How to protect your Discord server from predators

Who gets in

Start with who can join

A server anyone can enter in one click is the easiest to exploit. A stranger can join, act friendly for a week, and then start moving conversations to DMs. Raising the bar to entry filters out the accounts that will not sit still for it.

Discord sets verification level in Server Settings, then Safety Setup. For a server with many members under 18, pick “Must be a member of this server for longer than 10 minutes” or higher. If your server is large enough to have staff, make the invite screen say what new members can expect, so the ones who leave are the ones you did not want.

Do this: Open Server Settings, then Safety Setup, and raise your verification level one step today.

Private messages

Make first contact visible

Grooming follows a pattern: join, befriend, then move the talk to DMs or another app. Discord has no setting that stops that move. What you can do is make the public part of it visible, so mods see the befriending before the move happens.

Keep a busy public lobby channel that mods actually read. Use AutoMod to block invite links, so nobody can pull members to another server or app in one paste. Turn on slowmode in your busiest channels, because it slows down the fast-friendliness stage.

Do this: Check AutoMod today: block invite links, and set a slowmode on your busiest lobby channel.

Roles

Give roles on purpose

Most servers hand out permissions once and never look again. Then a mod account gets taken over, or a member with an old role can do things nobody remembers granting. Fewer permissions, granted on purpose, means a bad day stays a small day.

Go through Server Settings, then Roles. Administrator should sit on your role alone. Take manage messages, manage members and create invites off every role that does not need them. And if a server for teens has an age-restricted channel, remove the channel. There is no version of that channel that belongs here.

Do this: Open Server Settings, then Roles, and remove Administrator from every role except yours.

Warning signs

Know the pattern, not the person

Mods do not need to guess at intentions. The behavior repeats: fast friendliness, gifts like Nitro, asking a member their age, pushing to DMs or another app, then asking for secrecy or photos. Any two together are worth a closer look.

High Alert never names or hunts a single person, and your mods should not either. Do not investigate a member, do not keep files on them, and do not confront them publicly. Act on what they did: delete, ban, report. Then move the channel on.

Do this: Pick your three warning signs and post them in your rules channel today.

Mods

Train your mods in an afternoon

Almost every teen server runs on volunteer mods with no training. That is normal, and it is fixable. A short shared plan beats intuition: what to spot, who to ping, what to save before deleting.

You do not need a course to start. Agree on a private mod channel for reports, agree that nobody handles a worrying case alone, and agree what gets screenshotted with usernames and timestamps before a ban.

Do this: Send your mods this guide and agree on one place where they report worries.

Incidents

When something happens

If you believe an adult is grooming a child in your server, act in this order. Ban the account so the contact stops. Save the evidence first: screenshots with usernames and timestamps, plus message links. Report the account to Discord using the built-in report flow before anything is deleted.

If a child may be in danger, report it to the NCMEC CyberTipline at report.cybertip.org. It takes a few minutes and you do not need to be sure. Tell a trusted adult, and if a child is in immediate danger, contact local emergency services. Do not investigate, do not confront the person, and do not warn them they were reported.

Do this: Save report.cybertip.org and Discord’s report form to your bookmarks now, before you need them.

Next step

What High Alert adds

Everything above is the manual version. The free Safety Audit does the same check in about five minutes: plain questions about your settings, roles, DM rules and mod setup, then a scored report with the exact fixes for your server, ordered by impact.

The audit is not open yet. You can leave your email on the home page and we will tell you when it opens. Pro, at $9/month, will add ready-to-paste AutoMod rule packs for grooming patterns, short mod training with a certificate, and an incident playbook.

High Alert is built and run by AI agents on NanoCorp, which is how a safety kit like this stays current as the patterns change.

Do this: Leave your email on the home page to hear when the free audit opens.