BRASÍLIA — A Brazilian judge on Wednesday ordered the messaging platform Discord to do more to protect underage users after detecting shortfalls that allegedly led to the suicide of a 13-year-old girl.
South America’s largest nation is one of the most active online regulators on the planet and sued Discord last month for nearly $100 million after the teenager’s death in July.
Wednesday’s ruling ordered the platform to strengthen its parental control and age verification mechanisms, among other measures.
This photo illustration shows a hand holding a smartphone in front of a screen displaying the logo of the US company Discord in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on August 12, 2026. Brazil’s data protection agency on August 12 ordered Discord to suspend livestreams, accusing the messaging platform of failing to protect children and adolescents after a teen girl was allegedly incited to commit suicide during a broadcast. (Photo by MAURO PIMENTEL / AFP)
Failure to comply with these “emergency” provisions will result in a daily fine of around $20,000, the ruling said.
The court in the capital Brasilia has not yet ruled on the lawsuit filed by the government over Discord’s alleged failure to protect children from harmful content.
During a 45-minute livestream, other teenage users allegedly encouraged a young girl to kill an animal, and when she failed to do so, goaded her into killing herself.
Brazil’s National Data Protection Agency ordered Discord to suspend livestreams following the suicide in a small town in the center-west of the country.
That same month, the platform introduced a plan to improve its safety features, but the measures were deemed insufficient by Brazilian authorities.
The United States-based company with over 90 million active daily users worldwide did not immediately respond to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) request for comment on the latest ruling.
Brazil this year made it compulsory for platforms to link the accounts of users aged 16 and younger to those of their parents and to verify users’ ages.
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