The leaked documents supposedly shed light on US interests in various corners of the world, including the Pentagon’s assessment of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, even though the veracity of the disclosed data is yet to be ascertained.
These materials, whose disclosure was blamed by the US authorities on a 21-year-old National Air Guardsman named Jack Teixeira, recently emerged on social media, with the first platform they appeared on being Discord.
So what exactly is Discord, a piece of communication software that was used to disseminate this “classified information”? Sputnik explains.
What is Discord?
Discord is a free digital communication platform created in 2015 by Jason Citron and Stanislav Vishnevskiy.
A free app available on both desktop computers and mobile devices allows users to communicate with each other through text messaging, by voice or via video chat, as well as to share files.
Each Discord server is capable of accommodating tens of thousands of users (up to nearly a million) who can set up their channels (essentially chat rooms) to converse with each other and share content.
Originally envisioned as means to improve communication between video game players, Discord started enjoying increased popularity among a much wider audience since 2020 when anti-COVID lockdowns forced thousands of people all over the globe to avoid socializing and to rely on digital communication instead.
Discord is free to use, although users may opt for a paid subscription to upgrade to Discord Nitro which affords certain perks such as advanced server customization and bigger file upload limits. The upgrade, however, is purely optional and is not necessary for users to communicate with one another.