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Florida AG Uthmeier to investigate messaging platform Discord

FILE - A Discord display stands at the company's booth at the Game Developers Conference 2023, in San Francisco, March 22, 2023.
Jeff Chiu
/
AP
FILE - A Discord display stands at the company's booth at the Game Developers Conference 2023, in San Francisco, March 22, 2023.

Attorney General James Uthmeier said Wednesday his office will investigate Discord, a messaging platform, for allegedly putting children at risk of being groomed by predators online.

The office issued a subpoena for information relating to the marketing of children, enforcing age-verification requirements, content moderation, parental control features and reporting of exploitative activity, according to the press release.

In December, Uthmeier's office sued Roblox, a popular online game, alleging the company "deceived parents about the safety of its platform while failing to protect children from accessing graphic adult content and being contacted and groomed by predators."

"There have been many concerning reports indicating that predators initially contact minors on other platforms, including video games like Roblox and Fortnite, and then encourage them to move communications to Discord, which may be due to insufficient protections for children," the press release states.

Discord is one of the most popular chat applications, where users can communicate by text, audio and video and send files within the platform.

"With so many criminal investigations leading to Discord, they owe us an explanation as to why predators keep getting to kids on the app," Uthmeier stated in a post on X.

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