Most social networks have a Community Standards document longer than a car lease, enforced by systems nobody outside the company understands, with outcomes nobody explains. We'd rather publish the whole thing in a page you can read on your phone.
The rules
You can't, on POINT:
- Impersonate a person or organization.
- Harass people, or target someone with repeated unwanted contact after they've blocked you or asked you to stop.
- Post hate against people for who they are.
- Threaten violence.
- Post sexual content involving minors. This is reported to authorities, not just removed.
- Post intimate images of someone without their consent.
- Sell or arrange illegal goods.
- Spam: mass unsolicited messages, repeated identical posts, link farms.
- Scrape, automate against the service without permission, or try to get into accounts or systems that aren't yours.
That's the list. The Community Guidelines spell each one out with examples. Everything else, including opinions you hate and jokes that aren't funny, is allowed.
What happens when something is reported
Every post, comment, message, Space, business page, group and event has a Report button. Reporting is private; the person reported isn't told who did it.
A report goes into a queue with a snapshot of the content at the moment of the report, so editing it afterward doesn't matter, and the reporter's note. A person reads it. Nothing happens automatically, including when many people report the same thing at once. Mass reporting puts something at the top of the queue; it doesn't decide the outcome.
The reviewer picks one of six responses:
- Dismiss. The content doesn't break a rule. Nothing happens to the member, and the reporter isn't told they were wrong, because reporting in good faith shouldn't be discouraged.
- Warn. The content stays, the member gets an email saying what came close to the line and why.
- Remove. The content comes down, with an email naming it and the rule.
- Remove and warn. Both, for a first real violation.
- Suspend. For a stated number of days. The member can still log in and read, download their data, and reply to the email, but can't post, comment, message or react.
- Remove and suspend. For serious or repeated violations.
Repeated violations escalate. Warnings are counted, and a reviewer sees them when the next report comes in. Illegal content and threats skip straight to suspension and, where the law requires, a report to authorities.
What you'll be told
Every action except dismiss sends an email with: the content involved, quoted or linked; the rule it broke; the action and, for suspensions, the end date; and an address that reaches a person. If you think it's wrong, reply. A person reads that too.
What we won't do
Reduce your reach. There's no ranking on POINT, so there's no quiet lever. Your friends see your posts in order or your account has received an email.
Act on secret signals. No scores you can't see, no categories you weren't told about.
Disable an account without a reason. Permanent closure is reserved for the worst categories and repeat offenders, and it comes with the same email as everything else.
Hold your data. Suspended members can download everything from Settings. Deletion is available to anyone, any time.
Blocking, which is yours to use
Reports are for rule-breaking. For everything else, there's Block. Blocking someone hides you from each other everywhere: Spaces, posts, comments, messages, search. You don't need a reason and we don't review it.
The limits of this
We're a small network with a small team, and reading every report is possible because of that. If POINT grows to the point where it isn't, we'll say so here before anything changes. What won't change is the principle: nothing happens to a member that a person didn't decide and explain.