His Majesty’s Treasury has opened a Discord account on the instant messaging platform and been subjected to a tidal wave of abuse.
The government department’s official Twitter account posted a link to its server on the chat app on Tuesday, though it has apparently been active since 14 October.
Discord allows users to communicate with voice calls, video calls, text messaging, media and files in private chats or as part of communities called “servers”.
Despite the Treasury blocking all comments on the platform, which is mainly popular with gamers, users have been inventive, using emojis and their usernames to mock the government, the Conservative Party and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt.
Emojis can be used to react to posts, which has led to a large number of aubergines, middle fingers, trans flags and EU flags appearing in the chat. Letter emoji responses have also seen many users posting an offensive misspelling of Mr Hunt’s surname.
As well as the emoji reactions, users joining…