Pentagon leaks: Behind the veil of Discord platform where US secrets were exposed
The leaking of US intelligence documents which has exposed highly classified information about the war in Ukraine reportedly began on a gaming platform.
The documents that have left the Pentagon scrambling for answers were shared on a range of social media sites and are believed to have originated from a private group on Discord. Members claim they were never meant to be made public.
Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old member of the US Air National Guard, was arrested over the leaks.
But what is Discord, who are its users and does it have links to the far-right?
Just another gaming app?
Discord started in 2015 as an online hangout for gamers and a social tool. It grew during the COVID pandemic as a forum for its mostly 18 to 24-year-old users to gossip or even help each other with homework.
Players can create or join “servers” both public and private, where people can meet and hang out, chatting via text, video, or voice.
Private “invite only” servers can also be created. Each server can be broken down into channels for specific topics.
More than 150 million people visit Discord every month, according to co-founder and chief executive Jason Citron.
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Moment suspect in US documents leaks was arrested
The company hosts 21,000 servers – the vast majority of which are dedicated to gaming with others focused on topics like entertainment and music.
Who uses Discord?
Psychologist and director of the International Gaming Research Unit, Mark Griffiths, says Discord initially started with discussions about gaming strategy but has since evolved.
“Gamers, particularly young, male gamers might go online to find an audience that may actually listen to them. The people on these groups – their core identity is gaming – because of the amount of time they spend on it,” he said.
Discord is most popular with men aged 18-24.
Around 38% of its web users and nearly half of its Android app users are from Generation Z and they are roughly 75% male, according digital intelligence platform, Similarweb.
Read more:
Who is Jack Teixeira?
What do the documents say and how did they get out?
It is a “completely anonymous” and “very male platform,” said human behaviour technologist and psychotherapist Catherine Knipps.
She said: “You easily can make up a random username and make a false identity. As humans, we’re always looking for connection.”
She adds that a sense of belonging is “so important” and “people will adopt new personalities online for the sake of fitting in with their communities”.
Jack Teixeira has been arrested over the Pentagon leaks
Who is the ‘OG’ and what’s Thug Shaker Central?
Some of the leaks are believed to have started on Discord.
Roughly two dozen users in a reportedly private chat group called Thug Shaker Central talked about their favourite guns and shared memes and jokes – some of which were racist. The group also discussed wars including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Teixeira, who went by the handle, OG, reportedly drew admiration from the group’s mostly young members. He was identified by the New York Times as the leading figure in the chat group.
‘Documents were never meant to leave the group’
In interviews with the paper, members of the group said it started out as a place where young men would gather to talk about their love of guns and play war-themed video games.
They claimed the secret documents they discussed were meant to be purely informative and were never meant to leave the group.
They also said they saw Teixeira as the group’s unofficial leader, claiming he wanted to teach younger members about the realities of war.
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But the documents gained more attention after one of the members posted them on a public forum.
In a company statement, Discord said it is cooperating with law enforcement and “as this remains an active investigation, we cannot provide further comment at this time”.
How were the documents leaked and where did they go?
According to the New York Times, Teixeira began posting original documents from October to March, with a member of the group claiming the airman posted around 350 documents.
The paper reports that on 2 March, a member of the private group known as “Lucca” was involved in a conversation about the Ukraine war in a public Discord group where he published several dozen documents.
On 5 April, according to investigative website Bellingcat, the documents started circulating through pro-Russian Telegram channels and on 4chan.
Connection with the far-right?
This is not the first time Discord has been embroiled in controversy.
In 2017, white supremacists used the platform to plan the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville where a counter protester was killed.
Following the rally, Discord closed a number of accounts associated with the events in Charlottesville and said it would “continue to take action” against white supremacy and all forms of hate.
Then in May 2022, a white teenager posted racist memes and recorded his thoughts on Discord before shooting 10 people dead at a grocery store in Buffalo.
The details, kept on a private group, included months of racist, anti-semitic entries along with step-by-step descriptions of the teenager’s assault plans. Discord said 15 users would have had access to entries before the attack. There was no evidence anyone saw them before then.
The platform said it removed the details and banned the teeanger’s account as soon as it became aware of them. The company said it also took steps to prevent content related to the attack from spreading.
At least 51 people have died after heavy rain caused flash flooding, with water bursting from the banks of the Guadalupe River in Texas.
The overflowing water began sweeping into Kerr County and other areas around 4am local time on Friday, killing at least 43 people in the county.
This includes at least 15 children and 28 adults, with five children and 12 adults pending identification, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said at a news conference.
In nearby Kendall County, one person has died. At least four people were killed in Travis County, while at least two people died in Burnet County. Another person has died in the city of San Angelo in Tom Green County.
People comfort each other in Kerrville, Texas. Pic: Jason Fochtman/Houston Chronicle via AP
Large piles of debris in Kerrville, Texas, following the flooding. Pic: Reuters//Marco Bello
An unknown number of people remain missing, including 27 girls from Camp Mystic in Kerr County, a Christian summer camp along the Guadalupe River.
