Kids Use Discord Chat To Track Predator Teacher’s Actions; Under California’s Kids Code, They’d Be Blocked
from the be-careful-how-you-"protect"-those-children dept
It’s often kind of amazing at how much moral panics by adults treat kids as if they’re completely stupid, and unable to do anything themselves. It’s a common theme in all sorts of moral panics, where adults insist that because some bad things could happen, they must be prevented entirely — without ever considering that maybe a large percentage of kids are capable enough to deal with the risks and dangers themselves.
The Boston Globe recently had an interesting article about how a group of middle school boys were able to use Discord to successfully track the creepy, disgusting, and inappropriate shit one of their teachers/coaches did towards their female classmates, and how that data is now being used in an investigation of the teacher, who has been put on leave.
In an exclusive interview with The Boston Globe, one of the boys described how in January 2021,he and his friends decided to start their “Pedo Database,” to track the teacher’s words and actions.
There’s even a (redacted) screenshot of the start of the channel.
The kids self-organized and used Discord as a useful tool for tracking the problematic interactions.
During COVID, as they attended class online, they’d open the Discord channel on a split-screen and document the teacher’s comments in real time:
“You all love me so choose love.”
“You gotta stand up and dance now.”
Everyone “in bathing suits tomorrow.”
Once they were back in class in person, the boys jotted down notes to add to the channel later: Flirting with one girl. Teasing another. Calling the girls “sweetheart” and “sunshine.” Asking one girl to take off her shoes and try wiggling her toes without moving her pinkies.
“I felt bad for [the girls] because sometimes it just seems like it was a humiliating thing,” the boy told the Globe. “He’d play a song and he’d make one of them get up and dance.”
When the school year ended, the boys told incoming students about the Discord channel and encouraged them to keep tabs on the teacher. All in all, eight boys were involved, he said.
Eventually, the teacher was removed from the school and put on leave, after the administration began an investigation following claims that “the teacher had stalked a pre-teen girl at the middle school while he was her coach, and had been inappropriate with other girls.”
The article notes that there had been multiple claims in the past against the teacher, but that other teachers and administrators long protected the teacher. Indeed, apparently the teacher bragged about how he’d survived such complaints for decades. And that’s when the kids stepped up and realized they needed to start doing something themselves.
“I don’t think there was a single adult who would ever — like their parents, my mom, like anybody in the school — who had ever really taken the whole thing seriously before,” he added.
The boy’s mother contacted Conlon, and now the “Pedo Database” is in the hands of the US attorney’s Office, the state Department of Children, Youth, and Families, the state Department of Education, and with lawyer Matthew Oliverio, who is conducting the school’s internal investigation.
“I did not ever think this would actually be used as evidence, but we always had it as if it was,” said the boy, who is now 15 and a student at North Kingstown High School. “So I’m glad that we did, even though it might have seemed like slightly stupid at times.”
So, here we have kids who used the internet to keep track of a teacher accused of preying on children. Seems like a good example of helping to protect children.
Yet, it seems worth noting that under various “protect the children” laws, this kind of activity would likely be blocked. Already, under COPPA, it’s questionable if the kids should even be allowed on Discord. Discord, like many websites, limits usage in its terms of service to those 13 years or older. That’s likely in an attempt to comply with COPPA. But, the article notes that the kids started keeping this database as 6th graders, when they were likely 11-years old.
Also, under California’s AB 2273, Discord likely would have been more aggressive in banning them, as it would have had to employ much more stringent age verification tools that likely would have barred them from the service entirely. Also, given the other requirements of the “Age Appropriate Design Code,” it seems likely that Discord would be doing things like barring a chat channel described as a “pedo database.” A bunch of kids discussing possible pedophilia? Clearly that should be blocked as potentially harmful.
So, once again, the law, rather than protecting kids, might have actually put them more at risk, and done more to actually protect adults who were putting kids’ safety at risk.
Filed Under: ab 2273, age appropriate design code, kids, kids code, teachers
Companies: discord
Comments on “Kids Use Discord Chat To Track Predator Teacher’s Actions; Under California’s Kids Code, They’d Be Blocked”
The concept of AB2273 is facially absurd. Kids will immediately find a way around any restrictions put in place and promptly inform every other kid in the country. I’m appalled at just how oblivious our state legislators are, whether in California or any other State in the country.
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They are trying to protect themselves from the Internet, but are failing to mention that they are the childish ones they are worried about.
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It’s useful to note that online communication tools have this age limit, not to prevent underage users, but to limit liability when underage users use their service anyway. Because they aren’t liable for their userbase supplying falsified data nor for any resulting actions taken enabled by that falsehood – hypothetically #iamnotalawyer
Adults: Of course the law is for us, who did you think it was for?
So, once again, the law, rather than protecting kids, might have actually put them more at risk, and done more to actually protect adults who were putting kids’ safety at risk.
Which in this case would have ensured that the same result that had been going on for apparently decades, the creepy teacher perving out on young students would have continued to happen since the only people who cared, other students, would have been barred from doing anything about it.
