Brazil's Federal Prosecution Service (MPF) is now joining the country's data-protection regulator ANPD in putting the screws on Discord.
This time, the target is not just a single feature – but the very main aspect of the service: encryption and age verification.
Prosecutor Paulo Thadeu Gomes da Silva has formally asked the US company for information on how it protects children.
The request will cover age verification and risk management, and specifically, the way these are handled in private servers and in features protected by end-to-end encryption.
This comes after the ANPD ordered Discord to switch off some of its features in Brazil, and the company complied.
The regulator had accused Discord of repeatedly hosting violence, harassment, grooming and inducement to self-harm involving children.
The order came after a 13-year-old girl died by suicide during a live video broadcast on the platform. The company was ordered to turn off its live video features – screen sharing and camera video in servers and calls – and did so on Monday.
The features remain turned off in Brazil, while text and voice work. The threat of not complying with the order was a fine of up to R$50 million (more than $9 million), or ten percent of Discord's revenue in the country.
But the company also pushed back against the accusations, saying that the girl had taken her life away from the platform.
Discord also said that its encryption means it cannot monitor communications in real time, but that its system to detect and remove harmful content did not work as quickly as it should have during the broadcast, taking around two hours to take it down.
Both the regulator and the prosecutor are basing their actions on a new law in Brazil, the Digital Statute of the Child and Adolescent, that came into force on March 17.
The law requires platforms to verify the age of users and protect them from abuse.
But the actions against Discord are particularly concerning because of how quickly the case is moving towards demanding that the company either breaks its encryption or builds tools to bypass it, and provides a way to identify its users – ostensibly to check their age.
The incident that started with the death of the 13-year-old girl and the subsequent order to stop live video features has now escalated to a full-blown "war" on Discord's encryption and privacy.
It's a textbook example of how a terrible and tragic event is exploited to push for the erosion of privacy and security for all users, and a way to sneak in dangerous regulation under the guise of protecting children.
