prohibited content, account managers can build in mitigations to prevent prohibits content or actions , such as:

• Enact age-gates for servers and channels. 
• Ensure the server is age appropriate to the youngest user they plan to target.
• Enact notices for the types of content or audiences expected in the server or event. Notices include:
  • Adding language to the server title, description, rules, or verification channels reiterating the expected age of users in the space.
  • Adding a questionnaire to prompt age verification.
•  Enlist the Discord Moderator Program to assist with moderation of the space in compliance with our Moderator Academy standards.

Enforcement

When an account manager reviews a partner or contract, they must review this policy to see if the partner is in compliance. If a partner represents or produces content that is prohibited without necessary mitigations, we will not partner with that individual, organization, or brand.

If an account manager feels there are potential ways to get into compliance with the policy, they can escalate information about the partner and potential mitigations to policy@discord.com

Escalations

If you have a question about whether a partner is in compliance with this policy, mitigations, or any other question, please email policy@discord.com. We will review your question based on the policy and may consult with IDP, Legal, and other policy partners.