Community Guidelines

Last updated: September 11, 2026

Welcome to Chatter, a social platform built for real-time, interest-based communities. Whether you are a creator, a community leader, or someone here to listen, Chatter gives you the tools to connect, host, and belong in ways that feel live and personal.

These guidelines exist so that everyone on Chatter can speak, listen, and build without being harassed, targeted, or made to feel unwelcome. They describe what is not allowed, what happens when a rule is broken, and how to challenge a decision you think is wrong. We have written them to be read, not skimmed, because an enforcement system only feels fair when people can see how it works.

What Chatter Is

Chatter is a group-first, creator-powered platform built for real-time connection. People come here to build communities around shared interests, host live conversations, engage directly with their audiences, and create spaces where others can participate, contribute, and belong.

Chatter connects people through voice, video, chat, live rooms, groups, and interactive tools that make communities feel active and alive.

Our Core Values

Community: built around shared interests, not follower counts.
Creativity: real-time expression across voice, video, and chat.
Safety: everyone should feel respected, protected, and heard.
Empowerment: tools that help people and creators grow, connect, and earn.

Your Role on Chatter

You are not just a user. You are a co-creator of the Chatter experience. Whether you are hosting a live room, running a group, moderating for a community, or exploring:

Engage responsibly. Speak and act in ways that invite collaboration, not conflict.
Contribute meaningfully. Help shape healthy, active, high-quality spaces.
Respect the space. Treat every live room, group, chat, and profile as shared ground.

How Enforcement Works

Chatter uses a tiered enforcement system. Most people will never encounter it. For those who do, it is designed so that a first mistake is treated differently from a pattern, and so that the most serious harms are removed immediately.

Automatic screening of names, titles, and descriptions

Some text on Chatter is visible to strangers before anyone has a chance to review it: your username, your display name, your profile bio, room titles and descriptions, and group names and descriptions. This text is screened automatically at the moment you save it.

Slurs and exclusionary language are blocked. If a room title, group name, username, or bio contains a slur, or language that excludes people by race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, sexuality, or disability (for example, "no [group]" or "[group] only"), it will not be published. You will see a message explaining that the text cannot be used, and you can choose something else. This applies regardless of intent or context, because these fields are permanent public labels, not conversations.
Ordinary profanity is masked, not punished. If your room title says "what the f***", it will be published with the word starred out and you will receive a notice letting you know. A single masked word does not count against you. Repeated masking within a ninety-day window does, and is treated as a low-level strike (see the ladder below).
Attempts to evade the screen are rate limited. Repeatedly trying variations of a blocked word will temporarily lock the field. This exists to stop people probing for spellings the filter misses.

Strikes and the ladder

When a rule is broken, the outcome depends on two things: how serious the violation is, and whether you have a recent history. Violations are recorded as strikes on your account, and each strike has a tier.

The tier of a new strike is whichever is higher: the starting tier for that kind of violation, or one tier above your current standing. Your standing is the number of live strikes on your record that a moderator has confirmed.

Every violation has a starting tier. Heated conduct in an argument starts at Tier 1. A slur in a room title, a group name, or a profile, and targeted harassment of a person, start at Tier 3 even with a clean record. Doxxing, sexual content involving minors, non-consensual intimate content, and credible threats start at Tier 5.
History moves you up. Each violation that a moderator confirms raises your standing by one tier. A first heated exchange is a warning. A second, while the first is still live, is a restriction. A third is demonetization.
Automated actions do not escalate you. Strikes applied automatically, such as for repeatedly masked profanity, reach at most Tier 2 on their own and do not count toward your standing. No one is suspended or banned because of an accumulation of automated actions. Only violations confirmed by a person move you up the ladder.
One incident is one strike. Forty reports of the same room title produce one strike, not forty. Mass reporting does not multiply consequences.
The ladder ends in a ban. With four live strikes confirmed by a moderator, the next confirmed violation of any kind reaches Tier 5. A person makes that decision, as with every action at Tier 3 or above.
Strikes expire. A strike stops counting toward your standing ninety days after it was issued. A mistake from a year ago does not escalate a mistake you make today.
Strikes can be reversed. If a strike was issued in error, it is removed from your record entirely and counts toward nothing.
You can see your strikes. Your enforcement record, including the reason for each strike, its tier, and whether it has expired or been reversed, is available in your account settings.

The five tiers

Tier 1, Warning. A record of the violation and a notice explaining it. Nothing else changes. How long: Expires after 90 days
Tier 2, Restriction. You can listen in rooms and take part in chat and groups, but you cannot take the stage to speak or host a room. How long: Days, set at the time of the strike
Tier 3, Demonetization. Any earnings features on your account are paused. You can still use Chatter. How long: Days to weeks, set at the time of the strike
Tier 4, Suspension. You cannot use Chatter at all until the suspension ends. How long: Days to weeks, set at the time of the strike
Tier 5, Permanent ban. Your account is closed. The ban also applies to your device, so creating a new account to continue is itself a violation. How long: Permanent

Restrictions, demonetization, and suspensions end automatically when their time is up. You do not need to ask.

