Everyone is bullying the UK government in its own Discord server

Y’all need to start listening to my girl Lauren and stop making Discord servers for things that don’t need to be Discord servers. This time it’s the turn of the UK Government—specifically His Majesty’s Treasury, the economic and finance ministry—to needlessly tap into the platform. Yep, it’s going about as well as you think.

It may be a read-only Discord with a mere three channels, but that hasn’t deterred the server’s rapidly-growing members from making an absolute mess of the whole thing. For starters, the government thought it would be a great idea to leave emoji reactions on across all three channels: the welcome channel, an instructional “how to use” channel and the feed intended for HM Treasury news. Mercifully, the government seems to have at least had the foresight to only allow Discord’s base emojis on its server. I can’t imagine how much worse it would be if people were plucking their own custom emojis for reactions.

Still, that hasn’t stopped some rather creative (or juvenile, depending on your outlook) use of the alphabet emojis to craft words like “pies,” “doge,” and of course “cum.” There’s also the classic c-word—a favourite amongst ourselves and the Aussies though perhaps not PC Gamer appropriate—used on two posts regarding chancellor Jeremy Hunt. Someone has even managed to construct an entire sentence from the emojis, simply stating “fuck the royals.”

With a lack of text channels, people have been taking the opportunity to use their Discord usernames to drive some messages home. I’ve been keeping an eye on the welcome channel while writing this, during which time somebody called “Prince Andrew is a nonce” repeatedly left and joined the server, his name flittering in between other members joining. Numerous other scathing reviews of the Tory government have popped up in username form, as well as parodies of current prime minister Rishi Sunak and Margeret Thatcher. One username demands people throw eggs at King Charles. 

I couldn’t think of a more British way to handle another daft government decision, and I imagine it won’t be long before it realises its mistake and shutters the server entirely. For now though, if you fancy witnessing an absolute dumpster fire, you’re more than welcome to join the HM Treasury Discord.

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