Discord Acquires AI Anti-harassment Firm Sentropy

The online chat platform Discord has purchased a company that makes AI-powered software to detect and remove online harassment and hate. The company, Sentropy, monitors online networks for abuse and harassment, then offers users a way to block problematic people and filter out messages they don’t want to see. Its first product, Sentropy Protect, was initially focused on helping users clean up their Twitter feeds.

Discord currently uses a “multilevel” approach to moderation, relying on an in-house human moderation team as well as volunteer mods and admins to create ground rules for individual servers. A Trust and Safety team dedicated to protecting users and shaping content moderation policies comprised 15% of Discord’s workforce as of May 2020.

Therefore, Sentropy is now shutting down its independent tools and joining Discord, where it plans to help the hugely popular chat app “expand and evolve its [trust and safety] capabilities.” It could be a good pairing. Discord has a huge network, with more than 150 million monthly users, and servers can be a real challenge to moderate. The service is made up of more than 19 million individual communities, and that scale requires the work of both volunteers and teams within Discord to properly moderate.

Tools like the ones Sentropy built could help both groups better monitor for bad behavior on the networks they oversee. Discord will use the acquisition to expand its abilities to detect and remove bad content and grow its safety team, according to a company spokesperson. They said trust and safety are a “key priority” for Discord.

Discord’s future is looking bright. The company walked away from a possible acquisition by Microsoft earlier this year that reportedly valued it at around $10 billion. Discord looks content to remain independent for now and could chart a path toward an IPO in the not-too-distant future.