What is automated and what is reviewed by a person

Some enforcement is automatic because it is low-stakes and easy to undo: masking a word, blocking a slur from a title, issuing a Tier 1 warning, or applying a short Tier 2 restriction after repeated low-level violations. If any of these were wrong, appealing reverses them quickly. Automated actions never go above Tier 2, and they never count toward your standing on the ladder.

Anything at Tier 3 or above is decided by a person. Automated systems may flag the account and prepare the case, but a member of our moderation team reviews it and makes the call. No account is demonetized, suspended, or banned by an algorithm alone.

The most serious violations, listed under Zero Tolerance below, skip the ladder. They result in a permanent ban on the first offense.

The Rules

Each rule below says what is prohibited, gives examples, and, where the starting tier is fixed, says where a first violation lands on the ladder. These examples are not exhaustive. Context matters, and our moderation team uses judgment. Where a rule says "typically", a more serious instance can land higher.

Zero Tolerance

These result in a permanent ban on the first violation. There is no warning and no ladder. Where required, we also report to law enforcement.

Sexual content involving minors. Any sexual or sexualized content involving anyone under 18, including drawn, animated, or AI-generated content, and including requests for it. We report this to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and to law enforcement.

Doxxing. Sharing someone's private information without their consent: home address, phone number, workplace, financial details, private photos, or anything that lets others find or target them offline. This includes information about the person's family. Sharing your own information is your choice; sharing someone else's is not.

Non-consensual sexual content. Intimate images or recordings of anyone shared without their consent, including so-called revenge porn and AI-generated sexual imagery of a real person.

Credible threats of violence. Threatening to physically harm a specific person or group, especially where you know or state where they are, or threatening a school, venue, or event. "I'm going to find you" and "you know where I live, come say that to my face" are both threats. Hyperbole in an argument is judged in context, but if a reasonable person would fear for their safety, it is a threat.

Terrorism and violent extremism. Recruiting for, praising, or coordinating with terrorist or violent extremist groups, or sharing their manifestos or attack footage.

Serious Violations

These start at Tier 3, decided by a person, even on a clean record. With a recent history they land higher. Repeat or aggravated violations result in a permanent ban.

Hate speech. Attacking, dehumanizing, or calling for the exclusion of people based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, caste, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, serious illness, or immigration status.

Examples: slurs directed at a person or group; comparing a group to animals or disease; saying a group should be removed from a place, a job, or the platform; a room titled to exclude a group; celebrating harm that came to people because of who they are.

Not a violation: quoting or discussing a slur in order to condemn it or explain its history, in a conversation where that is clearly the purpose. Reclaimed use of a term by members of the group it refers to, in a space where that is understood. These exceptions apply to speech in rooms and chat, where context is visible to a reviewer. They do not apply to names, titles, and descriptions, where the screen blocks slurs regardless of intent.

Harassment and bullying. Repeatedly targeting a person with insults, unwanted contact, or content designed to humiliate or intimidate them; encouraging others to do the same; following someone from room to room or group to group after they have asked you to stop; contacting someone through a new account after they blocked you.

Examples: posting a screenshot of someone with a caption inviting mockery; creating a room to talk about a specific user; repeatedly joining someone's rooms to disrupt them; sending DMs after being told to stop.

One heated exchange is not harassment. A pattern is.

Sexual content and unwanted sexual attention. Pornography, sexually explicit audio, and sexual content in rooms, chats, profiles, or Moments. Sexual comments directed at someone who has not invited them. Any sexual content directed at or involving a minor is Zero Tolerance, above.

Violent or graphic content. Gore, real violence, or content that glorifies or instructs violence. News and educational discussion of violent events is allowed when it is clearly that.

Self-harm and suicide. Encouraging, glorifying, or providing instructions for suicide, self-harm, or disordered eating. Talking about your own struggle, or supporting someone through theirs, is allowed and welcome. If you or someone you know is in crisis, contact local emergency services. In the United States, call or text 988.

Illegal activity. Selling, soliciting, or coordinating illegal goods or services: drugs, weapons, stolen data, counterfeit goods, hacking services. Scams, fraud, and phishing, including fake giveaways, investment schemes, and impersonating Chatter staff to obtain account details.

Impersonation. Pretending to be another person, a public figure, a brand, an organization, a Chatter staff member, or another user, in a way meant to mislead. Fan accounts and parody are allowed when they are clearly labeled as such.

Dangerous misinformation. Content that is false and likely to cause real harm, particularly about health, emergencies, public safety, elections, or civic processes. Being wrong is not a violation. Deliberately spreading falsehoods that endanger people is.

Platform Integrity

Every case in this section is reviewed by a person, who places it on the ladder according to what was done and why. Nothing here is actioned automatically. An account that exists to spam, scam, or get around a ban is closed.