When a law presented as being ‘for children’ would have resulted in the protection of a sexual predator and the continued victimization of kids that might be a bad sign.
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Well that was a waste of 5 minutes
What moron wrote this FUD?
Children in California use Discord every day and they are in no risk of being banned from the platform. No one enforces that law because it’s stupid.
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Defending a law because it’s selectively enforced appears to me to run contrary to the rule of law.
Re: Not enforcing a law not yet in place, imagine that
Children in California use Discord every day and they are in no risk of being banned from the platform. No one enforces that law because it’s stupid.
No-one enforces it because it’s not a law yet and therefore the platform isn’t currently at risk of violating it.
Add in that liability as the law would and suddenly the platform’s calculations on what they will and will not allow will have to change, and if your only defense of the law is that it’s not a problem because of selective enforcement of it that’s not a good argument in favor of the law.
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👋 Hi, I wrote it.
First of all, you clearly did not read the article clearly. There are two laws discussed. COPPA, which is in effect now, which is why websites say they bar kids under 13. But what’s allowed right now is for websites to effectively deal with this by simply saying it, and simply asking users.
The problem, which I thought was clear from the post, is that once the AADC goes into effect, that’s no longer allowed. Then sites will need to actually engage in AGE VERIFICATION because they’ll need to know the age with certainty.
At that point, websites will become much more aggressive in blocking those actually under 13.
And while small companies may ignore the law, a company the size of Discord will not be in a position to ignore it.
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If anything, a company the size of Discord will be leading the charge to make all websites operate under that law. Some smaller Discord wannabes will be eliminated due to non-compliance (willing or not), and the rest will either shutter to avoid the law or end up staying small because they can’t afford to grow.
Never underestimate the power of capitalism—especially when the people with the capital know how to game the system.
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So… The kid is now 15, you said. And the screenshot of the start of the chat shows that the messages were being sent in 2021… It’s now 2022… Making him 13-14 in that chat, and completely in line with the rules of discord.
Can youuuuuu do math?
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The teacher taught 6th grade that is 11-12. The screenshot that was shown was from the end of the second year of the discord and was started because of the COVID shutdown. That was spring break of 2020. So 12 or even 11 if he has a summer birthday
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Yet.
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Well that was a waste of 5 minutes
Chicken little nonsense.
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… said nobody who has ever demonstrated any capacity for rational independent thought, ever.
“that other teachers and administrators long protected the teacher”
Something something failing of humans because protecting the image of the group trumps protecting kids from being diddled.
We had the kids who used their cell phones to record teachers doing bad things to kids… the response was to push to make sure kids could no longer have their phones in class & complain about intruding on the teachers rights.
If they are more concerned with keeping the image of the profession shiny than truth, its flawed.
But then this is a nation where people are showing up armed at Drag Queen Story Time events screaming how they are groomers & pedos but they never show up outside of the various churches where the pasts been caught actually diddling kids, because the image of the church matters more to them than if the church is covering up actual child abuse while there has never been an arrest of a drag queen for diddling kids at a story time.
If teens are more aware of the bad behavior than the adults, something is horribly wrong.
If the teens know telling the adults will not change anything, something is horribly wrong.
And because of the fear of secks, we can’t teach younger kids how consent works & that even if its an adult if it makes you feel ookie you can say no and tell someone.
Who are the groomers again?
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Straight people are groomers. It’s high time we dethroned them from their positions of chauvinism, privilege and abuse.
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stares
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Ignore them. They’re a right-wing troll who posts shit they think queer people say.
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Right wing people are fools dumb enough to believe in imaginary sky friends. Until they are removed from their positions of privilege, persecution will continue.
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“Damn right.” — the Catholic Church, probably
Through a number of completely unrelated incidents over the decades, I’ve come to learn that School Administrators (NOT Teachers, per se) are usually a particularly heinous breed of sub-human trogloid–overpaid (some egregiously so), self-righteous, bellicose, generally obnoxious and categorically worthless by vast majority. True, not all are pedophilist perverts, but those who are usually are guarded and protected by their fellow species dwellers. Many actual teachers are sincere and over-burdened with their tasks; the financial part of that over-burden could (in a perfect universe?) be at least partially addressed by redirecting funds squandered to (over)pay many useless Administrators, to Teachers’ salaries and perhaps a somewhat universal bank of supplies, thus freeing Teachers from having to purchase such necessary educational doilies with their own money. They say, If you can’t “do”, then “teach”. How about, if you can’t “teach”, then “administrate”.
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I must clarify, that I do understand the perv under discussion here is/was evidently a Teacher, not a honcho. And the kids utilizing the Discord channel are certainly to be lauded for their most welcome vigilance. And for what it’s worth, the “incidents” to which I refer involved myself and my own child, over the course of many years, more than I like to acknowledge!
