Discord voice chat posts dizzying growth despite alt-right scandals

Discord, the popular gaming voice chat app, is growing strong despite a year dotted with recurring controversy.

As Discord today revealed, the app has more than tripled its user base since this time last year, with 87 million registered users. With 1.5 million more joining every day, that number is likely to hit a round 90 million by the end of the year, double its users in May.

That would be impressive growth under the best of circumstances, but considering this year has been dotted with scandals aimed in Discord’s direction, it’s amazing as many people are joining as they are.

Discord has been dogged by allegations it harbored unsavory servers since the beginning of the year. In January 2017, Discord CEO Jason Citron told Buzzfeed News the company would step in if spotted anything illegal, but otherwise had no strong comment on the dozens of alleged white nationalist servers. “Because we have such a large product, I think it’s inevitable that you have people who are misbehaving,” he said.

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Then came August 2017. After the protests in Charlottesville, you couldn’t swing the figurative cat without hitting a story labeling Discord the “alt-right chat app.” The protests had apparently been organized within Discord chat rooms.

The scandal was apparently wrapped when Discord shuttered those specific chat rooms shortly after, though for the rest of the month that was the vast majority of the news anyone heard about the app.

Now the app is boasting 14 million daily active users, so clearly it can grow despite the criticism thrown onto its darkest corners. Hopefully it continues to be a relatively positive place as it becomes even more of a cornerstone of internet discourse.