Moderation policy
1. Age
- All users must be aged 14+. Therefore, moderators who suspect that a child under 14 is registering a profile, or contributing UGC, will reject that user/UGC.
- Children under 18 may appear in images and/or video, but they must not be identified. We will not permit material in which minors are present alongside alcohol, tobacco or nudity, even incidentally. We will not allow images in which children are shown in an exploitative or abusive light, or where they might be implied to be at risk of coming to harm.
- See also Child Safety issues (2) and Personal Information (3).
2. Child Safety
- Any UGC that allows children under 18 to be identified or located will be rejected.
- In all media, this includes any attempt by any user to post their surname (first names are fine), location (to any greater proximity than city/country), school name, Social Media or IM contact details, email address or phone number, or any such contact details of a third party, including friends and family members.
- Children must also be prevented from posting comments or UGC which might allow a stranger to pinpoint their location through a jigsaw of clues – such as school insignia in pictures/video.
- Child safety is paramount. Moderators will err on the side of caution.
- See also personal information (3).
2a. Grooming
- Moderators will take great care to watch for any evidence of grooming.
- Patterns of behaviour, such as attempts to elicit personal information or which seek to take a relationship with a child off-site, will be rejected and escalated.
3. Privacy/Personally Identifying Information (PII)
- All users must register in order to contribute comments or UGC. In doing so, they are asked to create a profile, which can include images.
- In all cases, no PII is permitted – including the user’s surname, or the surnames of family or friends.
- Any UGC that includes email addresses, phone numbers, street names or other Personally Identifying Information (PII) will be rejected.
- Moderators will reject any invitation to contact.
- We will not allow links to other sites where PII is shared, such as Facebook. See (15) below – no links are permitted.
4. Abuse
- We will reject any material that is posted purely with the intent of name-calling, threatening, abusing or bullying any other individual.
- Users may disagree with the comments posted by another user, and may use mild derogatory terms in that context (“that’s a stupid idea”), but may not insult or abuse the user behind the comment.
- We will reject material that is posted for the primary reason of insulting someone, or embarrassing them.
5. Libel/Defamation
- We will reject any comment or UGC that would fail the defamation requirement – that is, anything that, if untrue, would be capable of lowering someone in the estimation of right-thinking members of society. “David Tennant got drunk at my birthday party!”).
6. Illegal activity, alcohol & tobacco
- We will reject any items which admit to, approve of, encourage or explain how to perform an illegal activity, such as drug-taking, shop-lifting, physical violence, etc.
- In images or video, alcohol and/or tobacco may appear in the background (a picture inside a restaurant with wine on the table, a bar in the background, people going “cheers!”), but must not be prominent, and must not imply over-consumption. This includes branding or advertising, unless this is wholly background or incidental.
- We will however reject any image or video featuring tobacco or alcohol in which children are also present.
- We will reject any image or video in which tobacco or alcohol are prominent.
- We do not allow images depicting cruelty to animals.
7. Hate Speech
- We will not allow any material which is derogatory to members of a particular race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation or religion, or which incites hatred of particular groups.We will reject material that generalizes negatively about locations, their peoples or their culture.
- Where such material depicts any kind of imagery of extreme violence, racism, child abuse, or sexual activity of an illegal nature, the material will be rejected and its existence escalated to the appropriate authorities.
8. Distressing Content
- We will not allow any overly distressing content. Images/video of anyone being ill, or being afraid, will be rejected, where such content is distressing, or would be distressing to that individual.
9. Profanities and vulgarisms
- Images and video that feature offensive language, gestures or other material will be rejected.
- Comments that contain any swearing, even where this is quite mild, will be rejected.
- A profanity filter is in place and will be updated as new profane words or look a like profane words are used
10. Impersonation
- Material must not pretend that the user, the subject of the material or any UGC was posted by anyone famous, or by another user to the site.
11. Political Content
- Overly political or religious content will be rejected.
12. Client and Corporate
- Content that is targeted at LOCOG or any other corporate entity in a malicious way may be rejected. Constructive criticism or comment (including in audio/video form) is acceptable, where this is not done just to be negative, provocative or spiteful.
- We may choose to remove material which is clearly designed for an advertising or promotional purpose, or which overtly promotes other companies or their products. Some background visuals, including advertisements and company logos may be permissible in video/images.
- We do not allow links to other websites. This includes all links to social media sites.
13. Copyright
- We will not approve any item that features recognizable images of someone famous.
- We do not allow obviously copyrighted material, such as a stock photograph with a watermark, or a recognizable commercial image.
- We do not allow soundtrack music on any audio/video UGC unless explicitly authorised by LOCOG.
- Users may include a date stamp and a copyright symbol. However, any such information may not include any form of PII, including the submitter’s name or a web address.
- Quotes, including reviews, are permissible in the text, so long as they are OK under fair usage rules.
- Video should not include any broadcast performance (including TV/video footage, or live performances such as commercial music concerts, or a media event with the stars of the movies). Other public events (such as video of Renaissance Fair, or a street performer) are permitted.
14. Off-topic / Spamming
- We do not allow the posting of the same material repeatedly (spamming), or any negative material purely designed to elicit a response (trolling).
- Comments to the blogs, etc, should be restricted to the subject of the blog, in a broad sense. Although thread creep is inevitable, we will reject UGC that wilfully drives conversations away from the blog subject. Comments should remain close to the original thread subject.
15. Language
- All content should be in English. Common phrases from other languages are permissible – such as déjà vu, wilkommen – where they are clearly understood by the majority of the English population. We will reject all comments and UGC which are wholly or primarily in a language other than English. We may reject any video/image in which extensive use of a second language appears (a prominent message on a t-shirt).
- Poor standards of English (or the appropriate language) are permissible – it doesn’t have to be grammatically correct. We will reject however, extensive use of text-speak or other forms of language where the meaning cannot be easily understood.
16. URLs
- As stated above, with the exception of links to other parts of the site, these will be rejected.
- ALL links will be rejected/edited.
- Links to illegal websites will be rejected and their existence escalated.
17. Quality of Video/Images
- We will allow all images/video that pass all the other criteria in these guidelines, even if the quality is poor. However we will reject images where no discernible content exists, making it impossible to moderate.
18. Consent
- As stated above, we will reject any images of celebrities or famous people.
- We assume consent is given for images video of small groups, especially when they are posed for the camera. However we will reject crowd scenes, such as those at sporting events or music concerts, in any image or video.
19. Sex/Nudity
- Partial nudity is permissible in images/video – such as swimmers, beach volleyball players, etc. We do not allow images/video or references to sexual activity, or simulation of sexual acts.
- We do not allow images that are solely for the purpose of sexual titillation (lingerie, “bedroom” shots, etc).
- We do not accept any material in which children are shown in swimwear, or any similar state of undress.
20. Violence, Dangerous Acts
- We will reject images or video which depict dangerous acts, especially where these might encourage others to try the same.
- We will reject material that depicts or condones violence. Be aware that certain martial arts are Olympic events, and allow UGC which depicts them, but only in that context.
- We will reject the depiction of bladed weapons, guns – real or imitation – in the hands of the subjects of the photographs (but a photo of the subjects watching a military display would be OK). However, since shooting is an Olympic event, as is fencing, etc, we will allow images/video in that context (sports) only.
21. Duplicates
- We will reject duplicate or near enough duplicate UGC.