Sega’s newly launched Sonic Discord server is off to a rough start with questionable content, bans and a lockdown

Sega has launched a new Discord server dedicated to Sonic the Hedgehog, but may have initially bitten off more than it can chew.

The Discord launched on Monday evening, with the official Sonic the Hedgehog account on X inviting users to join in the conversation.

“Looking for a place to chill and chat all things Sonic the Hedgehog? Maybe find people to race in Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds? Qe are excited to welcome you to the official Sonic Discord server! Join now,” it said.

Things reportedly went downhill quickly, however, with numerous users being banned for posting questionable content (including sexual, racist and other discriminatory posts), and others being banned for less serious matters.

Just a few hours after the Discord launched, moderators locked chat permissions and added other restrictions in an attempt to curb the flow of inappropriate content and spam.

One user complained that they couldn’t post a message saying “Israel supports Sonic”, while another claimed to be banned for writing “I like Super Mario” (though another user pointed out that it was perhaps for using large text).

Another was banned for pretending to be Yuji Naka, and writing: “It gets very, very lonely in this cell, could someone sing me a beautiful, beautiful song?”

At the time of writing, eight of the nine chat channels are currently locked to most users, while Slowmode is also enabled to prevent users spamming the chat.

The only channel that’s still unlocked is for posting clips from Sonic Racing Crossworlds. Currently nobody’s posting clips in it – most are asking why they can’t post in the other channels, before these messages are promptly deleted.

Sega says that only users who pay to boost the server can currently post in all channels, although it appears that certain other users who gained a set amount of XP while the channel was open can also post freely.

An FAQ on the server’s news page is currently attributing a lot of deletions and user bans to its “aggressive” auto-moderation systems.

“We’ve seen reports of a number of users that may have been accidentally banned by the auto-mod,” it says. “Worry not – we’ll be reviewing these as things calm down.”

As for posts in all caps being deleted, it adds: “The auto-filter is pretty aggressive right now and will remove all caps posts, but in the future we’ll be able to scale this back.

“Same goes for specific words or phrases that might be innocent but are getting accidentally flagged currently, we’ll continue to iron these out.”

Putting a brave face on the situation, the FAQ concludes: “It’s busy, but the overwhelming majority of people here have been great today and very friendly (this is pretty standard when 50,000+ people cram into a new server within a few hours).

“We appreciate everyone’s energy today and we thank you for your patience! Launch is always a busy time, and things should start to calm down a bit in the coming days. Until then, we ride the wave together!”