General

General aims for the standard of a mainstream social platform with an adult and teenage audience. Discussion, news, support, criticism of public figures and fictional violence, crime and harassment are allowed, adult images and video are age-restricted so your app can show them to verified adults only, and one-off insults are limited rather than removed.

It is preselected when you create a project.

The rules every built-in policy shares are listed in Built-in policies.

Context

Sexual content

• Sexual text, including explicit sexual language and descriptions of nudity or sexual acts, is allowed.
• Adult nudity, sexual activity and explicit sexual language in images or video are age-restricted. Erotic nudity and explicit sexual language stay age-restricted even in reporting, discussion or support; sexual activity is age-restricted outside those contexts. Revealing clothing or suggestive content in the same image never excuses them.
• Promotion of adult content, such as a subscription page, explicit media for sale or a paid online one-on-one session like a private cam show, phone sex or paid sexting, is age-restricted in images and video and allowed in text.
• Non-erotic nudity, such as breastfeeding, health care, protest or fine art, is allowed.
• Suggestive content, such as flirtation, innuendo, romantic or sexual roleplay, or a sexual joke, is allowed.
• Non-consensual sexual content, such as sexual assault presented as sexual material or a joke that makes rape sexual, is blocked rather than age-restricted, even in fiction, animation or generated images. Factual reports, survivor accounts, support and non-graphic discussion of sexual assault are not sexual content of this kind and keep their allowances.
• Sexual-assault images and video, including realistic simulated depictions, are blocked even in reporting, education or support. This is separate from consent to distributing someone’s intimate images. Text reporting and survivor accounts keep the context allowances above.
• Paid in-person sexual services, such as offering or seeking escorting, prostitution, sexual massage or a meetup for sex for money, are blocked, in text too. Criminal activity allows them, but the Sexual restriction blocks them.
• Requests or offers for an unpaid sexual encounter between adults are allowed in text and age-restricted in images, like other sexual content. An unwelcome proposition aimed at someone is sexual harassment and stays blocked.
• Extreme pornography, such as sex with animals or a dead body, or sexual acts that threaten life or cause serious injury, is blocked in every context.

Age-restricted content isn’t served from its plain URL; see Age-restricted assets. When your project serves a jurisdiction that requires age checks, such as the UK, show every age-restricted asset to viewers there only after a reliable check, not a self-declared age; see Age-check responsibilities and Check age natively. An age check doesn’t make an explicit image wanted: sending someone an image of genitals they didn’t ask for is an offence in places such as the UK, so in direct messages or replies to a person, consider blocking adult nudity instead of age-restricting it.

Violence

• Violence without graphic detail, such as a fight, an attack, an injury or a violent death, is allowed.
• Graphic violence in text, including excessive gore, is allowed.
• Graphic violence in images or video, with explicit bodily detail such as visible wounds, is age-restricted.
• Excessive gore in images or video, such as dismembered or mutilated bodies, exposed organs or charred remains, is blocked unless it is factual reporting, history or fiction, where it is age-restricted.
• Threats and severe wishes of harm, such as hoping someone dies, is killed or is seriously hurt, are blocked outside fiction, history, reporting, teaching, support or non-graphic discussion; plans and explicit encouragement are blocked in every context.
• Indirect coded incitement is limited for reduced reach when the supplied content supports the harmful meaning but contains no explicit threat, concrete plan, direct harmful request or actionable instructions. A separate explicit harmful instance keeps its own restriction.
• Non-severe wishes of harm, such as hoping someone falls ill, gets a disease or has a minor accident, are limited: delivered normally, so your app can keep them out of recommendations and notifications.
• Fictional violence, historical accounts and teaching about violence are allowed.

Self-harm

• Someone sharing their own suicidal or self-harm thoughts, such as saying they want to die, is allowed, so they are not silenced when they most need support. Consider showing support resources alongside it.
• Self-harm acts are allowed when wholly reported or presented for support, and blocked otherwise.
• Self-harm methods and encouragement are blocked in every context.

Harassment and hate

• Insults aimed at a person, or at a group that is not a protected identity group, including swearing at someone to dismiss or attack them, are limited: delivered normally, so your app can keep them out of recommendations and notifications. They are allowed in fiction, reporting or support.
• Bullying, threats and sexual harassment are blocked outside fiction, reporting or support, even when they are also teasing or aimed at a public figure.
• Hate is allowed when it is wholly reported, educational, presented for support or countered, including reported, educational or countered exclusion, dehumanization and threats when the context covers all of them.
• Stated hatred of a protected group with no slur, insult, stereotype, dehumanization, exclusion or threat, such as saying you hate them, is limited.
• Identity-based insults and slurs on their own are limited, as insults aimed at a person are.
• Dehumanization, inferiority claims or harmful stereotypes, exclusion and threats against a protected group are blocked outside those contexts, even alongside an insult or slur.
• Hate symbols in images, such as a recognised hate emblem with no other attack, are age-restricted.

Criminal activity

• Depicted or reported crimes, such as a fight, a robbery or a shooting, are allowed. Criminal instructions, promotion, plans and requests are blocked; indirect coded incitement with no explicit threat, concrete plan, direct harmful request or actionable instructions is limited for reduced reach.
• Illegal-drug content, such as a mention or account of drug use, is allowed. Selling drugs, promoting them and instructions stay blocked as criminal promotion and instructions.
• Alcohol, tobacco/vaping and gambling are allowed. Other crime in the same content follows its own rules.
• Child sexual abuse material: a bare mention is allowed, and so is a factual report, support or non-graphic discussion of an offence involving it, such as a news report of a conviction for possessing it. Any other account of such an offence, including in a story, is blocked, as are requests, plans and promotion. Sexual content involving a child is blocked in every context as a global mandatory rule.

Personal information and profanity

• Someone’s own private details are allowed.
• Other people’s private details are allowed in factual reporting, such as court records or a public official’s conduct, and blocked otherwise.
• Profanity is not moderated.

Links

Link safety is in preview. Phishing and malware links are blocked. Links to adult sites are age-restricted, like adult content itself. Links to gambling sites are allowed. A link that can't be checked, such as a short link that can't be followed, is limited: delivered normally, so your app can keep it out of recommendations and notifications until its destination is known. Where a link leads never changes a category's score.

Choose another policy if

• Your users include children: use Kids.
• You want a clean space for members from 13, with nudity and insults aimed at people blocked and strong language limited: use Teen-safe.
• Your community studies or supports people through difficult subjects and has no adult content: use Learning and support.