Guidelines
Last update: 1 January 2023

1. Be nice and keep it clean.
1A. Be respectful of others.
Disagreements happen and are normal, but making continuous, repetitive, or severe negative comments are not acceptable. This applies to general cyber bullying too. Heartstring was created to be a fun and safe place for everyone. Please be mindful of this. Keep it clean. Be nice.

1B. Do not organize, promote, or participate in hate speech or hateful conduct.
It’s unacceptable to attack a person or a community based on attributes such as their race, ethnicity, caste, national origin, sex, gender identity, gender presentation, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, age, serious illness, disabilities, or other protected classifications.

1C. Do not make threats of violence or threaten to harm others.
This includes indirect or suggestive threats, as well as sharing or threatening to share someone’s personally identifiable information.

1D. Do not use Heartstring for the organization, promotion, or support of violent extremism.
This also includes glorifying violent events, the perpetrators of violent acts, or similar behaviours.

1E. Do not sexualize children or others in any way.
You cannot share content or links which depict children or others in a pornographic, sexually suggestive, or violent manner, including illustrated or digitally altered pornography that depicts children. We report illegal content with the authorities.

1F. Do not make or share adult content.
Do not use or share adult content in photos, usernames, posts, or comments. We don't tolerate any sort of NSWF content and users who do so anyway will be banned from heartstring forever.

1G. Do not share content that glorifies or promotes suicide or self-harm.
This includes any encouragement to others to cut themselves or embrace eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia. Self-harm threats used as a form of emotional manipulation or coercion are also strictly prohibited at all times.

1H. Do not share media depicting gore, excessive violence, or animal harm.
This also applies to content deliberately shared to shock others.

1I. Do not organize, promote, or engage in any illegal or dangerous behavior.
This could include sexual solicitation, human trafficking, and selling or facilitating the sale of prohibited or potentially dangerous goods (firearms, ammunition, drugs, and controlled substances). These activities will result in an instant and permanent ban from heartstring. In extreme cases you may get you reported to law enforcement.

2. General app usage and content.
2A. Do not spam or deliberately try to harm others or heartstring.
We do not tolerate any users who deliberately engage in spam related activities with malicious intent or others. Any sort of spam related activity will be automatically reported which will result in an instant and permanent ban of your account.

2B. Engage with others like you do with your friends.
The best rule of thumb is to simply talk with people like you do with friends. We hope that is what we can at least do for you to some extent. But in order to make that work, you have to do your part and treat others with respect and dignity.

3. Working together.
3A. Report users or content that is spammy, NSFW, bullying, illegal, or harmful.
You can report any users who are deliberately trying to mess with other people, organise some form of illegal activity, engage in cyberbullying, spam others, engage in hate speech or any of the above at any moment in time. We take these reports very serious.

3B. Understand that we have a zero-tolerance policy.
Heartstring works with data analysis tools that help keep the users and community safe. When users, comments, or posts are repeatedly reported and lead back to the same account - that account will be banned from heartstring. This means that this person will not be able to sign up ever again.

3C. Respecting the privacy of others.
We do not check on data connected to our users. All your data is securely stored and encrypted. In extreme cases (e.g. the organisation of heavy illegal activities or violence) all data that is related to the user(s) in question will be retrieved, decrypted, and possibly reported to law enforcement.

4. Final closing words.
We may take action against a user, group, or content that violates these guidelines in case we do encounter a new threat or harm that is not explicitly covered in the current version. We will always do our best to notify you when we update these guidelines, but it is up to you to follow them. Be nice. Keep it clean. Keep Heartstring a safe and pleasant place for everyone.

5. What if I still have questions about the guidelines?
If you have any questions about these guidelines you can contact us at: hello@heartstring.app