Discord is changing its policies to make conversations on its largest public servers more visible on the web. On November 16, all of the platform’s Discoverable Servers will receive Server Web Pages, hubs that will display basic information about the server, including a description and summaries of discussions taking place in its public channels.
Discord says that from mid-December, messages in those channels may appear exactly as written on Server Web Pages and in search engine results. Usernames and avatars will not be shown with either the channel summaries or the individual messages.
According to Discord, the change is designed to help information from these communities appear in web searches. Users may begin to see Discord pages and messages in results, similar to how Reddit threads often appear.
The change applies only to Discoverable Servers, which Discord defines as large communities with at least 1,000 members that anyone can join without an invitation. Private servers, direct messages, and group direct messages will stay private. Still, the move could renew questions about Discord’s approach to privacy, coming shortly after the backlash over its age verification rollout.
Administrators of Discoverable Servers can begin opting channels out of the planned web presence right away. Individual users can also keep their posts in those servers from being indexed by changing a setting in the Data and Privacy section of Discord’s User Settings.
In the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, Brazil, Australia, and South Korea, channel messages will be off by default in order to meet local regulations. Users in those regions must opt in manually. Teen users are also excluded and cannot turn the feature on until they reach adult age.
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