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Acceptable Use Policy

What you can and can't do on Apperah.

Effective:
2026-06-29
Last updated:
2026-10-21
Version:
v1.4

1. About this Policy

This Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) is the contractually-binding set of rules for what you can and cannot do on Apperah.

It sits between our Terms of Service (general contract) and our Community Guidelines (values + plain-language standards). Where the ToS says “you must comply with the AUP”, this is what it means.

Violations are grounds for enforcement actions ranging from a warning to permanent account termination, subject to the procedural protections described in §11-13 below.

2. General prohibitions — illegal activity

You must not use Apperah to:

  • Commit crimes
  • Commit fraud, identity theft, or financial deception
  • Engage in money laundering, terrorist financing, or sanctions-evasion
  • Procure or distribute illegal goods or services

3. Harassment and abuse

You must not:

  • Stalk, harass, or threaten others
  • Coordinate harassment campaigns against an individual
  • “Doxx” — share another person’s location, contact details, employer, or other identifying information without their consent
  • Engage in repeated unwanted contact after the recipient has indicated they don’t want it
  • Impersonate someone with intent to harm or deceive
  • Name or present a group or community so as to impersonate a person, an organisation, or an official body, or to imply an official status or a brand affiliation you do not have

4. Hate, violence, illegal content

You must not:

  • Post or share hate speech targeting protected characteristics (race, religion, ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, etc.)
  • Post or share content that incites violence or terrorism
  • Post or share sexual content involving minors (CSAM) — when we become aware of it we remove it, preserve the relevant information, and report it to the appropriate authorities (such as NCMEC or, in Norway, Kripos) as the law requires, regardless of intent
  • Post non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII / “revenge porn”)
  • Post graphic violence not in a clear newsworthy / public-interest context
  • Spread coordinated misinformation in specific high-stakes domains (elections in countries with election-period laws; public-health misinformation during declared emergencies)

5. Intellectual property

You must not:

  • Post copyright-infringing content
  • Use trademarks deceptively or to confuse users about source
  • Pass off third-party content as your own
  • Strip identifying marks (watermarks, attribution) from content you didn’t create

DMCA and EU DSM-equivalent takedown: see our DMCA Policy and the EU notice-and-action procedure.

6. Platform integrity

You must not:

  • Spam at scale (high-volume invites; mass unsolicited messages)
  • Scrape Apperah data outside our published API and the Terms of Service
  • Bypass rate-limiting, captchas, or anti-abuse measures
  • Operate multiple accounts to evade restrictions
  • Engage in fraud, chargeback fraud, or abuse of refunds
  • Manipulate Apperah’s ranking, scoring, or recommendation systems

7. Technical abuse

You must not:

  • Attempt to hack, reverse-engineer, or probe Apperah’s security
  • Circumvent access controls
  • Introduce malware, viruses, or destructive code
  • Conduct unauthorised vulnerability research outside our Vulnerability Disclosure Programme — see VDP

8. Commercial misuse

You must not:

  • Use Apperah for unauthorised commercial promotion
  • Run undisclosed paid promotion in a group or community — paid placements must use the in-app “Paid partnership” label (see the Community Group Organizer Terms)
  • Run pyramid schemes, multi-level marketing, or get-rich-quick schemes
  • Sell access to your account
  • Use the platform for activities outside Apperah’s intended consumer and social-coordination scope (where Apperah’s Business Terms apply, those govern instead)

9. AI-specific prohibitions

You must not:

  • Attempt prompt injection or manipulation of Apperah’s AI features
  • Generate deepfakes of identifiable third parties without their consent
  • Use Apperah to generate, share, or promote AI-generated CSAM or NCII (immediate Tier 3 violation; reported to authorities)
  • Generate AI impersonation of public figures
  • Bulk-spam using AI-generated content

10. Children’s safety

  • Apperah’s minimum age is 16 everywhere today; we are introducing per-country minimum ages (as low as 13 where local law allows) and will apply those once that tailoring is in place (see Privacy Policy §13 and our Youth Safety page)
  • If you misrepresent your age, you violate this AUP
  • If we receive a credible report or have reason to believe an account is operated by someone under our minimum age, we will suspend pending investigation and review it under our internal procedures
  • Any CSAM-related violation is immediate Tier 3 and is reported to authorities

Full framework: Children’s Safety Framework.

11. Enforcement tiers

These tiers guide proportionate human decisions. A report is an allegation, and report counts or AI confidence alone never authorise removal, account sanctions or group suspension. A human reviews the content and context before imposing a final restriction. We do not apply automatic account strikes based on reports.

Automated screening may keep a questionable new upload unpublished for human review. A narrowly scoped emergency safeguard may temporarily hide a published public comment where an independent assessment of its actual content and context identifies an unambiguous threat of imminent physical violence. Such a hold is not an account strike and stays in place until human review; more reports cannot extend or restart a hold on unchanged content. Specialised child-safety and statutory procedures remain separate.

Tier 1 — Minor

Examples: low-volume spam, isolated TOS breach, off-topic content in inappropriate channel.

