Community Guidelines

Community Guidelines & Reporting

Our idea

HearStage is a stage for real voices. Be yourself, be loud, be creative, and leave room for others. Everyone is responsible for what they say and do. Being 18+ verified does not mean anything is allowed.

Not allowed anywhere (including private rooms, chat and voice)

• Child safety: any sexual content involving minors, grooming, or sexualising anyone under 18. We report it to NCMEC and the authorities.
• Illegal content and activity: including terrorism or violent extremism, sale of drugs, weapons or other illegal goods, and fraud.
• Harassment and bullying: threats, intimidation, targeted insults, unwanted sexual comments, encouraging self-harm, mass reporting.
• Hate: attacking people for race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, caste, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation or similar characteristics.
• Sexual content: explicit sexual content in public areas, and any non-consensual sexual content.
• Privacy: doxxing, sharing someone's private information, and recording, capturing or sharing anyone's voice or conversation without their consent. HearStage cannot technically stop someone recording with another device, so tell us if it happens.
• Impersonation and deception: pretending to be someone else, fake accounts, undisclosed bots, AI voice clones of real people without their consent, and misleading people about who you are.
• Spam and scams: fake engagement, gift or vote manipulation, chain messages, off-platform payment requests, phishing links.
• Intellectual property: posting music, beats, samples or voices you have no right to use. See the Copyright Policy.
• Dangerous content: content that shows or encourages serious harm, and dangerous challenges.

Live rooms and podcasts

• Hosts run the room: they accept or decline raised hands, can mute, remove or pass the floor, and use Take turns so voices don't overlap. Hosts must not use these tools to harass.
• Speakers respect the topic and the host. Listeners keep chat respectful; chat mutes are there to keep it that way.
• Background music must be from the HearStage library or something you have the rights to.
• In public rooms, anyone may save a short visible clip of the stage. Private rooms are never recorded.

Gifts and money

Never pressure anyone to send gifts or tips, never promise anything for them that breaks these rules, and never move payments off HearStage.

Bots

Our demo accounts are labeled "Crew · demo", use test coins only and never spam real users. Running your own bots or automation needs our written permission and a clear label.

Reporting

• Report any post, comment, chat message, room or account from its menu. You can also report after leaving a room, from the room page or your bookings. Report what happened, when and who was involved. Do not upload recordings of other people unless the law allows you to.
• Anyone, including people without an account, can report illegal content to [LEGAL CONTACT EMAIL] with the link, why it is illegal, your name and email (except for child-safety reports, which can be anonymous), and a statement that you believe the report is accurate.
• Leave now, Block, Report are always available in private rooms.

How we handle reports

1. Urgent (threats, a minor at risk): priority review, immediate feature suspension when needed, and referral to emergency services or authorities where required.
2. Review: a trained person reviews reports. We may use automated tools to detect spam and to prioritise, and we say so when they were involved in a decision.
3. Action: we may remove or limit content, restrict features, suspend or close accounts. We tell you what we did and why, which rule it is based on, and how to appeal (a "statement of reasons" under the EU Digital Services Act), unless the law forbids it or it would create a safety risk. We also tell the reporter the outcome.
4. Repeat or serious breaches lead to suspension or a permanent ban. Manifestly unfounded reports, repeated in bad faith, can also lead to restrictions.
5. Appeal within 6 months in the app. A different person reviews it and gives a reasoned answer. In the EU you can also use a certified out-of-court dispute settlement body.
6. Authority requests: legal review, check validity, disclose the minimum data, keep a log, and tell the user unless forbidden.
7. Staff access to safety data is limited to a small number of authorised people, and every access is logged.

Contact points

• Authorities in the EU (DSA single point of contact): [DSA CONTACT EMAIL]; EU legal representative: [EU LEGAL REPRESENTATIVE].
• India Grievance Officer (IT Rules 2021): [GRIEVANCE OFFICER NAME AND EMAIL]. Complaints are acknowledged within 24 hours and resolved within 15 days.