Brazil orders Discord to bolster child safety after teen suicide

A Brazilian judge on Wednesday ordered the messaging platform Discord to do more to protect underage users after detecting shortfalls that allegedly led to the suicide of a 13-year-old girl.

The South American nation is one of the most active online regulators on the planet and last month sued Discord for nearly $100 million after the teenager's death in July.

Wednesday's ruling ordered the platform to strengthen its parental control and age verification mechanisms, among other measures.

Failure to comply with these "emergency" provisions will result in a daily fine of around $20,000, the ruling said.

The court in Brasilia has not yet ruled on the lawsuit filed by the government over Discord's alleged failure to protect children from harmful content.

During a 45-minute livestream, other teenage users allegedly encouraged a young girl to kill an animal, and when she failed to do so, goaded her into killing herself.

Brazil's National Data Protection Agency (ANPD) ordered Discord to suspend livestreams following the suicide in a small town in the center-west of the country.

That same month, the platform introduced a plan to improve its safety features, but the measures were deemed insufficient by Brazilian authorities.

The US-based company with over 90 million active daily users worldwide did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment on the latest ruling.

Brazil this year made it compulsory for platforms to link under-16 accounts to those of their parents and to verify users' ages.