Spam, bots, and manipulation. Automated accounts, bulk unsolicited messages, artificially inflating followers or engagement, coordinated disruption of rooms, and repeatedly posting the same content or links.

Ban evasion. Creating a new account, or using someone else's, to get around a restriction, suspension, or ban. Bans apply to your device as well as your account, so a new account created after a ban is itself a violation and is closed when found. Evading a ban resets nothing; it extends the ban.

False reports. Deliberately reporting content or people that you know do not violate these guidelines, or organizing others to mass-report someone. This wastes the time we owe to real reports and is treated as harassment of the person reported.

Circumventing the screen. Deliberately disguising a blocked word to get it past the automatic screen (unusual characters, spacing, substitutions). The screen catches most of these. When it does not, and a reviewer finds the intent was to evade, the violation is treated as if the word had been used openly.

Off-platform funneling. Using Chatter primarily to redirect, recruit, or move people to another platform in a way that disrupts communities here. Sharing your other channels, your website, or a relevant link in a conversation is fine. Running rooms whose main purpose is to migrate an audience elsewhere is not.

Conduct in Live Rooms and Groups

Live rooms are real-time. Some enforcement there is immediate and local, handled by the room's host and moderators, and separate from the account ladder.

Room-level actions. A host or moderator can mute you, move you from the stage to the audience, lower your audio for themselves, or remove you from the room. These are not strikes. They are the room's own controls, and they apply only within that room. If you believe a host is abusing these controls, report the room.

What hosts and moderators must do. If you host a room or moderate a group, you are responsible for the space. That means acting on harassment when you see it, not using your controls to target people for who they are, and not running a room whose purpose violates these guidelines. A host who repeatedly allows or participates in violations in their rooms can face account-level enforcement for it.

Reporting captures recent audio. When someone reports what was said in a live room, Chatter captures the two minutes of audio leading up to the report so that a reviewer can hear what actually happened. This is the only time live room audio is recorded for moderation. It is retained only as long as the review takes, and deleted if no violation is found. This means a report is evaluated on what was said, not on competing accounts of it.

DMs. Direct messages are private, but they are not exempt. Harassment, threats, sexual content directed at someone who did not invite it, and scams in DMs are violations, and the recipient can report any message.

Younger Users

Chatter is for people 13 and over. Adults may not initiate romantic or sexual contact with users they know or reasonably should know are minors, request private images from them, or move conversations with them off-platform. Any of these results in a permanent ban and, where appropriate, a report to law enforcement. Users under 18 should not share their location, school, or contact details in public rooms or profiles.

Reporting

If you see something that breaks these guidelines, report it. You can report a user, a room, a group, a message in a room, a direct message, a Moment, or a post from the menu on that item.

Every report is reviewed by a person. Automated systems help sort and prioritize, but a person decides.
You will hear back. When your report has been reviewed, you will receive an email telling you whether we found a violation and took action, or reviewed it and did not. We do not share what action was taken against another account or for how long. That detail belongs to them.
Reporting is confidential. The person you reported is not told who reported them.
Report the thing, not the person. Reporting a specific message or room gives a reviewer far more to work with than reporting a profile.

If you believe someone is in immediate danger, contact local emergency services first.

Appeals

Every enforcement action can be appealed, including a permanent ban.

How to appeal. Every enforcement notice includes a link to appeal. If you are suspended or banned and cannot sign in, the appeal link works without signing in. You can also appeal from the Enforcement Record section of your account settings, or by emailing support@chattersocial.io.

What happens to automated actions. If you appeal a Tier 1 or Tier 2 action that was applied automatically, the action is lifted immediately while a person reviews it. If the reviewer agrees it was wrong, it stays lifted and the strike is removed from your record. If the reviewer finds it was correct, it is reinstated and the clock resumes where it stopped.

What happens to reviewed actions. If you appeal a Tier 3, 4, or 5 action, a different member of the moderation team than the one who made the original decision reviews it. The original action stays in place during the review.

Timeline. You will see the time remaining on your appeal from the moment you submit it. We aim to decide every appeal within 72 hours. If we need longer, you will be told why.

The outcome. You will receive a decision with the reason. If the appeal succeeds, the action is reversed and the strike is removed from your record. If the appeal is denied, you may not appeal the same action again, but a later action can be appealed on its own.

What an appeal cannot do. An appeal does not pause a Zero Tolerance ban while it is reviewed. An appeal is not a way to negotiate a shorter sanction; it is a way to say the decision was wrong.

Changes to These Guidelines

We update these guidelines as Chatter grows and as we learn. Material changes are announced in the app and by email, and the date at the top reflects the most recent version. Continuing to use Chatter after a change means you accept the updated guidelines.

Final Word

Chatter thrives when people feel safe to speak, connect, and be themselves. That is only possible when each of us takes responsibility for keeping our communities respectful and real, and when the rules are clear enough that everyone can see they apply equally.

Thanks for helping build that.

Let's talk about it,

The Chatter Team