theSHFT is built on the idea that private conversation is a human right. These Community Guidelines describe the behavior that keeps theSHFT a place worth being. They apply to everything you do on theSHFT, including direct messages, and they are enforced most directly on the parts we can see: Communities, Stories, Voice Rooms, usernames, profiles and group names. They are part of our Terms of Service, and each Community's own rules add to them.

Direct messages and group chats are end-to-end encrypted, and we cannot read them. We enforce these Guidelines there through your reports and the account signals we can see, such as reports from several people or a pattern of new accounts.

1. THINGS THAT ARE NEVER OK

These result in content removal and account suspension or termination without a warning first, and, where the law requires or allows, a report to the authorities.

• Child sexual abuse material or any sexual content involving a minor. We report apparent child sexual abuse material to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children as 18 U.S.C. 2258A requires.
• Grooming, sexual exploitation or sexual solicitation of a minor.
• Sextortion: threatening to share intimate images, or demanding images, money or anything else under threat.
• Sharing intimate images or videos of a person without their consent, including images created or altered by software to depict a real person.
• Specific, credible threats of violence against a person or an identifiable group.
• Content that incites imminent violence, terrorism or mass casualty events, and promotion of, coordination of or recruitment for terrorist organizations or designated violent extremist groups.
• Doxxing: publishing private identifying information about a person (such as a home address, phone number, identity document number, financial account number, or place of work for the purpose of harassment) without their consent.
• Selling or arranging human trafficking, drugs or controlled substances (including cannabis, even where it is legal), firearms or explosives in violation of law, stolen goods, or fraudulent financial instruments.

2. HARASSMENT AND HATE

• No targeted harassment of individuals. One-off rudeness happens; campaigns to harass do not belong here.
• No content that dehumanizes people based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, caste, sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, disability or serious disease.
• No organizing harassment against people on or off theSHFT.
• No raiding Communities you do not belong to with bad faith posts, votes or reports.
• No creating new accounts to contact someone who blocked you.

3. SAFETY AND SELF HARM

• No content that encourages or glorifies suicide, self harm or eating disorders. Talking about your own experience, recovery, or supporting someone in crisis is welcome.
• No instructions for harming yourself or others.

If you or someone you know is in crisis in the United States, call or text 988 (Suicide and Crisis Lifeline). Outside the United States, the Help lines screen in the app lists services by country. theSHFT is not an emergency service; in danger, call your local emergency number.

4. PRIVACY OF OTHERS

• Do not share other people's private messages, photos, location or identity documents without their consent.
• Do not impersonate other people, brands, organizations or theSHFT. Parody is allowed if it is clearly labeled.
• Do not record or share calls, Voice Rooms or voice notes without every consent the law requires.
• Do not track or monitor anyone without their consent.

5. INTEGRITY OF THE PLATFORM

• No spam, mass unsolicited messages, scams or phishing.
• No coordinated inauthentic behavior: bot networks, fake accounts, vote manipulation, or mass reporting to silence speech.
• No getting around Community bans, suspensions or other moderation actions with other accounts.
• No automated scraping, crawling or collection of data from theSHFT.
• No exploiting bugs or security weaknesses. Report them privately to support@theshft.app instead.
• No using disappearing messages, the Duress PIN or any other erase feature to destroy evidence you are legally required to keep.

6. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

• Do not post content that infringes copyright, trademark or other rights you do not own or have permission to use.
• Repeated valid copyright notices against your account lead to termination under our repeat infringer policy. See our DMCA Policy.

7. ADULT CONTENT

theSHFT is for adults. Adult content is allowed only in Communities marked NSFW (18+). Those Communities stay hidden unless you are 18 or older and turn on Show NSFW Communities in Settings. Do not post adult content in any other Community or in a Story; a Community that does can lose its place in discovery or be removed. Sexual content involving a minor, or a person who did not consent, is never allowed anywhere, and we report apparent child sexual abuse material to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

8. COMMUNITY RULES

Each Community may have its own rules set by its moderators, which apply in addition to these Guidelines, the Community Rules and our Terms of Service. A Community's rules cannot permit anything these Guidelines forbid, but they can be stricter. When you post in a Community, you agree to its rules. If you do not like them, you can leave or start your own Community.

