What is Discord? Tyler Robinson allegedly used platform to talk about rifle, bullets

The Utah man being held in the shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk used the social media platform Discord to send messages about the rifle and engraved bullets, authorities said at a news conference this morning.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said that Tyler Robinson’s roommate, who was not identified, showed investigators messages that mentioned the rifle and how it was left under brush, wrapped in a towel.

Authorities said Thursday that a Mauser .30-caliber, bolt-action rifle had been found in the woods, along with a spent cartridge. Three other rounds remained in the magazine.

While popular among young Americans, Discord is probably not as known to older generations.

Launched in 2015, it was initially an app used for chatting about video games. It later expanded to include calling and video chats, and to allow users to show the video games they were playing and eventually allow people to play games within the platform.

According to the nonprofit Entertainment Software Rating Board, which helps parents decide what games and apps are suitable for their family, more than 200 million people use Discord every month.

“While people of all ages use Discord, it has become a key part of many kids’ social lives,” ESRB president Patricia Vance wrote in a blog post earlier this year.

Vance noted that while the free platform is primarily used by gamers, “Users now leverage Discord for all manner of personal and professional virtual gatherings, including hosting book clubs, knitting groups, sewing circles, and more.”

But these benign uses have been overshadowed in recent years by more ominous ones. Discord offers both private and public servers, allowing users to determine their own degree of privacy.

In 2022, Payton Gendron, the man indicted in the mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, that killed 10 people, used an invitation-only Discord server to detail his plans.

In a statement after the shooting, Discord disclosed Gendron’s activities on the platform and pledged to work to combat hate, violence and extremism.

“We understand hateful ideologies and proponents of organized violence will persist online and offline, and we acknowledge that we must do more to remove hate and violent extremism from Discord. We created Discord to be a place for people to find belonging, and hate and violence are in direct opposition to our mission. We take our commitment to these principles seriously and will continue to invest in and deploy resources,” the statement said.

Other mass shootings that were discussed on Discord include one last year at Apalachee High School in Georgia. Per reporting by The Washington Post, authorities believed the teen charged in that shooting, Colt Gray, used an email address that was linked to a chat discussing the desire to commit a mass shooting.

NBC News reported that Discord messages about violence were also connected to Dylan Butler, who took his own life after a school shooting in Iowa last year.

While Discord users can be anonymous, at Friday’s news conference, Cox said that the messages shown by Tyler Robinson’s roommate were from an account with the name “Tyler.”

Cox said they currently believe the shooter acted alone in the Sept. 10 shooting of Kirk, who was taking questions from an audience of about 3,000 people at Utah Valley University when he was hit by a single shot and collapsed.

On Thursday, his body was flown to Arizona on Air Force Two.