Discord messages from big public servers will show up in Google search

Messages posted in Discord’s largest public communities will start appearing in Google and other search engines from mid-December. Discord announced the change in a blog post on Tuesday, 27 October. It covers more than 63,000 Discoverable Servers. It is on by default for adults in most countries, though not in Europe.

Discoverable Servers are the communities that anyone can join without an invite. They need at least 1,000 members and must be at least eight weeks old. They must also meet Discord’s activity and safety rules. Their admins chose to list them in Discord’s Server Discovery. The changes leave private servers, direct messages and group chats untouched.

“This has led to valuable information being locked in Discord conversations, inaccessible to the wider internet. We want to fix this,” wrote Kelsey Duncombe-Smith, a group product manager at Discord.

Two stages, both on by default

From 16 November, every Discoverable Server gets a Server Web Page, a public page that describes the community. If admins have not made one, Discord publishes a default page. The pages may also show automated summaries of conversations in public channels.

From mid-December, some messages from public channels can appear on those pages and in web search. They appear in the posters’ own words. Discord will not show usernames or avatars next to them. Discord won’t include messages sent before mid-December. It will label the channels that can appear on the web.

Discord has already tested the messages with game communities including NBA 2K, Rust and Dead by Daylight. During that pilot, all the published posts came from admins and moderators.

How to opt out

Users can turn their messages off in User Settings, under Data and Privacy. One switch covers every Discoverable Server they are in. Messages sent while the setting was on stay on the web unless the user deletes them. Users cannot opt out of the channel summaries, which only admins can switch off.

Admins can choose which channels take part, or opt them all out, in Server Settings under Web Presence. If they change nothing, public channels stay in. A server that does not want a web page at all has to stop being Discoverable.

The message setting is off by default in the EU, the UK, Canada, Brazil, Australia and South Korea. Discord put that down to “legal restrictions”. Users there have to opt in. Discord excludes teen accounts entirely. Discord sorts users by age with checks it rolled out last month.

The privacy backlash

The plan drew criticism from users over privacy, as Lauren Forristal reported for TechCrunch. Some argued that posting in a public server does not mean they want their messages found across the internet. Others asked whether AI companies could train models on the messages. Reddit users have raised the same worry about AI scraping, TechCrunch noted.

Discord says the goal is to bring back what forums offered: answers anyone can find. Earlier this month, it also opened its ad business to smaller brands.