A note from Anne
Hello, friends! It’s Anne, founder of The Homeschooler’s Chat. I’m here to talk to you about staying safe on Discord, the messaging platform where The Homeschooler’s Chat’s community gathers to make friends, enjoy events, share stories, and more.
As someone who spent plenty of time making friends online as a teenager, I wish that I could transfer my hard-learned social lessons straight to our members in HSRC, so they can skip the stress of learning how to maintain boundaries and spot red flags the hard way. Although I’ve not unlocked the secrets to telepathically sharing this information yet, I did reach out to members of all ages in The Homeschooler’s Chat’s Discord server for homeschoolers to ask our users: what do you wish you’d known sooner about online safety?
Learn how to spot red flags in users’ behavior, protect your Discord account from scams, when to set boundaries with others, when to block someone, and how to get help when things get out of hand.
We’ll be focusing on Discord-related safety in this article, but many of these protocols apply to all online platforms. While certain actions you can take may vary, the end goal is the same: protect yourself, your privacy, and your health.
Thank you to the HSRC members who contributed to this post by sharing advice or a personal experiences. These can be very difficult things to discuss, and your openness and willingness to share your knowledge is so appreciated.
Let’s dive in! You can jump to any section below.
- Avoiding sharing personal details
- Fixing Discord safety settings
- Being wary of users who are older than you
- Avoiding accounts you don’t recognize
- Becoming besties with the block button
- Prioritizing yourself and leaving toxic spaces
- You don’t owe anyone anything
1. Avoid sharing personal details
This cannot be stressed enough. Everything you share online has the capacity to be permanent. Yes, even if you delete it!
Whether in the form of screenshots of social media posts or bots on Discord which can duplicate your message when you delete it, the things you share online can linger long after you think they’re gone. This extends to personal information, images, videos, and anything else you share online.
Avoid sharing your full name, age, where you live, your phone number or email address, family details, and images or videos of yourself.
If you share images online, dreamiebuns, an HSRC moderator and alumni, has plenty of first-hand advice to share about how to stay safe and ensure your privacy remains intact. This includes an avoidance of sharing images with geographically-specific content.
Images that include apparel, signs, and other physical items that list your general location or a place that is near where you live, are dangerous to have in photos especially if you are posting in a public space.
dreamiebuns, HSRC moderator and alumnus
When sharing images through the internet, the details you’re giving out may go deeper than just visuals:
If your device captures your location and puts that within [a photo’s] data, people can open this photo and see where it was taken! Very very dangerous.
dreamiebuns, HSRC moderator and alumnus
While Discord scrubs out EXIF data from images, in years past this was not the case for videos shared on the platform. This has since changed, but it’s still something to keep in mind when sharing images anywhere online.
Reflections within photos: eyes, pottery, metal, glass, etc. I always look within reflections in my photos to ensure that nothing personal is shown, myself included.
dreamiebuns, HSRC moderator and alumnus
You might not think about it at first, but reflective surfaces are absolutely something to consider for those looking to maintain as much privacy as possible online. Bun tacked onto their contribution that you’ll want to consider avoiding mentions of specific locations and buildings, where you are or where you will be going to, and even local brands.
Max, another HSRC moderator and alumni also recommends that you avoid linking too many social media accounts to your Discord account, like Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, and others. He has had first-hand experience with these things almost leading down a bad road.
What IS safe to share?
Imagine that everything you share with a user on Discord is something you’re saying or displaying in front of a group of strangers.
Would you tell a group of strangers where you live? Would you tell a group of strangers really personal information about yourself? Would you give a group of strangers printed-out copies of that great selfie you just took? If you’re thinking, “yeah, I would do all of that,” remember that you have no idea who these people are and whether they’re harmless bystanders, potential predators, or someone with a personal grudge against you.
What about someone my age that I’ve known for a long time and even video called with?
These situations can be entirely different. Users that are around your age, whom you have seen and spoken to in real-time, can be truly great friends.
Maybe you’ve spoken to their family members, exchanged other contact information, and even planned to meet in person someday. In these cases, it may be safe to share more about yourself via DMs.
However, if this user begins to show signs of toxic behavior, (like getting upset when you don’t pay attention to them, asking you to share more than you’re comfortable sharing, or becoming too emotionally dependent on you), consider talking with a trusted adult about what’s happening and whether it’s a good idea to take a step back.
2. Turn off DMs from non-friends and check other safety settings
There are three key actions you can take to have a safe and peaceful experience on Discord, aside from creating a secure password and enabling 2-factor authentication. Learn about them below!
