Content moderation policy

What the rules cover

The community guidelines and Terms of Service apply everywhere on Holaris: profiles, letters, echoes, replies, spark answers and private messages.

Automatic checks

Some checks run the moment you post. They're simple rules, not AI, and they never read your conversations for any other purpose.

• Obvious spam (known scam phrases, too many links, repeated characters, sending the same message over and over) is blocked.
• Posts with a link or written in all capitals may be held for review, so only you see them until a moderator checks them.
• Members under 18 can't share phone numbers, emails or social handles.
• Rate limits stop anyone from sending large numbers of letters, messages, posts or reports.
• Photos must be JPEG, PNG, WebP or GIF and under 5 MB. Anything else is deleted.

Reports

• You can report any profile, private message, letter, echo, reply or spark answer. The person you report is never told who reported them.
• Content reported by several different people is hidden automatically while it's reviewed.
• Reports about child safety, self-harm or someone under 16 are urgent: the content is hidden at once and every moderator is alerted. See our child safety standards.
• You can follow the status of your reports in Settings → Safety, and we tell you the outcome.

Who sees private messages

Private messages are not end-to-end encrypted, but staff can't browse them. Moderators only see a copy of a message (up to 1,000 characters) when it's reported to them.

Decisions

A moderator reviews every report and decides on one of these outcomes:

• No violation: the report is dismissed and anything hidden automatically comes back.
• Remove content: the post or message is taken down.
• Warning: the member is told which rule they broke.
• Suspension: from 1 day to a year. A suspended member can still read, block and report, but can't post or message anyone.
• Ban: for serious violations such as threats, exploitation, or lying about age.

Each violation adds a strike. Repeated strikes lead to an automatic suspension. Moderators can't make decisions about reports involving other staff; those go to an administrator. Every decision is logged.

Appeals

If we warned you, removed your content, suspended or banned you, you can appeal once, within 30 days, from Settings → Safety. Tell us why you think the decision was wrong. Someone other than the moderator who made it reviews the appeal, and we tell you the result. If you can't sign in, email [email protected].

Illegal content and the authorities

We remove illegal content when we become aware of it. We report child sexual exploitation to the relevant authorities, and we may share information with law enforcement when the law requires it or someone is at risk of serious harm. Law enforcement requests: [email protected].

Limits we're honest about

Our automatic checks are rule-based and mostly English. Harmful content that avoids them stays visible until someone reports it, so please report anything that worries you.