Action: a warning or a reasoned content restriction. Repeated, substantiated violations may justify a stronger proportionate human decision.

Tier 2 — Serious

Examples: harassment, copyright infringement, spam at scale, multi-account abuse, rate-limit evasion, coordinated election-misinformation.

Action: a reasoned content restriction or account suspension. The human decision explains its scope and duration; a report or an AI assessment alone cannot suspend your account.

Tier 3 — Severe

Examples: CSAM, doxxing-with-intent-to-harm, coordinated harassment, credible violence threats, fraud at scale, impersonation of public figures, attempted unauthorised access, NCII.

Action: urgent human assessment, with restrictions up to permanent account termination where justified, mandatory reporting where required, and evidence preservation under the applicable procedure.

12. Statement of reasons (DSA Art. 17)

When we restrict your content, account or group, we provide a written statement of reasons at the time the restriction takes effect, including:

  1. What we did (suspended; content removed; terminated)
  2. What specifically violated this AUP (specific section + behaviour)
  3. Evidence source (e.g., a user report, proactive review, or system detection)
  4. Whether automated means were used (yes / no)
  5. Effective date and duration if temporary
  6. Your right to appeal, the procedure, and the deadline

We send the notice automatically by email when the operation completes and retry sending failures. Provider acceptance is tracked separately from confirmed inbox delivery. If we have no usable contact address, we record that limitation for staff review. Reversing a decision is reported as completed only after its effects finish; another restriction, author deletion, account erasure or retention limits may prevent restoration.

13. Your right to appeal (DSA Art. 20)

You may appeal a restriction or our decision not to act on a report or external notice.

  • Deadline: at least 6 months from notification of the decision; we use the actual receipt time of your appeal, not the time staff enter it
  • How to appeal: email appeals@apperah.com with the decision reference and your reasons or supporting information. You do not need to sign in
  • Reviewer: a human reviewer different from the original human decision-maker, or a human reviewer for an automated hold. If no eligible reviewer is available, the appeal stays pending
  • Decision timeline: without undue delay (DSA Art. 20(4)). We acknowledge the appeal and email a reasoned keep-or-reverse outcome. An appeal does not itself change a restriction
  • Out-of-court dispute resolution: where we reach the scale that triggers DSA Art. 21 certified-body engagement, we will publish details

14. Trusted flaggers (DSA Art. 22)

We work with trusted flaggers — civil-society organisations and government bodies recognised under DSA Art. 22 — and prioritise their reports. Currently we have not appointed specific flaggers; this will be updated as our practice develops.

15. Reporting illegal content (DSA Art. 16)

If you see illegal content on Apperah:

  • In the app: tap “Report” on the content (you’ll be signed in to your account).
  • Without an account: email trust@apperah.com — anyone, including people who don’t use Apperah, can report illegal content this way.
  • Include the content location, the grounds for your notice, supporting information, your contact details and a statement of good faith. We acknowledge receipt, request missing information where needed, and email a human-reviewed outcome with challenge instructions. Registration alone does not authorise removal.
  • We handle notices under our notice-and-action procedure (DSA Art. 16).

16. Coordinated reporting and abuse of notice (DSA Art. 23)

If you submit manifestly unfounded reports repeatedly, a human may temporarily suspend your ability to report after a warning and a proportionate case-by-case assessment. This is to protect the community from abuse of the report mechanism. You have the same appeal rights.

17. Cross-platform conduct

Conduct off Apperah may affect your Apperah account if:

  • Off-Apperah harassment targets an Apperah user
  • Off-Apperah evidence is necessary to assess on-Apperah behaviour
  • A user is being doxxed off-Apperah using Apperah-obtained information

We act on credible evidence.

18. Per-jurisdiction overlays

Some jurisdictions impose additional rules that we apply in addition to this AUP:

  • EU: DSA Arts. 14, 16, 17, 20, 22, 23 — see this document
  • UK: Online Safety Act 2023 priority categories (terrorism, CSEA, fraud, etc.)
  • Germany: NetzDG (applies above a user-count threshold; we comply if and when it applies)
  • France: SREN + cyber-bullying / hate-speech overlays
  • US: §230 CDA preservation; state-AG enforcement of state-specific consumer-protection
  • Brazil: Marco Civil Art. 19 intermediary regime
  • Korea: Information and Communications Network Act

19. CSAM reporting commitment

Designated human reviewers assess child-safety concerns, decide restrictions, preserve relevant evidence securely for the applicable legal period, and report to the appropriate authorities where required. Routes and deadlines depend on the incident and applicable law.

Automated screening supports review where enabled; licensed hash matching requires a separate risk and legal assessment. Challenge mistakes at appeals@apperah.com through specialist review. Content is not automatically restored, and notices may be withheld where legally justified.

20. Updates

We update this AUP as:

  • New statutory categories of illegal content emerge in our operational jurisdictions
  • DSA / OSA / equivalent implementing acts issue
  • Specific abuse patterns require new prohibitions
  • Regulator guidance changes

Material updates: advance in-app notice. We respect your right to terminate your account if you don’t accept material changes.

21. Cross-references