Have you ever needed to block someone on a social media or online chat platform without dealing with the drama that comes after that? Discord is rolling out the Ignore button to give users the ability to give themselves space from certain people without the other person knowing.
The online gaming chat platform announced in a blog on Monday ahead of Safer Internet Day that it created the Ignore button to help users manage their interactions with their friends and peers more effectively, as well as keeping themselves safe from people who don’t have the best of intentions. Discord said the new feature was made especially for teenagers who are more prone to confrontations with the person they blocked in the real world after the fact.
Currently, you can block a user to prevent interactions with them, but we’ve heard from our users that this can sometimes feel confrontational and scary,” Discord said in the blog post. “This is particularly the case for teen users who often want to take space without the person knowing – we built this tool for you!
Whether you’re a teen or adult Discord user and you want to ignore the person who’s giving you a hard time in any way, go to your DMs with the user you were intending to block in the first place, click on their profile picture, tap the dropdown menu on the upper right corner of the screen and tap Ignore.
Power-up your defenses: reminders on how to protect your account from scams
This year’s Safer Internet Day theme is about protecting yourself and others from scams online.
Online scams can be serious, but with the right strategies, you can power-up your defenses and stay safe across the internet. Below are some tips to keep in mind while you’re using Discord or chilling anywhere online. Stay alert and keep your guard up to outsmart those sneaky scammers!
Reminders and tips to stay in control:
- Master Your Command Center: Take charge of your account settings, including privacy setups, friend requests, and authorized apps. Make sure everything is set just the way you want.
- Avoid Temptations: If something seems way too perfect, take a pause. It might not be the real deal.
- Guard Your Secret Codes: Your password is your secret weapon—don’t share it with anyone.
- Trust the True Players Only: Share personal info only with people you actually know and trust. This means people you have met in person or online and whose identity you can verify. Consider restricting who can DM with you. You can learn how to do this here.
- Lock Down Your Loot: Never share or show your authorization tokens. They’re the keys to your kingdom.
- QR Code Quest: Don’t scan mysterious QR codes from faces you can’t truly recognize.
- Double-Up Your Defense: Activate 2-Factor Authentication, just like equipping extra armor. Check out our 2FA blog for more details to set this up.
This Safer Internet Day and beyond, Discord is committed to making the internet as a whole a better, safer place and we are proud to continue to offer additional tools for our users to make informed choices that work best for them. We look forward to sharing more ways we’re continuing this important work! Additionally, we’re proud to collaborate with industry leading organizations. Check out these resources from a few of our partners below:
Finally, for users outside the US, Discord partners with ThroughLine Care, a global network for vetted helplines. The directory includes crisis support lines in over 100+ countries and is available in 11 languages. Users in the United States can text DISCORD to 741741 to connect with a live volunteer Crisis Counselor at Crisis Text Line: a free, 24/7, confidential text-based mental health service available in both English and Spanish.
Then you’ll see a pop-up message that reads, “Ignore [username]? Get space without letting them know.” Once you’ve made up your mind, tap the Ignore button on the bottom of the screen, and all new messages, DMs, and other notifications from that person are hidden from your view for the foreseeable future.
The Ignore button not only helps people of any age protect themselves from the toxic people in their lives on top of managing their interactions with other people in general so that they can focus on their tasks within Discord and outside of it, but it also protects them from scammers, which happens to be the theme for Safer Internet Day this year.
However, if ignoring the abusive Discord user isn’t right for you, you can still report them and they’ll receive disciplinary action from Discord support.
About Safer Internet Day
Over the years, Safer Internet Day has become a landmark event in the online safety calendar. Starting as an initiative of the EU SafeBorders project in 2004 and taken up by the Insafe network as one of its earliest actions in 2005, Safer Internet Day has grown beyond its traditional geographic zone and is now celebrated in approximately 170 countries worldwide.