Rescuers have already saved hundreds of people and would work around the clock to find those still unaccounted for, Texas governor Greg Abbott said.
But as rescue teams are searching for the missing, Texas officials are facing scrutiny over their preparations and why residents and summer camps for children that are dotted along the river were not alerted sooner or told to evacuate.
AccuWeather said the private forecasting company and the National Weather Service (NWS) sent warnings about potential flash flooding hours before the devastation, urging people to move to higher ground and evacuate flood-prone areas.
Debris on the banks of the Guadalupe River in Hunt. Pic: AP Photo/Julio Cortez
An overturned vehicle is caught in debris along the Guadalupe River. Pic: AP
The NWS later issued flash flood emergencies – a rare alert notifying of imminent danger.
“These warnings should have provided officials with ample time to evacuate camps such as Camp Mystic and get people to safety,” AccuWeather said in a statement that called Texas Hill County one of the most flash-flood-prone areas of the US because of its terrain and many water crossings.
But one NWS forecast earlier in the week had called for up to six inches of rain, said Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management.”It did not predict the amount of rain that we saw,” he said.
Officials said they had not expected such an intense downpour of rain, equivalent to months’ worth in a few short hours, insisting that no one saw the flood potential coming.
One river near Camp Mystic rose 22ft in two hours, according to Bob Fogarty, meteorologist with the NWS’s Austin/San Antonio office. The gauge failed after recording a level of 29.5ft.
A wall is missing on a building at Camp Mystic in Hunt, Texas. Pic: AP/Julio Cortez
Bedding items are seen outside sleeping quarters at Camp Mystic. Pic: AP/Julio Cortez
A Sheriff’s deputy pauses while searching for the missing in Hunt, Texas.Pic: AP/Julio Cortez
“People, businesses, and governments should take action based on Flash Flood Warnings that are issued, regardless of the rainfall amounts that have occurred or are forecast,” Jonathan Porter, chief meteorologist at AccuWeather, said in a statement.
“We know we get rain. We know the river rises,” said Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, the county’s top elected official. “But nobody saw this coming.”
Judge Kelly said the county considered a flood warning system along the Guadalupe River that would have functioned like a tornado warning siren about six or seven years ago, before he was elected, but that the idea never got off the ground because “the public reeled at the cost”.
A drone view of Comfort, Texas. Pic: Reuters
Officials comb through the banks of the Guadalupe River in Hunt, Texas. Pic: AP/Julio Cortez
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was asked during a news conference on Saturday whether the flash flood warnings came through quickly enough: “We know that everyone wants more warning time, and that is why we are working to upgrade the technologies that have been neglected for far too long.”
Presidential cuts to climate and weather organisations have also been criticised in the wake of the floods after Donald Trump‘s administration ordered 800 job cuts at the science and climate organisation NOAA, the parent organisation of the NWS, which predicts and warns about extreme weather like the Texas floods.
A 30% cut to its budget is also in the pipeline, subject to approval by Congress.
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Professor Costa Samaras, who worked on energy policy at the White House under President Joe Biden, said NOAA had been in the middle of developing new flood maps for neighbourhoods and that cuts to NOAA were “devastating”.
“Accurate weather forecasts matter. FEMA and NOAA matter. Because little girls’ lives matter,” said Frank Figliuzzi, a national security and intelligence analyst at Sky’s US partner organisation NBC News.
Elon Musk says he has created a new political party – the America Party –
after asking his followers if he should do so in an online poll.
It follows his public falling out with Republican President Donald Trump.
On Friday, the billionaire had asked his followers on X whether a new US political party should be created.
On Saturday evening he wrote on the same platform: “By a factor of 2 to 1, you want a new political party and you shall have it!
“When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy.
“Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom.”
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Trump threatens to ‘put DOGE’ on Musk
The world’s richest man made the announcement just one day after President Trump signed a tax-cut and spending bill into law on Friday, which Musk had fiercely opposed.
Musk had previously said we would form and fund a new political party to unseat lawmakers who supported the bill.
From bromance to bust-up
The Tesla boss backed Trump’s election campaign with more than a quarter of a billion dollars, later rewarded with a high profile role running the newly created department of government efficiency (DOGE).
But observers of the two men, both with huge wealth and reputations, wondered how long the bromance would last.
Donald Trump gave Musk a warm send-off in the Oval Office in May. Pic: Reuters
In May Musk left the role, still on good terms with Trump but criticising key parts of his legislative agenda.
After that, the attacks ramped up, with Musk slamming the sweeping tax and spending bill as a “disgusting abomination” and Trump hitting back in a barbed tit-for-tat.
Trump earlier this week threatened to cut off the billion-dollar federal subsidies that flow to Musk’s companies, and said he would even consider deporting him.
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