Discord - 1792 Exchange

Rating Overview

Discord is Medium Risk.

Discord is Medium Risk. The company often yields to political activism in shaping corporate governance, potentially alienating consumers, dividing employees, and harming shareholders. The company implements race and identity-based policies that replace merit, excellence, and integrity with preferential treatment and outcomes. The company occasionally embraces corporate initiatives that redirect its central focus from business goals to partisan policies and divisive issues at times. This approach fails to safeguard free exercise, free speech, and free enterprise.

Rating Criteria

Corporate Weaponization Risk Levels
Criteria	Risk Level
Cancellations	Lower Risk
Discriminatory Philanthropy	Medium Risk
Employment Protection	High Risk

Corporate Weaponization ⓘ

Corporate Governance and Public Policy Risk Levels
Criteria	Risk Level
Advocacy Bias	High Risk
Funding	High Risk
Political Actions	Lower Risk

Corporate Governance and Public Policy ⓘ

Rating Criteria Detail

Criteria Risk Level Rationale

Corporate Weaponization

Criteria:

Has canceled customers, suppliers, or vendors due to their political views or religious beliefs OR corporately boycotts, divests, or sanctions regions, people groups, or industries.

Risk Level:

Lower

Rationale:

Discord has not publicly canceled customers, suppliers, or vendors based on political views or religious beliefs (1).

Criteria:

Charitable giving (including employee matching programs) policies or practices discriminate against charitable organizations based on views or religious beliefs.

Risk Level:

Medium

Rationale:

Discord likely uses Donate app, powered by Change up as its charitable giving platform. Change Up recommends vetting charities according to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hate List, which includes mainstream libertarian, conservative, family, and religious advocacy organizations (1) (2)(3)

Criteria:

Employment policies fail to protect against viewpoint or other discrimination and/or are ideological in nature.

Risk Level:

High

Rationale:

Discord offers DEI] training to its employees (1) Discord does not provide viewpoint protections for its employees (2)(3)(4).

Corporate Governance and Public Policy

Criteria:

Uses corporate reputation to support causes, organizations, or policies hostile to freedom of expression.

Risk Level:

High

Rationale:

In June 2020, Discord began to use its in-product screens to raise to encourage its users to take action on behalf of the BLM movement. The company has also pledged to provide special resources to “activists” and “advocates” using its service (1). Discord was part of the Freedom for All Americans coalition, which advocated for federal legislation that would overrule state laws designed to protect girls’ sports and similar laws (2). The company supports DEI within its business practices, employing a DEI Head of Inclusion, Diversity, and Purpose (3) Discord supports DEI within its business practices. From its Partnerships webdpage: “Additional considerations for partnership, such as a partners’ commitments to diversity, equity, & inclusion, human rights, and sustainability, are included” (4) Otherwise, Discord has not supported ideological causes or policies (5).

Criteria:

Uses corporate funds to advance ideological causes, organizations, or policies hostile to freedom of expression.

Risk Level:

High

Rationale:

Discord donated $186,770 to LGBTQ Freedom Fund & Glensen (1) Discord provides a benefits package for employees that covers travel/lodging costs for an abortion (2)(3)(4). Otherwise, there are no publicly known cases of Discord using corporate funds to advance ideological causes, organizations, or policies (5).

Criteria:

Uses corporate political actions and/or financial contributions for ideological, non-business purposes.

Risk Level:

Lower

Rationale:

Discord does not operate a PAC at this time and has not used its lobbying for ideological purposes (1)(2)(3).