Discord accidentally banned over 8,000 people for posting grids and other ‘benign’ images

Discord says a bug affecting its information strategy caused it to mistakenly prohibition much than 8,000 accounts since May. The platform’s statement follows a activity of reports from users complete the past week, who opportunity they’ve been banned for posting images containing grids, such as chessboards, game textures, and moreover Minecraft inventories.

Stanislav Vishnevskiy, Discord cofounder and main exertion officer, writes that the bug impacted astir 200 users who posted “grid-like” pictures, successful summation to astir 8,000 group who posted “other benign images” since May 2026. “Everyone affected has now been unbanned,” Vishnevskiy says.

In a thread connected X, Discord writes that its information strategy is designed to emblem contented by “matching it against known harmful material.” This strategy tin nutrient “false positives,” Discord explains, which is erstwhile an worker would measurement successful to reappraisal the flagged content. But alternatively of conscionable temporarily preventing the relationship from uploading contented during the review, a glitch led its strategy to prohibition users entirely.

“When our unit reviewed and cleared those accounts, the aforesaid bug prevented the prohibition from being lifted automatically, truthful it conscionable stayed successful place,” Discord says.