'Hey guys, I have bad news for you all,’ read the post on social media. ‘It was me at UVU yesterday. im sorry for all of this.’Just hours after sharing these words on Discord, Tyler Robinson was arrested for the murder of political activist Charlie Kirk.The extraordinary thing is not that Robinson took to social media to gloat of his bloody deed, but rather that he chose Discord as the place to do it.The platform – which enables users to create and join groups based around shared interests – was founded ten years ago as a forum for computer-game enthusiasts to discuss tactics, hints, tips and cheat codes.A decade on and Discord now boasts around 200 million monthly users, 5 million of whom are resident in the UK, and was most recently valued at roughly $15 billion (£11 billion). Its primary demographic is men under the age of 25, not that you’d know given each user hides behind an obscure username and virtual avatar.Indeed, it is this anonymity that has attracted an increasingly sour crowd. Namely, depraved cyber-criminals who use the platform to – among other things – share illicit pornography and perform grotesque acts of sextortion, blackmail and even treason.In one chatroom supposedly for ‘teen’ users, the Daily Mail found a revolting post from a user called ‘teddy bear’ declaring: ‘I take all flavours of pedo.’ Another posted a ‘meme’ video of a cartoon character licking an ice cream in a suggestive manner entirely inappropriate for such a forum. A third found another user frankly telling the group: ‘I like kids.’So just how did Discord go from a niche subculture of gamers to a home of perversion – and the place where Charlie Kirk’s killer hid in plain sight? Tyler Robinson, the suspect for Charlie Kirk's assassination Charlie Kirk was fatally shot at the Utah Valley University campus earlier this monthIts founder Jason Citron loved computers. In fact, by the age of 13 he already knew how to code and had produced his first video game. By 27 he was worth over $100 million (£74 million) after selling his first tech company to a Japanese conglomerate. But it was what Citron did next that would define him.Four years later, in 2015, the then 31-year-old launched Discord. The idea was born from necessity. An avid video gamer, Citron found it difficult to discuss game tactics with his friends while they were playing live. The solution was Discord.Citron could not have imagined the horrors that his innocent gaming platform would go on to enable.The best way to think of Discord is like an enormous WhatsApp or Facebook group chat. Only, rather than just a handful of friends, Discord chats – known as ‘servers’ - boast thousands, even millions, of members. There are currently around 19 million servers on Discord each catering to a different niche interest or subculture.The vast majority of servers are innocent. Many are dedicated to popular video games such as Roblox and Fortnite, or popular bands and musicians. Others are even more innocuous, including ‘Study Together’ – which has just shy of 900,000 members – and functions as a virtual study space with users sharing live webcam footage of themselves studying in order to create a sense of community and accountability.Yet, this is also a website that has been frequently accused of providing a platform for terrorism and extremism.The notorious 2017 white supremacy riots in Charlottesville, Virginia – which left three people dead – were organised on Discord. By 2021 the platform claimed to have removed 2,000 groups affiliated to political extremism. But this only served to prove the sheer scale of the problem.The British Institute for Strategic Dialogue found in 2023 that despite the crackdown, ‘Discord was still functioning as a hub for extreme right-wing socialising and community building’. Notably, the report found evidence of hard-right Catholic extremism, Islamic extremism and even ‘expressions of support’ for the banned neo-Nazi terror organisation known as ‘Atomwaffen Division.’ Richard Ehiemere was arrested earlier this year for downloading indecent images of children and distributing stolen email address and password combinations. His crimes were carried out on Discord In 2022 PC Will Scott-Barrett – who worked in the Met’s intelligence command team – admitted to sending sexual messages to a 15-year-old boy over DiscordBetween 2021 and 2022, reports of child sexual abuse material on Discord rose by 474 per cent while over the same period, Discord’s response time to user complaints lengthened from three days to five. Without doubt, these post-pandemic years marked a turning point. Discord had morphed into something ugly, dangerous and fundamentally untrustworthy. To this day, the platform is playing a desperate game of catch up.Discord’s 2024 ‘transparency report’ makes for grim reading. Over the first half of last year – the most recent publicly available data – Discord issued warnings over child safety to over 200,000 separate accounts. More than 27,000 accounts were accused of ‘deceptive practices’; 33,017 of sending ‘exploitative and unsolicited content’; 56,042 of ‘harassment and bullying’; and an alarming 1,842 accounts were warned over ‘violent extremism.’But this is only the start. For over the same six-month period, Discord received just under 30 million user reports of ‘wrongful behaviour’, varying from bullying to violent and graphic content. Over 3 million users were associated with servers accused of enabling or hosting such content.In 2021, 17-year-old Richard Ehiemere started spending more time in his Hackney bedroom. Then four years on, in early 2025, police turned up to the family home and arrested Ehiemere for downloading indecent images of children and distributing stolen email address and password combinations which could be used to defraud the public. His crimes were carried out on Discord. In fact, under the alias ‘Retaliate#1337,’ Ehiemere had logged onto a discord server operated by the misogynistic neo-Nazi group a full 383 times.The group is one of the internet’s most notorious which the Daily Mail has chosen not to name, dubbed by US prosecutors as ‘dedicated to […] online child exploitation.’Earlier this year, four men connected with the group were arrested in the US. The Attorney’s Office described in sickening detail how the men had coerced children through blackmail into ‘increasingly dehumanising acts’ which included drinking their own urine, self-harming and engraving the names of group members into their skin with razor blades. In a shocking conclusion to the charges, the Office revealed the young victims were coerced to kill themselves on a live video stream.Sadly, the list of British citizens arrested for sexual offences similar to Ehiemere’s is long.In 2024, 33-year-old Syed Ali was sentenced to 17 months in prison after he was found to have entered a private chat room with a 13-year-old girl and asked her for sexually explicit images as well as details regarding her location. The previous year, 33-year-old Calum Lacey was sentenced to two years for encouraging girls under 16 to send him sexually explicit images, using Discord’s video chat to stalk his prey. In 2022 PC Will Scott-Barrett – who worked in the Met’s intelligence command team – admitted to sending sexual messages to a 15-year-old boy over Discord.In other words, Ehiemere is just one of many depraved men roaming the lawless plains of the social media platform.Not all illegal acts carried out on Discord are so obscene. In 2023, the platform made headlines when it was used to leak secret military documents – largely regarding the Ukraine war – via a server called ‘Thug Shaker Central.’ The documents quickly found their way onto pro-Kremlin Telegram channels as well as mainstream social media sites Twitter and Reddit.And then, this month, the Discord story took another twist when it became the first social media site to host the election of a prime minister.Nepal had seen months of civil unrest with young Nepalis angry at perceived corruption among the country’s elite. The government responded by banning 26 social media apps including WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter which duly drove protestors to Discord.The so-called Gen Z Protests culminated with the Himalayan country’s parliament being set ablaze and prime minister K.P. Sharma Oil resigning – though not before 72 people lost their lives.For Discord, it was proof that the site is now more than just a virtual lounge for young men living in their parents’ basement. But, of course, with great influence comes even greater responsibility. And critics fear that, from being a platform for Tyler Robinson to hosting the most heinous acts of virtual sexual aggression, Discord has lost control of its own product.The Daily Mail contacted Discord for comment but did not receive a reply.