We at Chatezy want you to understand what information we collect, and how we use and share it. That’s why we encourage you to read our Privacy Policy. This helps you use Chatezy Products in the way that’s right for you.
In the Privacy Policy, we explain how we collect, use, share, retain and transfer information. We also let you know your rights. Each section of the Policy includes helpful examples and simpler language to make our practices easier to understand. We’ve also added links to resources where you can learn more about the privacy topics that interest you.
It's important to us that you know how to control your privacy, so we also show you where you can manage your information in the settings of the Chatezy Products you use.
Our commitment to voice
The goal of our Community Standards is to create a place for expression and give people a voice. Chatezy wants people to be able to talk openly about the issues that matter to them, even if some may disagree or find them objectionable. In some cases, we allow content—which would otherwise go against our standards—if it’s newsworthy and in the public interest. We do this only after weighing the public interest value against the risk of harm, and we look to international human rights standards to make these judgments.
Our commitment to expression is paramount, but we recognize the internet creates new and increased opportunities for abuse. For these reasons, when we limit expression, we do it in service of one or more of the following values:
AUTHENTICITY
We want to make sure the content people see on Chatezy is authentic. We believe that authenticity creates a better environment for sharing, and that’s why we don’t want people using Chatezy to misrepresent who they are or what they’re doing.
SAFETY
We’re committed to making Chatezy a safe place. We remove content that could contribute to a risk of harm to the physical security of persons. Content that threatens people has the potential to intimidate, exclude or silence others and isn’t allowed on Chatezy.
PRIVACY
We’re committed to protecting personal privacy and information. Privacy gives people the freedom to be themselves, choose how and when to share on Chatezy and connect more easily.
DIGNITY
We believe that all people are equal in dignity and rights. We expect that people will respect the dignity of others and not harass or degrade others.
COMMUNITY STANDARDS
VIOLENCE AND CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR
Violence and Incitement
We aim to prevent potential offline harm that may be related to content on Chatezy. While we understand that people commonly express disdain or disagreement by threatening or calling for violence in non-serious ways, we remove language that incites or facilitates serious violence. We remove content, disable accounts and work with law enforcement when we believe that there is a genuine risk of physical harm or direct threats to public safety. We also try to consider the language and context in order to distinguish casual statements from content that constitutes a credible threat to public or personal safety. In determining whether a threat is credible, we may also consider additional information such as a person's public visibility and the risks to their physical safety.
In some cases, we see aspirational or conditional threats directed at terrorists and other violent actors (e.g. terrorists deserve to be killed), and we deem those as non-credible absent-specific evidence to the contrary.
Dangerous Individuals and Organizations
In an effort to prevent and disrupt real-world harm, we do not allow organisations or individuals that proclaim a violent mission or are engaged in violence to have a presence on Chatezy. We assess these entities based on their behaviour both online and offline – most significantly, their ties to violence. Under this policy, we designate individuals, organisations and networks of people.
Coordinating Harm and Promoting Crime
In an effort to prevent and disrupt offline harm and copycat behaviour, we prohibit people from facilitating, organising, promoting or admitting to certain criminal or harmful activities targeted at people, businesses, property or animals. We allow people to debate and advocate for the legality of criminal and harmful activities, as well as draw attention to harmful or criminal activity that they may witness or experience as long as they do not advocate for or coordinate harm.
Restricted Goods and Services
To encourage safety and compliance with common legal restrictions, we prohibit attempts by individuals, manufacturers and retailers to purchase, sell or trade non-medical drugs, pharmaceutical drugs and marijuana. We also prohibit the purchase, sale, gifting, exchange and transfer of firearms, including firearm parts or ammunition, between private individuals on Chatezy. Some of these items are not regulated everywhere; however, because of the borderless nature of our community, we try to enforce our policies as consistently as possible. Firearm shops and online retailers may promote items available for sale off our services as long as those retailers comply with all applicable laws and regulations. We allow discussions about sales of firearms and firearm parts in shops or by online retailers and advocating for changes to firearm regulation. Regulated goods that are not prohibited by our Community Standards may be subject to our more stringent Commerce Policies.
Fraud and Deception
In an effort to prevent fraudulent activity that can harm people or businesses, we remove content that purposefully deceives, wilfully misrepresents, or otherwise defrauds or exploits others for money or property. This includes content that seeks to coordinate or promote these activities using our services.
We allow people to raise awareness and educate others as well as condemn these activities unless this includes content that contains sensitive information, such as personally identifiable information.
SAFETY
Suicide and Self Injury
We care deeply about the safety of the people who use our apps. We regularly consult with experts in suicide and self-injury to help inform our policies and enforcement, and work with organisations around the world to provide assistance to people in distress.
