VERAFIED Community Guidelines

VERAFIED is a space to make new connections with others that may share in our experiences in a safe, inclusive, and respectful way. In order to foster healthy and equitable connections, we hold our members accountable for the way they treat each other.

Our Community Guidelines help keep our members safe. They make it clear what content and conduct is not acceptable (on our platform and off).

Profile Guidelines

• Age. You need to be at least 18 years old to join VERAFIED. Creating a profile that intentionally misrepresents you as being under the age of 18 is not allowed. We reserve the right to ask for your ID to verify your age, and we’ll block you from the platform if you’re underage.

• Profile Photos. We want your profile to celebrate your authentic self! That’s why we require at least one of your profile photos to depict only you and to clearly show your full face. We do not permit:

• Profile photos that are heavily distorted or contain exaggerated or unnatural digital effects to the point where it cannot be clearly determined that you’re the person in the photos

• Memes or photos with only — or primarily — text as a profile photo

• Profile photos of children on their own

• Profile photos with unclothed children

• Any words or phrases that violate our Community Guidelines

• Words or characters (other than a valid name) including descriptive words, symbols (e.g. $, *, @,), emojis, numbers, or punctuation

Content and Conduct Guidelines

Adult Nudity and Sexual Activity

We don’t permit nude, sexually explicit, or sexually vulgar profile content. We also don’t allow the commercial exchange of any romantic or sexual activity, content, or services, including attempts to sell, advertise, or buy adult sexual content.

We don’t allow profile photos or the sharing of links on profiles that depict:

• People where the following is shown, even if covered or partially covered by emojis, hair or transparent clothing:

  • Genitals or pubic regions

  • Bare buttocks

  • Women’s nipples and areolas

• Visible explicit outlines of genitals

• People in lingerie or underwear

• Sexual acts of any kind, even if not explicitly visible

• Digitally-created or drawn imagery (e.g. cartoons, memes, anime, drawings) that depicts any of the above. This imagery doesn’t necessarily have to include human beings

Bullying and Abusive Conduct

Our community is for creating kind connections. We don’t allow content or behavior that makes any individual or group feel harassed, bullied, or targeted. This includes belittling, insulting, or intimidating behavior; making unsolicited comments about someone’s appearance; engaging in emotional abuse; blackmail; repeated unwanted contact; or wishing, encouraging, or praising acts of violence.

Members may not:

• Engage in any bullying, belittling, insulting, mocking, trolling, intimidating, dehumanizing, or degrading behavior

• Wish, encourage, or praise acts of violence, or threatening acts of violence that would result in non-serious bodily injury

• Engage in emotional abuse and/or manipulation

• Repeat unwanted online contact of any kind

• Blame, shame, or target someone based on their status as a survivor/victim of sexual assault, sexual exploitation, sexual harassment, or domestic abuse

• Blackmail a member to reveal embarrassing, compromising or otherwise private information (not including sexual or intimate content)

• Not show up to an in-person meet up despite clear plans agreed by both parties

• Create a profile with malicious intent to publish defamatory content about a person

• Share content that is disrespectful toward victims, survivors, or families impacted by suicide, self-injury, or eating disorders

Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

We have a zero tolerance policy towards any form of child sexual exploitation and abuse. We don’t allow content that sexualizes or endangers children, real or fictional (e.g. anime, media, text, illustrations, or digital images). This includes any visual depictions or discussions of sexually explicit conduct involving a child. For the purposes of this policy, a child is anyone under the age of 18. It’s prohibited to upload, store, produce, share, or entice anyone to share child sexual abuse material, even if the intent is to express outrage or raise awareness about this issue.

Commercial and Promotional Activity

Our platform is not a marketplace. We don’t allow using VERAFIED for unsolicited commercial or promotional purposes.

Controlled Goods and Substances

We don’t allow members to use our platforms to buy, sell, supply, distribute, promote or facilitate the purchase, sale, supply, or distribution of illegal drugs and/or controlled goods and substances. This includes: e-cigarettes, marijuana, drug paraphernalia, or the misuse of legal substances like prescription drugs, tobacco, or alcohol.

Dangerous Organizations and Individuals

We don’t permit organizations or individuals that proclaim, glorify, condone, or are known to support a violent, dangerous, or terrorist-based mission to have a presence on VERAFIED.

Identity-Based Hate

We prohibit content or behavior that promotes or condones hate, dehumanization, degradation, or contempt against marginalized or minoritized communities based on the following protected attributes: race/ethnicity, national origin/nationality/immigration status, caste, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, disability or serious health condition, or religion/belief.