9. HOW WE ENFORCE THESE GUIDELINES

Depending on what happened, the harm it caused, the account's history and whether it looks like a good faith mistake, any of the following can happen:

• Content removal: moderators and theSHFT can remove posts, replies, Stories, names and profile content. You see a notice on a removed post, with the reason where one was given.
• Automatic actions: a Community post can be hidden automatically after an urgent report or after reports from three (3) different people until it is reviewed; a Community's AutoMod rules can hide, remove or flag posts; a post whose downvotes exceed its upvotes by ten (10) or more is folded (shown collapsed), and by twenty (20) or more is removed; and our automated check for child sexual abuse material in Community text removes the post and suspends the account at once.
• Strikes and Community bans: each removal of your post in a Community is a strike there, and three (3) strikes ban you from that Community automatically. Community moderators can also ban members; bans set in the app do not expire.
• Warnings: theSHFT can issue a warning, which the app asks you to acknowledge.
• Suspensions: theSHFT can suspend an account for a period or indefinitely. While suspended, you cannot send messages or post.
• Termination and device restrictions: theSHFT can terminate an account. After a ban, a new account created on the same device may be suspended at once for up to 365 days, and we may also ask Apple to mark the device, which blocks new accounts on it, including for a later owner, for about a year or until an approved appeal clears it.
• Reports to authorities: where the law requires or allows it, for example for child sexual abuse material or a threat to someone's life.

10. APPEALS

If your content is removed, you are banned from a Community, or your account receives a warning or is suspended, you may appeal the decision in the app, from the notice itself: "Appeal this decision" on the account suspension screen, "Appeal this warning" on the warning screen, "Appeal" on a removed post or reply, and "Appeal this decision" on the notice of a Community ban.

• Removed posts and Community bans: appeals of a removed post or reply and of a Community ban are decided by that Community's moderators. We do not promise a time for these. theSHFT may review a Community's decision but is not required to.
• Account warnings and suspensions: appeals of an account warning or suspension, including a suspension applied automatically by our child safety filter, are decided by theSHFT's administrator within fourteen (14) days of receiving the appeal. The administrator cannot decide an appeal of an action they took personally: that appeal waits for another administrator to review it, which can take longer than fourteen (14) days.
• If your appeal is approved, we reverse the action. If it is denied, the action stays in place, and the administrator or moderator may include a reason. We notify you of the outcome. Decisions on appeal are final unless new information becomes available. Appeals are kept with the moderation record.

11. WHAT WE CAN AND CANNOT MODERATE

Direct messages and group chats are end-to-end encrypted. We cannot read, search or proactively moderate them. We act on them when someone reports an account, using what the reporter tells us and the account information we can see. The app itself checks the text of new messages on your phone for a small set of patterns and can stop or warn about a message before it is sent; nothing about that check is sent to us.

On Communities, Stories, profiles and other content we can read, we use user reports, automated tools and human review.

12. REPORTING

• In a conversation or on a profile, Story or contact request, use Report. Reporting a person there currently also blocks them.
• On a Community post, reply or Community, use the menu and choose Report.
• Group chats and Voice Rooms do not yet have their own Report option; report the person from their profile or a conversation, or email support@theshft.app.
• For emergencies involving immediate danger, contact local emergency services first.
• For anything the app does not cover, including abuse that started on theSHFT and moved elsewhere, email support@theshft.app.

We do not tell the reported person who reported them. The block that comes with a report does not say that you reported them. We review reports as quickly as we can but do not promise a time.

13. INTIMATE IMAGES SHARED WITHOUT CONSENT

If an intimate image or video of you was shared on theSHFT without your consent, including a fake one, report it in the app and email support@theshft.app with the subject line "Intimate Image Removal," with your signature (a typed name is enough), where the image is (for example the username and the Community or Story), a statement that you believe in good faith it is an image of you shared without consent, and how to reach you. For content we can read, we remove it, and make reasonable efforts to remove known identical copies, within forty eight (48) hours of a valid request. For images sent in encrypted chats, we cannot see them or remove them from anyone's phone, but if you tell us who sent it and when, we delete any encrypted copy our servers still hold where we can identify it, and we can act on the sender's account. If the image shows a person under 18, do not send it to us; describe where it is.

14. GOOD FAITH

We enforce these Guidelines in good faith. We will make mistakes, and when we do we try to correct them; the appeals process is how to tell us. We expect good faith from you too: false reports filed to silence lawful speech, harass someone or game moderation are themselves a violation.

15. CONTACT

Safety and abuse reports: support@theshft.app

Appeals: in the app, from the notice about the decision

Website: https://theshft.app