While Discord has cemented itself as an essential part of the gaming community, it can become a source of explicit or sensitive content online. There are features within the platform itself that can act to limit this sensitive content, but you may find it necessary to block discord entirely . 

Most likely, parents reading this article are asking the question: "How do I set up Parental Controls on Discord?". Unfortunately, Discord doesn't have this, at least, not in the full sense. The closest thing to parental controls that Discord does provide is called Family Center.

What is Family Center?

It is important to note: Family Center is not a full parental control option. It is missing many of the key features that we as parents assume it should have. Instead of thinking that Family Center means Parental Controls for Discord, we should instead think of Family Center as "Teen Oversight".

The language that Discord uses to describe Family Center stays away from words like: "controls", "supervision", or "restriction". It instead, embraces words like "connect", "share", and "visibility". Family Center doesn't impose any restrictions to a Teen's account, it instead allows a parent to have some basic visibility on their Teen's activity on the platform.

What Family Center Allows You as a Parent to Do

As a parent, you are able to see:

• Friends that your Teen has recently added.
• Which Servers your Teen has joined, as well some basic information about these Servers. 
• Who your Teen has messaged and called.
• 7 days of activity history. 
• An email report of your Teen's activity.

Basically, you can get some visibility into who your teen is talking to and how much Discord is being used. 

What Family Center Does NOT Let You as a Parent Do

While you will be able to see who and where your Teen is communicating with using the platform, you cannot:

• Make or enforce changes for your Teen's Discord account, this includes changing their settings, added/removing friends, or adding/leaving servers.
• See what your Teen has messaged (for example, what their channels or friends say).
• See conversation history, chat history, or viewed messages. Any messages, friend requests, and chats will only be visible to your Teen.
• View activity history older than 7 days. You should receive an email about once a week that includes an activity summary, but you won't be able to use this as a "logging" feature.
• Prevent you Teen from leaving your oversight. Your Teen will be able to, at any time they choose, leave Family Center, and in order to reconnect them, you will have to go through the full connection process again.

Again, this is why it is important to understand that Family Center is much closer to a Teen Oversight feature, not a true parental control feature. There are some serious limitations to keep in mind.

What You Need in Order to Set up Family Center on Discord

Discord has put in a lot of work in order to make Family Center as easy as possible to join and set up.  However, its important to know what you should have ready before getting started:

1. A Teen Discord Account. This is your Teen's account. When the account was first set up, your Teen had to enter their age. If their age falls in between 13 and 18, then the account is made into a Teen Account. Discord doesn't allow account below 13 years of age. Only a Teen Account is able to be overseen by Family Center.
2. An Adult Discord Account. If the age for the account is more than or equal to 18, then the account is marked as an Adult Account. Adult Accounts are not able to be overseen by another account, so if you have an Adult Account, then you can only monitor other accounts.
3. A Mobile Device (like a smartphone). This will be needed in order to properly connect accounts. In order for the Teen Account to send a connection request, you will need to scan a QR code.

Setting up Family Center

Now that we understand what Family Center is (and isn't), we can go ahead and get started!

Fortunately for us, Discord has made it very simple to get set up. First, we will need our own account.

1) Create a Parent Account

A Parent Account isn't anything special, it's just an Adult Discord account for you. In this guide, we will refer to your account as the Parent Account.

Making an account is very simple, all you will need is an email address, and make sure that the account knows your age is more than 18. If you already have a Discord account, chances are that it already thinks you are an adult, so you should be all set. You can confirm this by going to settings, opening the Family Center tab, and seeing what the Family Center page says. If it shows you a message like this:

Then you are an Adult Account.

First, you will need to visit Discord's main site . You can then either sign in if you already have an account that you want to use, or create a new account.

Next, you will probably need to install the Discord app on your smartphone. The parent will need to be able to scan the QR code that their Teen shows them, and this might be difficult on laptop or desktop. 

2) Connect your Teen's Account to Family Center

The next step, after you and your Teen's account are ready, you can begin the process of connecting them.

On both your own Parent Account and your Teen's Teen Account, open the Family Center tab in the Settings menu

On your Teen's Account, click on Connect with Parent

Your Teen Account will now show a QR code that you'll need to reveal for the Parent Account. This will require you to have a smartphone in order to scan the QR code. Scan the QR Code on the smartphone you are signed in as the Parent Account.

For the Parent Account, go ahead and submit a connection request. The Teen account will have to accept this request, either through email or within the Family Center Tab in Discord

Once the Teen Account has accepted the request, you can now see an Activity Summary for all connected accounts.

From the Teen Account's perspective, they will see the same information you do.

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Check out Discord's Official Help Page for Parents and Guardians.

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Using Privacy and Safety Features to Restrict Content on Discord

The next step for Parents to consider is what settings their Teen should change in order to be safer while using the platform. There are several settings that we at Tech Lockdown recommend parents consider changing:

• Filter explicit images in direct messages
• Block age-restricted channels and features
• Block all embedded videos and images
• Limit who can send friend requests

For Teen accounts, most of these settings should be enabled, but it can be useful to double check with them. Unfortunately, there isn't an option for you to enforce these settings as a parent. 