While we don't allow people to intentionally or unintentionally celebrate or promote suicide or self-injury, we do allow people to discuss these topics because we want Chatezy to be a space where people can share their experiences, raise awareness about these issues and seek support from one another.
We define self-injury as the intentional and direct injuring of the body, including self-mutilation and eating disorders. We remove any content that encourages suicide or self-injury, including fictional content such as memes or illustrations and any self-injury content that is graphic, regardless of context. We also remove content that identifies and negatively targets victims or survivors of suicide or self-injury seriously, humorously or rhetorically, as well as real-time depictions of suicide or self-injury. Content about recovery of suicide or self-harm that is allowed, but may contain imagery that could be upsetting, such as a healed scar, is placed behind a sensitivity screen.
When people post or search for suicide or self-injury- related content, we will direct them to local organisations that can provide support and if someone is at immediate risk of harming themselves, we will contact local emergency services to get them help.
With respect to live content, experts have told us that if someone is saying they intend to attempt suicide on a live-stream, we should leave the content up for as long as possible, because the longer someone is talking to a camera, the more opportunity there is for a friend or family member to call emergency services.
However, to minimise the risk of others being negatively affected by viewing this content, we will stop the live-stream at the point at which the threat turns into an attempt. As mentioned above, in any case, we will contact the emergency services if we identify that someone is at immediate risk of harming themselves.
Child Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Nudity
We do not allow content that sexually exploits or endangers children. When we become aware of apparent child exploitation, we report it to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), in compliance with applicable law. We know that sometimes, people share nude images of their own children with good intentions; however, we generally remove these images because of the potential for abuse by others and to help avoid the possibility of other people re-using or misappropriating the images.
We also work with external experts, including the Chatezy Safety Advisory Board, to discuss and improve our policies and enforcement around online safety issues, especially with regard to children. Learn more about the technology we're using to fight against child exploitation.
Adult Sexual Exploitation
We recognise the importance of Chatezy as a place to discuss and draw attention to sexual violence and exploitation. In an effort to create space for this conversation and promote a safe environment, we allow victims to share their experiences, but remove content that depicts, threatens or promotes sexual violence, sexual assault or sexual exploitation. We also remove content that displays, advocates for or coordinates sexual acts with non-consenting parties to avoid facilitating non-consensual sexual acts.
To protect victims and survivors, we remove images that depict incidents of sexual violence and intimate images shared without the consent of the person(s) pictured. As noted in the introduction, we also work with external safety experts to discuss and improve our policies and enforcement around online safety issues, and we may remove content when they provide information that content is linked to harmful activity. We have written about the technology we use to protect against intimate images and the research that has informed our work. We've also put together a guide to reporting and removing intimate images shared without your consent.
Bullying and Harassment
Bullying and harassment happen in many places and come in many different forms, from making threats and releasing personally identifiable information to sending threatening messages and making unwanted malicious contact. We do not tolerate this kind of behaviour because it prevents people from feeling safe and respected on Chatezy.
We distinguish between public figures and private individuals because we want to allow discussion, which often includes critical commentary of people who are featured in the news or who have a large public audience. For public figures, we remove attacks that are severe as well as certain attacks where the public figure is directly tagged in the post or comment.
For private individuals, our protection goes further: We remove content that's meant to degrade or shame, including, for example, claims about someone's personal sexual activity. We recognise that bullying and harassment can have more of an emotional impact on minors, which is why our policies provide heightened protection for users between the ages of 13 and 18.
Context and intent matter, and we allow people to post and share if it is clear that something was shared in order to condemn or draw attention to bullying and harassment. In certain instances, we require self-reporting because it helps us understand that the person targeted feels bullied or harassed. In addition to reporting such behaviour and content, we encourage people to use tools available on Chatezy to help protect against it.
We also have a Bullying Prevention Hub, which is a resource for teenagers, parents and educators seeking support for issues related to bullying and other conflicts. It offers step-by-step guidance, including information on how to start important conversations about bullying. Learn more about what we are doing to protect people from bullying and harassment here.
Note: This policy does not apply to individuals who are part of designated organisations under the Dangerous Organisations and Individuals Policy or individuals who died prior to 1900.
Human Exploitation
In an effort to disrupt and prevent harm, we remove content that facilitates or coordinates the exploitation of humans, including human trafficking. We define human trafficking as the business of depriving someone of liberty for profit. It is the exploitation of humans in order to force them to engagein commercial sex, labour or other activities against their will. It relies on deception, force and coercion, and degrades humans by depriving them of their freedom while economically or materially benefiting others.