This article makes it apparent that the writer does not know how discord works. Anyone can make a channel on discord, anyone can make a group. They don’t monitor the names of channels. They don’t really monitor anything unless maybe reports have gotten out that there is a specific group of pedos posting Kiddie porn or something. Even with California’s laws, similar to Facebook, kids could just say they’re 13. Discord is just a chat app for your friends, not much different than Skype or MSN Messenger. The kids basically just text on it and maybe call each other when they play games. It’s not like Twitter where things are shared publicly.
Re: TL;DR
Your post makes it apparent that you didn’t read the headline or the article. The kids used Discord to track what the teacher did on Zoom et al.
The law would mean that the kids would have had to lie about their age to use Discord, and if Discord had implemented a stringent age-verification already it’s entirely possible that this teacher would still be perving on kids.
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The article does, in fact, understand how Discord currently works. The entire point of the article is that the way Discord currently works allowed this to happen at all, and that with the inbound legislation, Discord won’t be able to continue working the way it works, on account of the added legal liability that will require them to instead implement age verification and prevent people from freely creating Discord servers as they do now.
Rephrased:
Discord is currently freely accessible, which is good, and the article shows why this is good.
If the upcoming legislation passes and is strictly enforced, Discord will have to change and no longer be so freely accessible, or risk being mightily sued.
Please, take a moment to read, understand, and think before responding. Full comprehension is important.
This is literally repulsive how the administration let him stay despite all of the claims. I’m glad those boys stood up and did something about it
W kids
Geography and Animation
Does anyone has to make a kids version of Discord I am 12.
What a bizarre article. It’s pushing an opinion on an a topic that has nothing to do with the situation at hand. Hell, nothing in that law says anything about discord. Author claims their chat would be blocked due to subject matter, does the author think there’s a guy who will manually read everything and block chats? Realistically, discord would just use a generic “promise me you’re old enough” or have a chat filter enabled by default, nothing that would even interfere in this situation. Even if discord was completely blocked, you really think the kids would just throw their hands up and shrug? What, do you think kids didn’t communicate with each other at all pre-apps? Do you even remember being that age?
Never even mind the fact that the true issue in this article is that this creep had been doing this stuff for years and reported multiple times and no one caring at all until one of the parents went over the school’s head to get the state department involved. That seems a helluva lot more serious to me. But sure. Blame something that has nothing to do with anything here.
Personally I don’t think the law is overly necessary either but to hold up this situation just tells us a) good or bad you don’t have a real grasp of what that law will affect and b) you care a lot more about that half formed opinion than the fact that these kids caught the slippery asshole that’s been being defended by that awful school.
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Under the new law, that will no longer be good enough. Sites must verify user age with reasonable certainty.
You really think such a filter wouldn’t catch something called “pedo database”?
No, they’ll find another way. Which is one more reason why AB2273 is stupid.
Please do educate us all then, what will it affect?
I hate having to see kids do this theirself
It’s sick how the Californian government didn’t notice this until now they even had to do it themselves I feel bad for the girls and classmates that had to go through this
This. Is. Why. We. Shouldn’t. Justify. PEDOS!
This law isn’t being pushed by these kids, obviously. It’s being pushed by overprotective parents who attempt to shield their kids from the world they themselves no longer understand. It’s the same argument being used all across the U.S. to ban any book that doesn’t have a straight white lead character. It was the main argument behind the war on drugs, and we all know how that turned out. Parents are less concerned about their kids getting an education which includes the real world, and more concerned with forcing them to live in a sterile bubble that can’t possibly exist. It doesn’t help that the people making the laws are all retirement age.
Left field journalism...
I get the scenario and praise the kids for taking action against this teacher, but the connection this writer made with child protection laws is laughable. So because people want protections in place to keep our kids off of websites and apps that put them at risk of child predators, you chose one minority example to counter this, when there are many many more cases where kids have been abducted because they were on chat channels at a young age and coaxed by predators into meeting them. You can always find an exception to every rule but that doesn’t make the rule bad. Also, these kids could have used any means of documenting this teacher that would have nothing to do with discord and it would still be successful. Don’t get so fixated on “oh they used discord and that wouldn’t be allowed under new laws”. You are reaching there.
Time to be a kid again
Trying to connect this teacher’s crimes in another state to California’s age law is a streeeeeeetch. Are you really trying to suggest that the kids involved would have found no other way to document their teacher’s crimes? You also have to balance the harms. Will more harm be prevented than inflicted by this law? I would say likely yes. If the worst harm that is inflicted is what is speculated in this story I’d say your evidence is pretty thin.
Pedo database
When I was in high school, the Marine Science teacher one of my younger sisters (1 year younger) had was a total creepazoid. This was pre-internet, and I wish there’d been something like what these kids set up back then. Because everyone knew the guy was a perv, it was always being mentioned to adults, and no one did a damn thing.
They have never even asked "are you ok"
This, from a former survivor of child sexual abuse. No-one did anything to help, no-one asked for his opinion on this, no-one even asked if he was ok: https://twitter.com/alexanderhanff/status/1579458044442054656
This man is a hero who has been betrayed by the system saying they are trying to protect him and prevent any othees from harm. They clearly have no interest in protecting anyone from monsters. One has to ask what are they trying to achieve?