Community Guidelines

Amino empowers anyone to connect with others around what they love. With that mission comes a responsibility to keep every Amino member safe and happy. So we went ahead and created a set of universal community guidelines that apply to every single Amino. Individual Amino community leaders can create their own additional rules, as long as they don’t conflict with ours. Make sure you check those out, too.

## **Copyright & Intellectual Property**

In general, if you post something, you should either own it or have gotten permission to post it. Don’t claim authorship over content that you didn’t create. Why not draw something yourself instead, or take a picture of a plant?

## Harassment & Hate

Be kind. Communities are about people coming together because they share something in common. We take this very seriously, and explicitly ban:

* + **Hate speech.** Amino is a place to build communities, not to break them down. Content that attacks or vilifies people based on things like race, color, religion, national origin, sex (including gender presentation and sexual orientation), or disability is not allowed. Some examples include:
		- Using slurs or epithets, attacking profanity, or expressing hatred toward a group of people
		- Holocaust denial, glorifying the suffering of a group of people, expressing supremacism, or alt-right, etc.
	+ **Harassment and bullying.** Making others feel unsafe is not allowed. Some examples include:
		- Doxxing (sharing personal information), or publishing content with the intent to embarrass or harm another person
		- Telling someone to hurt themselves or to commit suicide
		- Creating fake accounts to impersonate another person and harass them or disrupt their use of Amino, etc
	+ **Threats, violent, or dangerous behavior.** Safety is paramount on Amino. The following types of threats are prohibited and may also result in Amino reporting you to law enforcement or emergency officials:
		- Terrorism or mass violence
		- Physical harm or murder
		- Hacking or threatening to SWAT Amino or others
		- Self-harm or suicide
		- Blackmail, etc.

* **Making inappropriate or unwanted requests for personal information or photos. Context matters here but, generally speaking, asking for other’s contact information or for them to send you photos is prohibited.**

If you feel harassed on Amino, we encourage you to block that user. Then take a breath and flag them for review. Lastly, take some time to compliment yourself, because you’re great.

## Spam and Self-Promotion

We want everyone in a Community to enjoy the content and discussions they want. Some activities ruin that experience. Some examples:

* **S**uper annoying, off-topic messages
* **P**romoting yourself, your Amino, or anything else about you in a repetitive or impersonal manner
* **A**utomated posting, messages, comments...or automated anything
* **M**aking the same post, message, or comment over and over and over and over and over again (really, once is enough)

If you feel the compulsion to do any of these things, maybe take that energy and put it into something productive, like messaging your elected representatives.

## Sexual Content & NSFW

Just like your favorite ocean, let’s keep it clean. We aren’t going to list off every type of weird thing we don’t allow, but a good rule of thumb is: if you think it’s too sexual, it probably is, and it shouldn’t be posted here.

* Nudity is not allowed. We use the 50/50 rule.
	+ If over 50% of sexual body parts are exposed, the content is not allowed.
* Explicit sexual content is not allowed.
* Implicit sexual content is not allowed. Some examples of this include:
	+ Undressing
	+ Simulating sexual acts
	+ Overly sexual facial expressions
	+ Cuddling nude, etc.
* Art depicting nudity, or over 50% of sexual body parts, is allowed as long as:
	+ The medium is a painting, drawing, sculpture, or similar (ex: not a photograph or video of real people)
	+ It’s not intended to arouse
* Content that encourages or celebrates sexual violence, exploitation, prostitution, or sex trade is prohibited.
* Text-based sexual content is prohibited in any public areas—like public chats, posts, or wikis—of Communities that are Open or Approval-Required. Some communities have extra rules on this subject, so be sure to check with your community’s leaders if you are unsure of what’s allowed.
* Certain Private communities are allowed to discuss sexual themes and related topics. These communities still can’t have any inappropriate sexual imagery. And, obviously, the rest of these guidelines apply to them, too.

* Protecting Teenagers:
	+ People under the age of 18 on Amino have to follow more strict policies when it comes to sexual content.
	+ We remove all sexually suggestive content depicting people under 18, even if it was *unintentionally* suggestive, so as to protect teens from having their content used in an inappropriate or unsafe manner by others. Examples of the type of content that teens cannot post include:
		- Dancing in a sexual manner
		- Making sexual facial expressions or gestures
		- Appearing in underwear, wearing swimsuits indoors, or dressing in overly-revealing clothing
		- Posting sexual text or dialogue along with imagery of teenagers
	+ Any behavior or content that sexualizes minors is strictly prohibited and may result in Amino reporting you to law enforcement agencies.

## Self-Harm

Anything that promotes, glorifies, or encourages self-harm or eating disorders isn’t allowed on Amino. If it could intentionally physically, emotionally, or mentally harm an Amino community member, it has no place here.

If you see someone on Amino discussing harming themselves or others, let us know. And if you are going through something yourself, know you are not alone and that there are resources out there to help you through it.

## Other Kinds of Graphic/Gross Content

Pretty straightforward: don’t post **real** gore or graphic violence to shock other members. Don’t post anything that depicts the mutilation, torture, or harm of human beings, animals, or any thinking, feeling being. And don’t post anything that glorifies any of the above. What, are you trying to ruin someone’s day?

Mildly objectionable content and art are allowed as long as they aren’t repulsive and intending to shock viewers. To determine whether content crosses the line, we review the general context of the imagery and take things into consideration such as:

* + If it depicts actual torture, pain, dismemberment, or violence involving real people or animals
	+ If it invokes a feeling of shock, sickness, or pain in the viewer
	+ If it depicts bodily fluids
	+ If the content is abnormally grotesque or exaggerated
	+ If it is historical or famous, etc.

Our policies aim to remove content that depicts **actual** torture, pain, dismemberment, or violence involving real people or animals. Art, special effects, TV shows and media, or other fictional portrayals are generally not in violation of these guidelines. If we think it might be real, we’re going to remove it.

## Unsafe or Illegal

* Content depicting actual illegal, unsafe, or criminal activity is not allowed on Amino. Some examples of this include:
	+ Anything that could harm minors
	+ Dangerous activity involving regulated goods or services (ex: alcohol, drugs, weapons etc)
	+ Violent crimes or terrorism
	+ Self-harm or harm to others, etc.
* Please note that roleplay, TV shows and media, or other fictional portrayals of the above are not generally considered a violation of these guidelines.

* It is prohibited to offer raffles, sweepstakes, games of chance or merit, or the opportunity to gamble, if you require users to pay in order to potentially win a prize. You are welcome to offer prizes as long as people don’t have to pay to enter to win.
	+ For example, ‘give props for a chance to win’ is not allowed, but stating ‘add a comment for the chance to win’ is.
	+ Using coins to purchase goods is allowed on Amino; please see our Coin Policies for additional information.