Filtering Explicit Content on Discord

By default, explicit content should be filtered for non-friends. We suggest enabling the content filter for all direct messages:

Click on User Settings and Navigate to Privacy & Safety.

Under Explicit Image Filter, change it to Filter all direct messages. We also suggest enabling the DM spam filter for all messages.

Some other settings that might be useful to disable include: Allow access to age-restricted servers on iOS, and Allow access to age-restricted commands from apps in Direct Messages. For a Teen account, these should be disabled by default.

If set up for your Teen's account, all images sent through the Discord platform as a direct message will be scanned for sensitive content.

Blocking Images and Videos on Discord

We recommend disabling all images and videos from the platform. This can be useful in case the explicit image filter doesn't work.

To do this, go to Settings, and click on Text & Images:

Here, go ahead and disable everything under Display Images, Videos, and Lolcats. Also disable Show embeds and preview website links pasted into chat.

Now all image previews will look like this:

Enable Privacy Features on Discord

Your Teen can limit who can send them a friend request. If you want to focus on privacy, it is recommended to disable friend requests from everyone and Server Members, and you can choose whether you want friends of friends to send you requests.

Go to the Friend Requests tab in Settings.

Under Privacy & Safety, make sure that Allow direct messages from server members and Enable message requests from server members you may not know are disabled.

When you make these changes, Discord will prompt you to apply the settings to already joined servers. Click/tap yes.

What Else Can I as a Parent Do on Discord?

Getting Family Center set up is a good start, but what else can I do as a Parent? 

Maybe you have decided that Discord isn't the right thing for you Teen. Or perhaps you have a younger child you have decided isn't ready for Discord right now. There are some other paths you might consider.

Block Discord Entirely

Maybe you want to block Discord. This might be the right call if you have child who is below 13, or you as a parent has determined isn't mature enough to have a Discord account yet. 

We have an article that goes into much more detail about how to block Discord for different types of devices. In general, the two best ways to do this are:

1. Use a DNS Filtering Service to Filter out the Discord domains .
2. Create your own Supervised or Managed devices and add Discord to your App Blocklist .

This approach is much more extreme, but it may be necessary. In general, if you and your family don't use Discord, you should go ahead and block it.

Block the Discord CDN

Discord's CDN is what allows image and video content to be shared on the platform. Blocking this can be tricky, but it is possible.

To do this, you can use:

1. A DNS Filter on your network ,
2. The Hosts File on a computer ,
3. Or a web filter on a managed device .

The domains you will want to block are:

cdn.discordapp.com
media.discordapp.net

Blocking these domains will ensure that Discord itself is not blocked, but images will fail to load:

Share Accounts

Another option is for you and your child to share an account. If you create an account for them, and then use either you own email address or an email address only you have access to, then the child shouldn't be able to reset their password.

With a shared account, you can see all of the messages that you wouldn't be able to see with Family Center. You will also have some more control over the settings, although you still can't enforce them across devices. 

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Server?

On Discord, a Server is big group of people who can talk to each other on channels. Servers can be customized to serve different purposes: some servers act as hangouts, with different text/video channels dedicated to different topics; others serve a source of information and provide updates to their members. As an example, many popular Youtubers have Discord Servers that they use to share updates with their fans.

As a parent, we strongly suggest checking out information about servers that your Teen is a part of. 

Most servers are just groups of friends that just want to hang out, but some of them might not be appropriate.

My Teen's account age is wrong. How do I change it?

You can't change an account's age within the normal Discord interface. Instead, you will have to submit a ticket to Discord support here . This will require a photo ID of the person who needs to change their age.

In many cases, this might not be possible. In this case, you may have to create a new account. You may need to seek help with Discord support .

Does Discord Block Explicit Content?

Yes. By default, Discord scans images from non-friends to see if they contain sensitive content. You can change this setting to filter all images you receive. 

However, this may not always work, as sometimes the settings can be confusing if you have joined many different servers. You, as a parent, don't have the ability to make these changes for your Teen's account.

These settings can also be disabled.

What Content is a Teen Account Restricted from Accessing by Default?

By default, content that has been flagged as sensitive by Discord's explicit filter will be blurred. This setting will apply to direct messages, group direct messages, and servers.

Can I See Images, Videos, or Text Content of Direct Messages or Channel Interactions if I Use Family Center?

No. You will not be able to see the message contents for your Teen. You will be able to see who your Teen is friends with, as well as information about the servers they've joined. 

Some of the information about the servers your Teen has joined include details such as the server name, icons, and how many people have also joined that server.

Can I Make Changes to My Teens Account Settings with Family Center?

No, you won't be able to make changes to your Teens account with Family Center. Privacy settings, Image and Video settings, and other settings cannot be enforced. If you want your Teen to have certain settings changed, they will have to do it on their own account. 

The good news is that, Discord accounts that have a user's age between 13 and 18 will automatically have many settings enabled by default, such as the explicit filter for images.

About Tech Lockdown

Tech Lockdown is focused on providing information centered around Locking Down Devices. We take a firm stance against explicit content of all kinds and are constantly seeking out new ways to Lock Down our and our customer's devices.

For more information about blocking apps on your devices, check out our guide about how to block social media . Also, check out our main page for more information about Tech Lockdown .