An Interactive and Useful Program (Discord)
In the digital age, one of the most popular communication platforms is Discord, hosting millions of users worldwide. Initially created to meet the voice and text chat needs of gaming communities, Discord today has become a social communication application not only for gamers but also for students, developers, artists, and even the business world. On the platform, users can:
- Chat via voice and video,
- Create their own servers to form communities,
- Share their screens,
- Enhance the chat experience with various bots.
One of Discord’s biggest advantages is that it is completely free and offers powerful moderation tools for communities. Thanks to this, both small friend groups and large communities with thousands of people can communicate in an organized and safe way.
What sets Discord apart from other social platforms is its community-focused structure. Users can create servers based on their interests or join existing servers to connect with thousands of people in a shared environment. It can be used across a wide range of activities—from gaming tournaments and software development communities to educational groups and music-sharing rooms.
Especially popular among young people, the app stands out not only for its fast messaging features but also for its uninterrupted voice communication even on low internet speeds. During the pandemic, Discord was widely used for remote education and meetings, quickly becoming a part of daily life.
Today, Discord is not just a chat app, but also seen as a virtual community hub. For this reason, even the smallest access issue directly affects millions of users.
What Happened That Led to Its Ban in Turkey?
You won’t find this information on surface-level internet sources. Everything started back in 2019 on a FiveM server. The server had a panel used to expose cheaters. Around that time, the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in Turkey, and emergency decisions were made to suddenly open developing e-government systems nationwide. Along with this, critical security vulnerabilities emerged.
One of these vulnerabilities was on the E-Nabız system, which was hacked by a 16-year-old, leading to the theft of Turkey’s entire MERNIS (citizen registry) data. The leaked file was named 101.txt. At first, it was only used in gaming servers to expose cheaters. But later, this data spread through various forums and Discord servers until it fell into the hands of malicious, Russia-based groups.
As a result, these files were widely distributed. Unsurprisingly, the main distribution hub was Discord servers. With various bots connecting to databases, panels began to be accessed through Discord, and the situation spiraled out of control.
Exploiting this, criminals and predators began using this personal data to threaten children, even forcing them to send photos. The basic logic was simple: find out someone’s name, learn their city of residence, and boom!—the entire citizen registry including their Turkish ID number was in their hands. Even worse, this allowed access to family members, registered phone numbers, and more.
This turned into a nightmare where threats, blackmail, forced photos, drug trafficking, and disgusting exploitation spread widely. Unfortunately, as someone who uses information technology and Discord, I was personally exposed to such content at one point.
Pretty nauseating, isn’t it? So, you were wondering why Discord was banned in Turkey, right? Well, this is the real reason. On the internet, people love to twist words, but I wanted to bring up the truth behind it.
While access is still possible using Warp or other VPNs, that’s up to you...
And Finally:
- Date: October 9, 2024 → access was blocked.
- Sources: Anadolu Agency + TGRT News
- Reason: Following an investigation launched at the request of the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, it was stated that there were allegations of “child sexual abuse, blackmail, obscene content, and activities disturbing public order.” Based on these claims, access was blocked under Article 8/1 of Law No. 5651 on the Internet.
But you already know this part!..