--- title: Discord: 2026 TIME100 Most Influential Companies description: Find out why Discord was selected for TIME‘s list of the most influential companies of 2026. canonical: https://time.com/collection/time100-most-influential-companies/2026/discord/ article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2026-04-30T13:18:38.466Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-12T07:03:07.614Z article:section: Business og:title: TIME100 Most Influential Companies 2026: Discord og:description: Find out why Discord is on the list og:url: https://time.com/collection/time100-most-influential-companies/2026/discord/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2ff71de4ad5d7360/69e4346649bc98076240bc91/time100-companies-2026-discord.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME100 Most Influential Companies 2026: Discord og:type: article twitter:card: summary twitter:title: TIME100 Most Influential Companies 2026: Discord twitter:description: Find out why Discord is on the list twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2ff71de4ad5d7360/69e4346649bc98076240bc91/time100-companies-2026-discord.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Apr 30, 2026 # Discord A group chat with global power by [Juwayriah Wright](https://time.com/author/juwayriah-wright/) ## Juwayriah Wright Wright is an Editorial Producer for TIME.  Nikolas Kokovlis—NurPhoto/Reuters Discord was a social network built for gamers. With more than 200 million monthly active users, it has since become home to communities ranging from homework help to corporate workplaces and political movements. In September, it helped topple a government. When [Nepal banned more than two dozen social media platforms](https://time.com/7315858/nepal-protests-social-media-ban-authoritarian-censorship-internet-freedom-analysis/)—partly in response to #nepokids, a viral hashtag calling out children of the political elite for flaunting luxury lifestyles—protesters circumvented the ban and organized on Discord, turning the platform into a de facto national assembly. More than 145,000 citizens joined a single Discord server to debate who should lead their country after protests left at least 74 dead and [forced Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli to resign.](https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/09/1165808) The consensus choice was Sushila Karki, a former chief justice known for opposing corruption, and after consulting with the military, she was sworn in on Sept. 12 as Nepal's first woman head of government—with a mandate to hold elections. Those elections, in March, delivered a landslide for [Balendra Shah](https://time.com/collection/100-most-influential-people/2026/balendra-shah/), a 36-year-old rapper turned mayor of Kathmandu who had become a face of the uprising, making him the country's youngest-ever prime minister. Not all of it was clean— some servers hosted discussions about [violent tactics](https://www.msn.com/en-in/money/topstories/nepal-protests-gen-z-protestors-mobilising-through-discord-app-to-coordinate-actions-heres-what-they-discussed/ar-AA1MaOnS) and questions arose about how representative the online consensus really was. But Nepal showed just how far Discord's reach can extend. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collection/time100-most-influential-companies/2026/discord/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collection/time100-most-influential-companies/2026/discord/"},"headline":"Discord","datePublished":"2026-04-30T13:18:38.466Z","dateModified":"2026-05-12T07:03:07.614Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collection/time100-most-influential-companies/2026/discord/","keywords":["TIME100 Companies","franchise","list"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2ff71de4ad5d7360/69e4346649bc98076240bc91/time100-companies-2026-discord.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Juwayriah Wright","jobTitle":"Wright is an Editorial Producer for TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/juwayriah-wright/"}],"creator":"Juwayriah Wright","articleSection":"Business","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2ff71de4ad5d7360/69e4346649bc98076240bc91/time100-companies-2026-discord.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/business/","name":"Business"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collection/time100-most-influential-companies/2026/discord/","name":"Discord"}}]}] ```