Today, Discord announces the widespread availability of AutoMod, a standalone moderation tool built directly into the platform to remove stress from human moderators. In addition to the official launch of AutoMod, Discord also allows more servers to offer paid memberships to their users and adds new features to manage these premium subscriptions.
AutoMod is designed to scan servers for selected words and phrases and then automatically distribute replies such as blocking messages, alerting administrators, and running out of offensive users. The feature has been available for a “small group of servers” for a couple of months, but is now available on any Discord community server.
AutoMod comes with built-in word lists for filtering. Image: Discord administrators can also set custom filters. Image: Discord
Discord’s AutoMod software offers an integrated alternative to the third-party moderation robots that have emerged to automate the often difficult task of keeping communities safe and civil on the platform. At launch, AutoMod offers three ready-made word lists that moderators can choose to filter, with the option to add up to three custom banned word lists. According to Discord’s FAQs, future AutoMod features will include the ability to detect and block malicious links and spam.
AutoMod is available to administrators with the “Manage Server” permission and can be found in a server’s configuration menu. It’s only available for community servers, which are designed to be larger spaces like a public chat room instead of for small groups of friends who just want to use Discord to chat while they play.
Premium subscriptions can be configured to access unique parts of a server. Image: Discord
Meanwhile, Discord’s premium membership feature, which was launched as a closed experiment last December, is expanding to more eligible servers in the U.S. The feature is designed to allow administrators to monetize access to their server with access to chat rooms for members only and other perks. It also gets some new features, such as a dashboard for administrators to track premium revenue, the ability to offer free trials, and custom server emoji support.