Virginia mom says daughter attempted suicide after being targeted on Discord

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — A Virginia mother is sounding the alarm after she says her teenage daughter was targeted on the social media platform Discord.

“They almost killed my daughter,” said Abby’s mother, who asked to be referred to by only her first name, Leslie.

Leslie said that, when Abby was 14, she joined nearly 100 group chats on Discord, including ones that promoted anorexia and child sexual abuse material.

“Then it went to, ‘Go kill yourself, these are all the ways you can do it,’” Leslie told 8News.

Leslie says although she took away her daughter’s phone and monitored her social media usage, Abby was still communicating with dangerous groups using her school computer.

“They took her away from the family,” said Leslie. “It was like she was brainwashed to believe that her family were her enemies and these online chat groups were her friends.”

Leslie said that, within months, Abby attempted suicide.

‘At 4 a.m., EMTs and police officers came into my bedroom and told me my daughter had overdosed,” Leslie said. “I thought I was in a nightmare, I didn’t understand.”

Luckily, Abby survived. Now, years later, her mom is turning the traumatic incident into action. She’s joined forces with Senator Mark Warner (D, Va.) to urge Discord to do more to ensure dangerous groups are booted from the platform. Plus, she’s asking Congress to pass the Kids Online Safety Act to hold social media companies liable for the content on their platforms.

“Why isn’t there content moderation? Why aren’t there laws to protect our children?” said Leslie.

In response to 8News, Discord released the following statement:

“We created Discord to be the best place for people to hang out and talk together around playing their favorite games. In order to achieve this mission, we know that Discord must, first and foremost, be a safe space for our users. That’s why safety is integrated into every aspect of our product and policies.

These groups and actions are horrendous. They have no place on Discord, or in society as a whole. Discord was the first platform to proactively detect and report one of these groups to law enforcement, and we haven’t stopped fighting them, and groups like them, since. We have highly skilled teams who work relentlessly to combat these predators, coordinate closely with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), and, where appropriate, provide information to law enforcement to eradicate this behavior on our platform and across the internet.”

Leslie says her daughter Abby is now 19 years old and is attending college.

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