It is a platform, created in 2015 in San Francisco, originally designed for video game enthusiasts. Discord has also become an alternative social network for those disenchanted with Facebook or Twitter. This platform is at the center of attention: it is through it that a 21-year-old young man, Jack Teixeira, allegedly disclosed classified documents on the war in Ukraine.
Jack Teixeira, suspected of being at the origin of one of the most serious scandals of leaks of confidential documents for ten years in the United States, should appear this Friday April 14 in court in Massachusetts, according to a source contacted by the AFP within the Ministry of Justice. The junior Air National Guard employee “was arrested without incident” Thursday in Dighton, a small rural town south of Boston, Massachusetts, according to Attorney General Merrick Garland. His arrest was broadcast live by American television channels.
The 21-year-old is suspected of having posed a “very serious” risk to the national security of the United States, according to the Pentagon, by disclosing these “top secret” documents online. They also suggest that Washington collects intelligence on its closest allies, including Israel and South Korea. A most embarrassing affair for US President Joe Biden and his administration.
The National Guard said Jack Teixeira, who enlisted in September 2019, worked as a computer and communications specialist and had achieved the rank of Airman First Class, the third lowest in the hierarchy.
Documents posted on the “WowMao” forum
THE washington post reported on Wednesday that the leak was the work of a young man who worked on a military base. Under the pseudonym “OG”, the suspect would have published documents from the base where he works for months. He reportedly posted this information on a Discord forum called “WowMao”, the name of a YouTuber famous for his humorous videos.
According to Bellingcat investigative site, on March 1-2, 2023, a “WowMao” user posted more than 30 documents on the server, many of which are marked “Top Secret”. This same user also posted dozens of other documents about Ukraine on this server before they were purged on April 7. Although Bellingcat has seen these messages, the investigative site has not been able to independently verify the authenticity of the documents they contain.
“OG” had asked other members of the Discord group not to distribute the documents, assuring that he had no intention of being a whistleblower, according to the washington post. He was critical of the state – whose “abuse of power” he denounced -, the police and the intelligence community.
Lairs of “renegades”
Chat rooms on Discord and other platforms are considered by experts to be hideouts of “renegades”, breeding grounds for leaking confidential documents like those from the Pentagon on the war in Ukraine. “There are a million microcosms like this on social media,” remarked Syracuse University professor Jason Davis to AFP. “And Discord is very well known for these kinds of haunts.” Among the users of Discord, there are hackers, cybersecurity experts or even members of the army who are fans of shooting games, specifies Jason Davis.
After experiencing a few hiccups in its pursuit of mainstream success, Discord has seen its growth accelerate during the Covid-19 pandemic as a forum for its users to chat or even help each other with homework.
“Every month, more than 150 million people come to Discord to hang out with family, friends, and communities,” Discord co-founder and CEO Jason Citron said at a March press event. last. “It’s become a place where they have fun and do things together,” he added, as reported The Associated Press.
Discord’s users are young: About 38% of its web users are between the ages of 18 and 24, according to digital intelligence platform Similarweb. They are about 75% male, according to the research group.
The subject of discussion is sometimes less innocent. According to THE washington post, the forum where the Ukraine documents were leaked was mostly frequented by men and teenagers who love “guns, military equipment and God”. THE New York Times also reports that the group, made up of around 24 people including some from Russia and Ukraine, formed as early as 2020 around their mutual passion for firearms, military equipment and religion. Jack Teixeira was the leader of this group.
A platform with very little control
The platform is very little controlled, especially since the forums can be hosted directly by users. The servers around video games on Discord or Mastodon have a so-called “distributed” architecture, which means that no single entity controls them all, explains to AFP Michael Daniel, the boss of the NGO Cyber Threat Alliance. No one verifies the identity of the participants. “Whether it’s criminal or state-funded groups, they can find resources” on these forums, he adds.
“Could the leak come from a young man who works for the army? Of course,” notes Jason Davis. “Most of the leaks come from the personnel of the organization concerned rather than from hackers who have managed to penetrate the computer system,” he explains. “It is highly unlikely that the publication of these documents comes from an average teenager who would have managed to access this information”, abounds Michael Daniel.
A Discord spokesperson told AFP that user safety is a priority, and that content that violates the platform’s rules can lead to the expulsion of those responsible, the shutdown of servers and a report to the Discord. police. “Regarding the leak of classified documents, we are working with law enforcement,” he said. “As the investigation is still ongoing, we cannot comment further.”
A bad reputation
Dozens of photos of these documents have not only been relayed on Discord, but also Twitter and Telegram. Some have no doubt been circulating for weeks, if not months, before attracting the attention of the press. Bellingcat reports finding evidence that at least some of the files were circulating on social media as early as January 13, 2023. On March 4, 10 documents were posted to a Discord server called “Minecraft Earth Map.” Minecraft is a popular video game with millions of players around the world. For Bellingcat, the “WowMao” forum may therefore not be the original source of these classified documents.
However, US authorities have not publicly confirmed the authenticity of these documents posted online, which have not yet been independently verified. Many of these confidential notes are no longer available on the sites where they originally appeared.
Discord has had a bad reputation since 2017, when a far-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, left one dead. The FBI had found threads on forums where a white supremacist leader seemed to encourage violence. The company later said it banned servers promoting neo-Nazi ideologies. The site has also been accused of being used by pedophiles to find images of child pornography or communicate with minors.
Since 2020, recalls The Associated PressHowever, Discord is part of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism. This group, co-founded by companies such as Microsoft, Facebook and YouTube, works to curb the spread of videos of mass shootings broadcast live by their authors. Discord and Reddit still have a bright future ahead of them, says Jason Davis. “People are always looking for that sense of authenticity in a group that ‘really understands’ them,” he says.