DM spam and Explicit Image Filter
Navigate to Discord settings > Privacy & Safety > Explicit image filter or DM spam filter > Filter all direct messages. We recommend that you always leave this setting set exactly like this. You’ll find several more settings to explore in this area of Discord’s settings as well.
Preventing unwanted DMs
Navigate to Discord settings > Privacy & Safety > Allow Direct Messages From Server Members and DISABLE this feature. You can change this at any time.
Preventing friend requests from strangers
Navigate to Discord settings > Friend Requests > toggle “everyone” off and consider toggling “server members” off as well to be safe. You can always change these settings in the future, if you would like to add a new friend.
3. Be wary of users who are older than you
We recommend that you do not interact privately with adults online if you are a minor.
There are cases where you might make a fellow teenage friend who is 18 or 19, which may be different if you are near their age. The key factor here is the distance in age between yourself and the adult.
An age gap of even 3-4 years between teenagers may set up an emotional power dynamic where the older individual is more experienced in social situations than the younger individual. This dynamic can be exploited to cause harm or distress to the younger individual.
If you’re a minor and you notice a stranger over 3 years older than you is attempting repeatedly to speak with you privately in a peer-capacity, ask yourself, “why would this person/adult be speaking with me privately?”
Adults should not be seeking peer-type friendships with minors.
Which adults are safe to engage with?
An example of a safe interaction with an adult online is reaching out or reporting to our staff in HSRC. These interactions come in the form of a trustworthy adult that you can speak to about a concern, or ask for guidance if you know them well and feel comfortable doing so.
This can also be observed with our alumni, long-term users whom HSRC staff have manually assigned the alumni role to, meaning they are a high school graduate over 18 years of age who has been part of HSRC since their schooling days.
Conversations with these members have a set dynamic where the adult is in the role of almost an older sibling, as explained by Discord in their article about Family Friendly Servers.
Conversations will HSRC staff or alumni never put a minor in a situation where they providing emotional support or stability to the adult. None of our HSRC staff team members have ever perpetrated such a situation, and frankly are likely to bite an individual who has done so. If such an instance occurs, immediately notify Anne (@hsrc on Discord), The Homeschooler’s Chat’s founder and administrator.
4. NEVER engage with accounts which you don’t recognize
Engaging with accounts that you don’t recognize can be a slippery slope. Doing so can lead to unwanted harassment, emotional distress, or even being the victim of a scam.
What do Discord scams look like?
Discord scams often come in the form of a direct message, which we recommend you turn off for users you don’t know. DMs with dialogue as simple as “hey how has your week been” from a user that you don’t know can lead to a scam. Some examples of common scam starters include:
- “Hey I’m so sorry but I accidentally reported your account to Discord and it will be deleted if you don’t…”
- Someone claiming to be Discord staff or having connections to Discord in an official capacity. Discord staff will never DM you to ask for personal information, welcome you to any kind of program, or warn you about your account being in danger.
- Messages informing you that you’ve won Discord Nitro or that they can give you Discord Nitro.
- Users claiming to be selling or giving away NFTs, cryptocurrency, or virtual items.
- A file being sent to you, even by an account you recognize (like a friend’s account).
- Someone asking you to “test” a game or application for them, even if this is from an account you recognize, could mean the account has been hacked.
Max, an HSRC moderator and alumni, touched on how difficult it can be to set boundaries and avoid engaging with people online, on an emotional level:
One big thing for me that I had to learn is that I don’t owe anyone a response. If someone’s making me uncomfortable, I do not have to talk to them and I can block them.
Max, an HSRC moderator and alumnus
Most of us want to be perceived as kind and empathetic people. It’s natural to want to be a good person. It’s also natural to stand up for yourself when things get weird.
I think it’s the biggest thing I struggled with being online because I always want people to like me, and it was hard to come to terms with the fact that not everyone is meant to be your friend.
Max, an HSRC moderator and alumnus
Max added that you never owe anyone an explanation for your profile content, including your profile picture, statuses, information in your bio, or anything else.
If an unknown user attempts to contact you, block them and continue your day knowing you’re remaining safe.
What do dangerous accounts and users look like?
Dangerous accounts on Discord usually contain any combination of the following:
- No profile picture or a generic image (this can be a default Discord profile image, a human image that looks like a basic photo from Google, or an anime-style image which you might find online).
- A recent Discord join date. You can view when a user joined Discord by opening their user profile.
- A basic or generic name. Examples include things like @JennyBrown or @intrepidgreen. If the username looks like random names or words put together, this can be a big red flag.
