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Phil Barker/Future Publishing via Getty Images and Wojciech Grzedzinski/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
- Russian troops have been using Discord to coordinate drone attacks, but it was banned on Tuesday.
- Federal regulators said they blocked the gaming messaging platform because it could be used for crime.
- Yet Russians closely watching the war say Moscow is undermining its military with the decision.
Russian state media reported on Tuesday that authorities have banned Discord, a US-based messaging and voice-call platform that’s popular among gamers but more recently has been used for battlefield communication in Ukraine.
Internet and media regulator Roskomnadzor told the TASS agency the messenger was blocked over concerns it may be used to sell drugs, spread illicit material, and facilitate “terrorist and extremist purposes.”
The regulator cited an earlier request for Discord to remove 947 pieces of “illegal material,” but said some of the content was not taken down. It added that Discord was previously fined $100,000 for not removing child-sexual-abuse images and failing to regulate content posted by its users.
Anton Gorelkin, deputy head of the Russian State Duma’s committee on information policy, accused Discord on Tuesday of ignoring Moscow’s laws, saying the platform has been “brought to the point of no return.”
Several legislators voiced concern about the ban on Tuesday, including Vladislav Davankov, deputy chair of the State Duma, who said the platform is used widely in Russia and often by students and online tutors.
Davankov said he would appeal the decision by Roskomnadzor.
The effects of the ban are likely to hit the front lines in Ukraine as well, where both Kyiv and Moscow’s troops have been seen using Discord to coordinate drone operations.
Several videos posted online have shown uniformed men watching surveillance drone feeds on the platform, including one clip said to have captured the interior of a command post in Bakhmut.
Discord allows users to join a closed group voice call and livestream to other users from their screens or cameras.
Ekaterina Mizulina, head of the para-governmental internet group Safe Internet League, warned that Discord is “very actively used in the SVO,” the Russian abbreviation for special military operation.
“There are separate closed conferences for watching videos from drones and other equipment. Discord gives the highest quality picture,” Mizulina wrote on her Telegram channel, calling the ban a mistake.
That’s a notable reversal from Mizulina’s previous call in 2022 for Discord and streaming platform Twitch to be shut down in Russia due to concerns they can feed gaming addiction.
Analyst and pundit Roman Alekhine described Roskomnadzor’s move as a civilian decision that would damage Russia’s front-line operations and potentially increase its military losses.
“Do they really want to win there?” Alekhine wrote on his Telegram channel.
He expected Russian authorities to cite concerns of intelligence leaks on a non-military messaging platform but said they should provide troops with a replacement service.
Several military bloggers wrote that drone operations had already been disrupted in some units.
“At the control points of dozens of units, broadcasts from drones operating through closed Discord rooms have fallen,” wrote the blogger Troika, complaining that Russian forces had been set back “to the level of March 2022.”
News of Discord’s impending ban spread in late September among Russian pundits, but bloggers said their calls for the platform to stay online were ignored.
One pundit channel, Military Informant, blasted Roskomnadzor’s decision as “madness,” while another sarcastically thanked the regulator for giving Russian troops another challenge to “bypass the consequences of another wise decision.”
The platform’s removal in Russia comes as Moscow has cracked down on Western websites and social media since the war began. Moscow has closed off access to Facebook and X, throttled YouTube, and blocked scores of European news sites.
Meanwhile, VK, Russia’s biggest domestic social media network, saw its annual revenue surge 19% year-on-year in 2022 and 36% year-on-year in 2023, per its annual reports.
According to its 2023 report, the company’s main social media platform, VKontakte, grew its daily audience count by 19.4%, from 73.4 million users in Q1 2022 to 87.7 million users in Q4 2023.
Discord, Roskomnadzor, and the Russian defense ministry did not immediately respond to comment requests sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.
