Discord Platform: What schools and parents need to know to prevent a school shooting
Moments before the shooting at Perry High in Iowa, teen shooter posted messages in a Discord chat called “School Massacres Discussion”
After sneaking a shotgun and pistol into Perry High in Iowa last week, the teenage assailant opened the Discord app in the school bathroom as he prepared to shoot his classmates. An account believed to be the shooter was part of a private group called “School Massacres Discussion.”
During a ten-minute period, the account posted:
Posted that he was at the school and ready “for what’s to come.”
He then wrote, “I’m f------ nervous, I’m the bathroom gearing up.”
Used a racial slur, writing: “There’s a n----- in the bathroom, I need him to leave so I can assemble my guns.”
Another Discord user told NBC News they had flagged the “School Massacre Discussion” chatroom to the FBI in November. An FBI agent reached out over email and asked the user for more information. When the user emailed the FBI agent screenshots, the user never heard back.
It’s very important to note that the Perry High shooter used a racial slur because a recent study by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue in London identified Discord as a platform for far-right extremism and promoting gun violence.
What is Discord?
The service is a free app that lets users create anonymous accounts. Users can create and join groups, share videos/images, have private voice/video calls, exchange private encrypted direct messages, and have group video chats.
Aside from teens plotting a school shooting, parents should be aware that teens can engage with and access explicit, violent, and racist content with few guardrails.
It’s not all bad, Discord can also be used for regular social interactions and supports free communication between people all over the world.
Parents do not need to be immediately worried if they see the Discord app because it is very popular with gaming communities. Servers and chatrooms can be setup for each game, specific game topics/events, and privately communicating with a team of players during a game.
Violent History of Discord Users
Discord has been in the news since 2017 when it was used to plan the deadly Unite the Right rally of white supremist and neo-nazis in Charlottesville, VA. This is an important event for school officials and parents to remember because it is connected to school safety. Social media posts about the Unite the Right rally included the hashtag “ReadSiege” referring to an anthology of essays published in 1992 by James Mason. He is considered to be the “godfather” of the American neo-nazi movement. In one essay he wrote:
“I just wanted out but they weren’t going to throw me out. So it was headed for confrontation. I was headed for Boys Industrial School, and was told this was a prison for boys. I wasn’t going to let that happen of course, so I made up my mind in 1968 - my father had all kinds of weapons at home - and I was going to take a 44 magnum, which was a five-shot revolver, go into the staff office and take out the principal, assistant principal, and two of the guidance counselors, then finally myself.”
James Mason planned a school shooting thirty years before the attack at Columbine High in 1999. This is all connected and relevant to school safety because the Columbine attack was intended to be a more deadly bombing than the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995 and was planned to be on its 4th anniversary (4/19/1999). But the Columbine bombing was delayed by one day and when the bombs didn’t go off as planned inside the high school, it turned into one of the deadliest school shootings in US history.
Far-right, white nationalist, and anti-government groups used Discord to plan and communicate during the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol. Last year, an Air National Guardsman also leaked thousands of classified files to a Discord group.
Discord and Mass Shootings
The app is a ‘safe haven’ for plotting mass violence because it provides an unmoderated service with open chatrooms, closed groups, and private messages for anonymous users. In December 2023, a 13-year-old was arrested for plotting to commit a mass shooting at a synagogue in Ohio after he posted a detailed attack plan on Discord.
The Buffalo grocery store shooter—who considered attacking an elementary school—wrote an extensive manifesto in a private Discord group.
On May 1, less than two weeks before the Buffalo Tops Grocery Store attack, the user claimed in one post that he might also attack the elementary school but was unclear how he would get in and out of the building. He claimed he had driven by the school during a previous stakeout of Tops.
The author said he was targeting the specific Buffalo elementary school because he believed it had predominantly Black students based on math and science scores he said he had found online.
Discord uses distributed servers that keep segmented content private and makes monitoring or moderating these groups nearly impossible. The service does not monitor content in real time and has responded by taking down servers after violence has occurred and criminal charges are filed. After an attack has happened, this action is too late.
In a statement to The Verge, a Discord spokesperson said that its terms of service and community guidelines prohibit harassment, threatening messages, and calls to violence. “Though we do not monitor private messages, we do investigate and take immediate appropriate action against any reported violations,” the spokesperson said. “This was the case after incidents in Charlottesville where we swiftly removed servers and users from the platform and took steps to prevent their return.”
Implications for Schools
Here are a few points that school officials, teachers, and parents should consider:
Discord chat groups can be private and are unlikely to be internally monitored by the company. If your school district has a threat assessment team or contracts a social media monitoring service, it’s unlikely that they will be able to see the content in these private groups.
Direct messages on Discord are encrypted. Even with a warrant, school officials and law enforcement are unlikely to be able to access these messages.
Students are more likely than adults to see threatening posts made by their peers. If a student reports seeing threating comments or information about a planned school shooting on Discord (or any other online platform), this threat should be taken seriously.
Threats reported to a law enforcement agency can fall through the cracks. If you see threatening messages, report them to multiple agencies and continue to follow-up until you have confirmation that the threat has been investigated.
Strong connections between the history of school shootings and far-right domestic terrorism. If a student is engaging with or sharing white nationalist, anti-government, or far-right propaganda, this should be a red flag for gun violence.
Join Discord and routinely search for your school’s name, school mascot, or nicknames associated with your school or community.
The good news is that most students with Discord accounts are probably using it for gaming or talking to their friends. Developing a school community where these students are enabled and feel invested in school safety can create a climate where students will come forward if they see a problem in a private group or chat.
Trusting and engaging with students to recognize the threats that kids are seeing can prevent the next school shooting.
David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database and a national expert on school shootings. Listen to my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and Iowa Public Radio the day after the Perry High shooting.