What is Discord? What to know about Tumbler Ridge shooter’s chat platform

In early October 2026, U.S. and B.C. law enforcement agencies announced murder conspiracy and other charges against a Washington state resident accused of aiding and abetting Jesse Van Rootselaar’s preparations for carrying out the mass shooting at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School in February of 2026.

The details revealed that the pair communicated on Discord, a chat service widely used by teens and adults for either focused, private conversations or more wide-ranging, open group chats on topics of shared interest.

Here’s what to know about Discord.

Discord was created in 2015 by two friends who harnessed the power of their video game chat platform to create a new communication tool. In its early years, it spread from being used primarily by gamers to becoming popular with young people and adults connecting over hobbies and study groups.

Its popularity exploded during the pandemic as people looked to connect remotely. As many adults navigated work calls on Zoom, a younger crowd took to Discord instead. The app, which is largely free of the algorithmic intrusions of other social media platforms, now has hundreds of millions of worldwide users.

It allows text, voice and video messaging with a single user or in group chats big and small. Users create what are called “servers” to communicate with those in their group and set their own rules for who is allowed to participate and how it’s moderated. Think of servers as a set of chat rooms, as with work apps like Slack, largely moderated by those who create them.

Yes, but there are issues with that. Discord asks that users verify they are 13 or over, and the company groups users based on their age. There’s a teen category (13 to 17) with safety protocols aimed at protecting them from inappropriate content, predatory behaviour by adults and harassment. Then there are age-restricted 18+ groups, with looser rules of engagement.

But the company has struggled to enforce its own policies. There have been reports of underage users, and Discord deals with hundreds of thousands of reports each year of inappropriate behaviour such as harassment, hate speech, bullying and non-consensual sharing of intimate images.

In September 2026, Discord announced in a blog post that it is beefing up age verification, and users will need to show government-issued ID if they try to access explicit content. Discord said it deletes all personal information provided to its vendors once a user’s age is confirmed.

No. The company does not require users to confirm their identity and allows pseudonyms except in rare cases. But originally that was in the spirit of personal privacy rights rather than hiding unlawful or questionable activity. Its platform and server groups are public and widely accessible on standard web browsers and apps.

By contrast, the dark web uses hidden networks like Tor and I2P and deliberately suppresses its content — as opposed to simply making it password-protected and secure from prying eyes — so that illicit activity can go undetected. It also requires specialized software and an understanding of internet trickery to remain anonymous and untraceable.