Inauthentic Profiles

VERAFIED celebrates authenticity, and we expect all our members to represent themselves accurately on their profile. We don’t allow impersonation or misrepresentation on our platform. This includes catfishing (i.e. creating an online persona that isn’t you) or falsely stating facts about yourself (including name, gender, age, and permanent location).

Misinformation

We prohibit the sharing of demonstrably false or substantially misleading content that’s likely to cause serious harm or negatively impact individual or public safety. This includes content that directly contradicts information and guidance from leading and reputable global health organizations and public health authorities, false or misleading information on any civic process, and dangerous and unproven conspiracy-type theories.

Physical and Sexual Violence

We don’t tolerate any content, imagery, or behavior that commits or threatens credible acts of physical or sexual violence. This includes physical stalking, using our platform to assist, facilitate or support exploitation or human trafficking, and sexual assault of any kind, which we define as unwanted physical contact or attempted physical contact that is sexual in nature.

Scams and Theft

VERAFIED prohibits any scam or theft activity intended to defraud or manipulate members out of financial or material resources. This includes requesting or seeking financial support, lying about your intentions for financial gain, or faking romantic intentions to deceive members out of financial or material resources.

Sexual Harassment

We do not tolerate sexual harassment. We consider sexual harassment to be any non-physical, unwanted, and unwelcome sexual behaviors between members. This includes cyberflashing (i.e. sharing unsolicited sexually explicit images), in-person indecent exposure, sharing or threatening to share sexual or intimate images without the consent of the person involved or depicted, sending unwanted sexual comments or images, and fetishization.

Spam

We do not permit any kind of unwanted or irrelevant content sent in bulk or high frequency. This includes sharing misleading or misdirecting links, creating an excessive number of accounts causing disruption to other members, or having multiple active profiles on our platform to engage in unwanted interactions.

Suicide and Self-Injury Promotion

We care deeply about our members and understand that some may struggle with mental health, self-injury, suicidal thoughts, substance use, or eating disorders. While we do allow members to share personal experiences with these issues in a safe way, we don’t allow any content that depicts, promotes, glorifies, or assists in activities that could lead to suicide, self-injury, or disordered eating or body image.

Violent and Graphic Content

We don’t permit violent, graphic, or gory content. This includes descriptions of violence in profile content, photos containing real or realistic-appearing blood, bodily fluids, or injury, or images depicting guns of any kind (except on a uniformed member of law enforcement or military personnel).

Platform Manipulation

We prioritize fostering a community built on genuine connections, so any attempts to artificially influence connections, conversations, or engagement through the use of automation or scripting is strictly prohibited.

Safety Reporting

Safety is a top priority at VERAFIED. We use human moderators to monitor and review VERAFIED accounts and interactions for content that may be against our Community Guidelines, against our Terms and Conditions, or otherwise harmful.

Our members play a critical role in the safety of VERAFIED by reporting content or behavior that may violate our Community Guidelines. If anything happens that makes you feel uncomfortable or unsafe, we highly encourage you to Block & Report – the members.

However, please consider that disagreeing with or disliking a member or their content is not necessarily a reason to report them. We may take action against a member if we’e found them to be intentionally creating false or inappropriate reports against other members solely based on their protected attributes. This includes reporting transgender or nonbinary members for no reason other than their gender identity or expression or repeatedly sending false reports of bad behavior.

Enforcement Philosophy

All members must comply with the platform rules described and referenced in our Community Guidelines. If you behave in a way that goes against VERAFIED’s Community Guidelines, values, or otherwise act in any way we believe to be potentially harmful to VERAFIED or its members, we may take a range of actions on your account. When determining the penalty for violating our community guidelines, we consider a number of factors.

For example, we may:

• Remove the content

• Issue a warning

• Ban the offending member from the VERAFIED app.

When necessary, we also may cooperate with law enforcement to assist in potential criminal investigations related to member conduct.

Your treatment towards others outside of the VERAFIED app can also result in action against your account. If we’re made aware of harm between members on meetups, via text message or direct messaging platforms, or relevant alleged criminal or harmful conduct committed in your past or outside of VERAFIED, we may take action as if it happened on our platform.

If you believe we’ve made a mistake in taking action on your account or content, you can always contact us here.

If you have any questions or feedback about VERAFIED’s Guidelines, please reach out. Our support team is always available to help you here.