Human trafficking is multi-faceted and global; it can affect anyone regardless of age, socioeconomic background, ethnicity, gender or location. It takes many forms, and any given trafficking situation can involve various stages of development. By the coercive nature of this abuse, victims cannot consent.
While we need to be careful not to conflate human trafficking and smuggling, the two can be related and exhibit overlap. The United Nations defines human smuggling as the procurement or facilitation of illegal entry into a state across international borders. Without necessity for coercion or force, it may still result in the exploitation of vulnerable individuals who are trying to leave their country of origin, often in pursuit of a better life. Human smuggling is a crime against a state, relying on movement, and human trafficking is a crime against a person, relying on exploitation.
Privacy Violations
Privacy and the protection of personal information are fundamentally important values for Chatezy. We work hard to safeguard your personal identity and information and we do not allow people to post personal or confidential information about yourself or of others.
We remove content that shares, offers or solicits personally identifiable information or other private information that could lead to physical or financial harm, including financial, residential and medical information, as well as private information obtained from illegal sources. We also recognise that private information may become publicly available through news coverage, court filings, press releases or other sources. When that happens, we may allow the information to be posted.
OBJECTIONABLE CONTENT
Hate Speech
We believe that people use their voice and connect more freely when they don't feel attacked on the basis of who they are. That is why we don't allow hate speech on Chatezy. It creates an environment of intimidation and exclusion, and in some cases may promote offline violence.
We define hate speech as a direct attack against people – rather than concepts or institutions – on the basis of what we call protected characteristics: race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, religious affiliation, caste, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity and serious disease. We define attacks as violent or dehumanising speech, harmful stereotypes, statements of inferiority, expressions of contempt, disgust or dismissal, cursing and calls for exclusion or segregation. We also prohibit the use of harmful stereotypes, which we define as dehumanising comparisons that have historically been used to attack, intimidate or exclude specific groups, and that are often linked with offline violence. We consider age a protected characteristic when referenced along with another protected characteristic. We also protect refugees, migrants, immigrants and asylum seekers from the most severe attacks, though we do allow commentary and criticism of immigration policies. Similarly, we provide some protections for characteristics such as occupation, when they're referenced along with a protected characteristic. Sometimes, based on local nuance, we consider certain words or phrases as frequently used proxies for PC groups.
We also prohibit the usage of slurs that are used to attack people on the basis of their protected characteristics. However, we recognise that people sometimes share content that includes slurs or someone else's hate speech to condemn it or raise awareness. In other cases, speech, including slurs, that might otherwise violate our standards can be used self-referentially or in an empowering way. Our policies are designed to allow room for these types of speech, but we require people to clearly indicate their intent. If the intention is unclear, we may remove content.
Violent and Graphic Content
We remove content that glorifies violence or celebrates the suffering or humiliation of others because it may create an environment that discourages participation. We allow graphic content (with some limitations) to help people raise awareness about issues. We know that people value the ability to discuss important issues such as human rights abuses or acts of terrorism. We also know that people have different sensitivities with regard to graphic and violent content. For that reason, we add a warning label to especially graphic or violent content so that it is not available to people under the age of eighteen and so that people are aware of the graphic or violent nature before they click to see it.
Adult Nudity and Sexual Activity
We restrict the display of nudity or sexual activity because some people in our community may be sensitive to this type of content. Additionally, we default to removing sexual imagery to prevent the sharing of non-consensual or underage content. Restrictions on the display of sexual activity also apply to digitally created content unless it is posted for educational, humorous or satirical purposes.
Our Nudity Policies have become more nuanced over time. We understand that nudity can be shared for a variety of reasons, including as a form of protest, to raise awareness about a cause or for educational or medical reasons. Where such intent is clear, we make allowances for the content. For example, while we restrict some images of female breasts that include the nipple, we allow other images, including those depicting acts of protest, women actively engaged in breastfeeding and photos of post-mastectomy scarring. For images depicting visible genitalia or the anus in the context of birth and after-birth moments or health-related situations, we include a warning label so that people are aware that the content may be sensitive. We also allow photographs of paintings, sculptures and other art that depicts nude figures.
Sexual Solicitation
As noted in Section 8 of our Community Standards (Adult Sexual Exploitation), people use Chatezy to discuss and draw attention to sexual violence and exploitation. We recognise the importance of and allow for this discussion. We also allow for the discussion of sex worker rights advocacy and sex work regulation. We draw the line, however, when content facilitates, encourages or coordinates sexual encounters or commercial sexual services between adults. We do this to avoid facilitating transactions that may involve trafficking, coercion and non-consensual sexual acts.
We also restrict sexually explicit language that may lead to sexual solicitation because some audiences within our global community may be sensitive to this type of content, and it may impede the ability for people to connect with their friends and the broader community.