Intimate content without consent

1. What this covers

• Members can upload pictures: a profile photo, a banner, a gallery, pictures on a post, on a lot listing, or sent in a message. All of those are covered here. There is no video anywhere on the site yet; if that changes, this page changes with it.
• Text and links are covered too. A post that describes intimate content of an identifiable person, links to it elsewhere, threatens to share it, or solicits it, is covered exactly as an image is.
• “Intimate” means what the TAKE IT DOWN Act and state law mean: nudity, sexual activity, or content that would be understood as intimate depictions of an identifiable individual, real or digitally forged, published without that person’s consent.
• Content depicting a minor is handled under our abuse-material process, which is faster still and involves a report to NCMEC. Use the same form; pick the child-abuse reason.

2. How to make a request

File through the report form with the intimate-content reason, or email [email protected]. No account is needed. A valid request has four parts:

1. Your signature — a typed full name is enough — of the person depicted or someone authorised to act for them.
2. Where it is — the address of the post, comment, picture, profile or page, enough for us to find it. If you can only describe it, describe it; we will find it.
3. A good-faith statement that the content is an intimate depiction of you (or the person you act for) and that it was published without consent.
4. Contact information so we can confirm the removal — an email address is enough.

You do not have to explain, prove, or attach anything. You do not have to be a member. We do not ask for identification.

3. What happens, and when

• The report goes to the top of the queue with a 48-hour clock. On first look the content is hidden and a copy preserved so an appeal or a legal question can still be answered.
• Within 48 hours of a valid request the content is removed, and the file is deleted from disk rather than merely hidden.
• Identical copies go too. Every picture here is fingerprinted by the hash of its decoded pixels when it is uploaded, so the same image posted by somebody else, or re-saved through another app, is found and removed in the same action. A cropped or edited version will not match that fingerprint — tell us and we will remove it by hand.
• You get an email confirming the removal if you gave an address.
• The poster receives a statement of reasons and a strike. Threatening to share intimate content, or sharing it, is a safety strike; a second is a ban.
• We do not tell the poster who filed the request.

4. If we get it wrong

A removal made in good faith on a request that turns out to be false will not be held against us by the law, and we will not hold it against you if you were the one wronged. A poster whose content was removed on a request they believe was mistaken can appeal at [email protected]; the content stays down while the appeal is read.

5. If the content is somewhere else

We can only remove what is here. If a post links to content on another site, we remove the link and the description; the other site has its own process, and organisations such as the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative and StopNCII.org can help with the rest. If you are in immediate danger, call 911.