This question has been asked many times, but most answers are either outdated or are unclear and do not provide valid evidence.
The official wiki states that PolicyService can be used to return whether a player can view social links on the game page, including “Discord”, “Facebook”, “Twitch”, and “YouTube” links. I would like to use this to safely provide Discord links in my games to 13+ players since it literally works the exact same way social links do on the website.
One of my games was taken down a couple years ago for having a Discord link, although it may have been because I did not use PolicyService or had content in the server that went against Roblox TOS. Relying solely on social links under your game’s description makes it extremely more difficult to grow your server, so I wanted to get a clear answer before risking using this service to advertise my Discord server in my games.
As far as I’m aware, the blanket ban on Discord has never been lifted and likewise I can’t find anyone to provide a credible source that the ban was reversed despite what’s found in the Community Rules or what PolicyService is capable of accounting for now.
PolicyService by design is more for global legal compliance more than it is for designing for rules. Although information like player age and region are taken into account when determining what policies are returned, no change in the rules regarding Discord was made apparent. Discord is listed as an allowed social media link but the fact that it’s still not mentionable anywhere doesn’t reflect that and I’d assume it has more to do with justifying allowing Discord via the Social Media tab alone.
Would not risk that but interested in an answer as well. Haven’t found a moment to message Developer Engagement about it but they may be able to provide an authoritative answer if you’re interested.
If references to Discord even through PolicyService was outlawed, wouldn’t the rules make an explicit exception? For example, in the #bulletin-board rules, even though Discord is allowed on the main website for 13+ under a social link, they explicitly disallow sending Discord links:
Agreed. I would love an official statement from Roblox to come out about this, because this seems like a major grey area to me. A few years ago they did the blanket ban, yet they continue to support it on the website and through services in games. It just seems like an outdated rule in my opinion since PolicyService is now a thing.
Here is actually something added to the Community Rules a while ago, but it does not explicitly state whether Discord links are allowed as well:
In my opinion, though, I’d say Discord links are allowed since the wiki specifically includes “Discord” in the examples of web links for “AllowedExternalLinkReferences” in GetPolicyInfoForPlayerAsync.
If that is the case then an official word would be appreciated. I would prefer not to bank on the instance of an explicit exception being written down silently nor the implication of such missing being the basis for assuming that suddenly the blanket ban was eased up provided we respect policies.
PolicyService, for the time that I’ve known it, has been for global compliance use rather than for situations like this and Discord happens to be one of the included links as per the Social Media tab. I don’t know the full extent of what you can use that for and there’s already conflicting information around the matter, all of which so far have been speculative on the basis of wording.
I’ve just been assuming Discord remains blanket banned until otherwise stated and confirmed. It’s a stupid risk otherwise and I don’t deal in those.
DevForum and Roblox are overseen by different moderation teams and adhere to different policies so I’m not too sure the Bulletin Board is a sound example.
Sorry for necoropost, but this is one of the top search results for this question. As of posting this, the official Terms of Service now includes Discord as an allowed site when secured with the PolicyService API.