- A bio with references to making money, tutoring, cryptocurrency (like Bitcoin), suspicious links with URLs that you don’t recognize, or free Discord Nitro.
- A lack of linked accounts. Although many users choose not to link any other accounts to their Discord profile, you can view any linked accounts by opening a user’s Discord profile.
5. Become besties with the block button
Remember that you can and should block users who make you uncomfortable. In fact, you can block anyone for any reason at any time.
Is someone asking you personal questions? You can block them. Is someone asking you to send a picture of yourself? You can block them. Did someone say that that TV show you love is boring? You can block them too.
You do not owe anyone an explanation for removing them. If a user is making you feel uncomfortable or unsafe, that is enough reasoning to block (and report) them.
dreamiebuns, HSRC moderator and alumnus
Let’s take a look at some advice from other HSRC members on this topic, including their own experiences and how these situations changed the way that they look at that shiny “block” button.
When someone makes you uncomfortable or seems suspicious in a Discord server, BreezeyNinja recommends reporting the user to the staff of the server:
My advice is to distance yourself. If it’s a server user and not a personal DM thing, just try to keep your distance and report the user. Also [you] should be careful about the server. If it doesn’t take your report seriously or doesn’t seem to care, maybe you should leave that server.
BreezeyNinja, a member of The Homeschooler’s Chat’s Discord server
BreezeyNinja also touched on the value of reporting a Discord user directly to Discord’s Trust and safety team when things get suspicious or concerning via private messages:
If this person is DMing you privately, block and report the user to Discord. With strange users I have done this and it has made me feel better. And I know I can report it too, though I was nervous to at first, I know I can.
BreezeyNinja, a member of The Homeschooler’s Chat’s Discord server
How do I report a Discord user?
Learn all about how to report a Discord user in this article from Discord. If you need to report a user of The Homeschooler’s Chat, please use the ticket system in our Discord server by heading to our “contact-staff” channel.
Blocking and reporting when you see something weird is always a good move to make. Some dangerous situations aren’t always so obvious from the beginning though. You can meet a stranger online and things may seem fine at first. Later, situations can escalate into something you’re not comfortable with or feel uncertain about. Rory shared their experience being a young person online and how they handled an uncomfortable situation in the past:
I’ve been messaged by many different kinds of people and not always good people. Most of these people were weird and had no respect for my boundaries. One person that particularly stuck out was when this guy had messaged me wanting to be “friends”. We were chatting talking about typical stuff when he suddenly started asking weird and uncomfortable questions then started trying to make me promise never to leave him or hurt him. Obviously this was y’know, weird, so I went and told my parents and blocked him. My advice is to do just that, there’s rarely people online you can fully trust, and the block button is your best friend. NEVER hesitate to block someone if they make you feel uncomfy. Even if you believe this person is your friend and isn’t intentionally trying to make you uncomfortable. It is never a good idea to stop watching for signs. These peoples’ first step is trying to make you trust them enough that they can do whatever they want and get away with it. Never ever stop looking for signs and never ever let people break your boundaries.
Rory, a member of The Homeschooler’s Chat’s Discord server
Rory did exactly the right thing by sharing what was happening with a trustworthy adult and blocking this user. Never forget that the block button is there for you when things get weird! It’s the online equivalent of walking away from a weird or uncomfortable situation.
6. Prioritize yourself and leave toxic spaces
💗 Care for yourself first
It’s never selfish to care for yourself. If someone is making you feel unhappy, even if you can’t pinpoint exactly what it is that’s causing you discomfort, prioritize your well-being by considering if you should take a step back from the situation.
When air masks drop during an emergency on an airplane, you must put your own mask on first. You can’t care for others if you’re out of commission yourself.
Signs of online bullying
This video on cyberbullying from Common Sense is a quick, less than two-minute explanation on online bullying. This form of bullying can appear anywhere on Discord. Sometimes this appears as something that seems to start as a joke at your expense, but soon becomes emotionally and mentally exhausting for you as things become more and more harsh.
If this happens to you, remember that the block button is your best friend. Never be afraid to block a user who is being cruel to you, not listening to your feelings, or taking a toll on your mental health.
⭐ Listen to those around you
If someone you trust has warned you about an individual or a space that they feel may be unhealthy for you, hear them out. It can feel like an attack when someone tells you that you may be in danger, as Lio, a member of HSRC shared during our discussion about online safety. Lio shared that during his early years, he had the following experience:
when someone tells me something I’m doing could be harmful for me I feel like I’m being insulted at and it immediately strengthens my initial harmful belief/behavior. I think its good to remember to put approach it openly when people are telling [you] things and taking time to consider their words does not make [you] weak in any way
Lio, a member of The Homeschooler’s Chat’s Discord server
What is emotional abuse and manipulation?
