Brazilian federal authorities have launched a major legal action against communication platform Discord, pushing for sweeping changes to the company’s child protection systems and demanding nearly $100 million in compensation for collective harm, after a 13-year-old girl was coerced into dying by suicide during a live broadcast on the service.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday by Brazilian government bodies, comes after weeks of failed regulatory negotiations, during which Discord’s proposed safety adjustments were labeled inadequate to mitigate documented threats to young users. The move marks the latest escalation in Brazil’s aggressive crackdown on global social media and digital platforms that fail to meet strict new online child protection requirements.
The crisis that prompted the latest legal action unfolded in July, when a 13-year-old girl from a small town in central-western Brazil was targeted during a livestream held on Discord. According to Brazilian Justice Ministry cyber intelligence officials from Ciberlab, a group of participants taunted and pressured the girl for more than 45 minutes: first forcing her to attempt to kill an animal, then urging her to take her own life when she refused the initial demand. Six people, including five teenagers—one just 14 years old—and one adult, have been arrested in connection with the girl’s death.
In early August, Brazil’s National Data Protection Agency (ANPD), the country’s top digital regulator, ordered Discord to immediately halt all livestreaming services within the country’s borders. On August 17, the platform, which boasts over 90 million daily active users globally, complied with the order, issuing a public statement saying it was actively working to “make Discord safer for teens.” But Brazilian regulators argue that the platform has not fixed fundamental gaps in its age verification and user protection frameworks, leaving minors and other vulnerable users exposed to severe harm.
Government officials clarified that the lawsuit has two core goals: first, to compel Discord to implement comprehensive, effective safety measures that protect children, adolescents, and women from harm in the platform’s digital space; second, to force the company to pay 500 million Brazilian reals, equivalent to roughly $97 million, in collective moral damages.
This legal action against Discord is not an isolated move, but part of a broader regulatory push by Brazil to hold digital platforms accountable for online child safety. Just one day before the Discord lawsuit was filed, ANPD imposed a nearly $30 million fine on ByteDance-owned short-video platform TikTok for its own failures to meet child protection obligations. Regulators called that fine a “powerful signal” to all platforms operating in Brazil that non-compliance will not be tolerated.
ANPD director Lorena Giuberti Coutinho confirmed last week that the agency has opened compliance reviews for 22 major social media networks and digital platforms, to check alignment with a new national law enacted this year that strengthens protections for children and teenagers online. She told reporters that users and companies should prepare for far more aggressive enforcement actions from the regulator in the coming months.
Brazil has already implemented sweeping rules for digital platforms, including mandates that require all user accounts for people under 16 to be linked to a parent or legal guardian’s account, alongside broad crackdowns on the spread of disinformation across digital services.