Emotional manipulation and abuse can be difficult to spot, especially if you’ve never seen it before. This resource from One Love offers a clear and straight-forward explanation about what emotional abuse can look like. This is not exclusive to romantic relationships. This type of abuse can come from friends, family members, and even co-workers.
Red, an HSRC member, explained a bit about emotional manipulation herself:
Some people use manipulative tactics to try to persuade you to share something you would rather not, especially if [you’ve] known them for a while.
Red, a member of The Homeschooler’s Chat’s Discord server.
Another key point here, as Red pointed out next, is how strangers may seem harmless at first, but soon show their true intentions by attempting to manipulate you or asking too many personal questions.
This person may seem amazing at first and only asking maybe a few weird questions but you don’t think much of it since they are very kind and stuff until they start to get really weird
Red, a member of The Homeschooler’s Chat’s Discord server.
Red added that once this process starts, you may feel obligated to remain friends with this person so as not to upset them or seem mean yourself. That’s exactly what manipulators are hoping for. Remind yourself that this is the trap, and you do not owe them anything. Focus on prioritizing yourself, your safety, and your comfort.
Red, another HSRC member had a similar point to share during our chat:
If your friends or family are telling you that being with this person may be bad for you then that is another red flag about this person. Some people think they are in a good friendship, etc. and they don’t really see that this person is bad until it’s too late.
Red, a member of The Homeschooler’s Chat’s Discord server.
Although it can be difficult to hear negative things about those you’re interacting with or the spaces you’re frequenting, your loved ones often have your safety in mind when discussing these topics. Take a step back from your situation and take a moment to think about whether you’re truly feeling safe and comfortable in these cases.
Signs of emotional abuse
Some key things to look out for as early signs of emotional abuse include someone doing the following:
- Neglecting your feelings when you try to bring up how you’re feeling
- Demanding attention and time from you, regardless of your schedule and emotions
- Constantly putting you down or minimizing your accomplishments
- Criticizing the things you love or other people you spend time with
- Attempting to cut you off from others
Signs of manipulation
Major things to look out for as early signs of manipulation include all of the signs of emotional abuse, as well as someone doing the following:
- Threatening to harm themselves if you don’t pay attention to them, do something for them, or say something to them
- Dumping their emotions on you early on and/or telling you that you’re the only person they can talk to about their feelings
- Venting to you when you’ve set a boundary or told them to reach out for help
- Phrases like “everyone hates me”, “I’m the worst”, “you’re probably tired of me”, “I’m going to be alone forever”, and anything with similar sentiments
- An adult doing any of the above (block users like this immediately)
7. Remember that you don’t owe anyone anything
You are not responsible for anyone else’s emotions. Offering help to someone is a wonderful thing to do, but doing so at the expense of yourself and your health is never wise.
Red, a member of HSRC’s Discord server, shared these wise words during our chat about what our users wish they’d known sooner about staying safe online:
You do not, and I mean do not, owe anything to anyone. I mean anyone. Even if you have known this person for a few weeks, heck even a few months, if they are making you uncomfortable in any way, block them.
Red, a member of The Homeschooler’s Chat’s Discord server.
Red pointed out that if you feel the person in question might listen to you if you try to discuss things, it can be worth trying to do so, while still proceeding with caution. You don’t owe anyone else anything.
✨ Know when to get help
Every user that assisted with this article’s content has experienced an uncomfortable situation online. If you experience any of these things, please reach out for help. You can find several resources for yourself and your loved ones on our Mental Health Resources page.
Is The Homeschooler’s Chat Discord server safe?
Our Discord server can be a safe and comfortable space if you take the correct precautions listed above. While all activity within our server is closely monitored by our staff members and our automatic moderation system, unknown users can still attempt to contact you privately if your Discord account settings are not customized to block such contact attempts. We seriously encourage you to go take a look at your Discord safety settings to ensure that you have a smooth and peaceful experience meeting fellow homeschoolers in our Discord server!
Want to know more about the staff and members of The Homeschooler’s Chat? Head on over to the About Us page to read up on the history of the server and see more details about the community’s culture.
🤍 Thank you to the HSRC users who contributed to this article!
Rory, BreezeyNinja, dreamiebuns, Max, Lio, and Red all contributed heavily to this article. Your contributions are so appreciated. If you’d like to see any of your content amended or credit changed, please reach out to Anne via Discord. This post’s cover image is by Miguel u00c1. Padriu00f1u00e1n on Pexels.com!
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