Harm Policy

Last updated: May 19, 2026

This policy explains what teacups will and won't do about content people post. teacups is a service for adults who want a place to speak freely with their neighbors and the world, anonymously. We won't pretend that means "anything goes" — but it does mean we draw the line in a specific place, and we want you to know exactly where.

Our stance, in one paragraph

teacups exists to let adults talk honestly to each other. We are not the language police. We don't remove content because it is rude, edgy, profane, sad, political, religious, sexual in conversation, or because it offends someone. We do remove content that is illegal, that targets a specific real person for harm, that exploits a minor, or that violates someone's bodily privacy. And we use a community moderation system — your neighbors — to handle the harder cases.

Three categories, three responses

Every piece of content sits in one of three buckets. The bucket determines what we do.

Removed and enforced we act

These are not judgment calls. They are removed automatically when our content filter catches them, or quickly when reported. The author's device is at risk of being banned. Some of these are mandatorily reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) or other authorities.

Child sexual abuse material (CSAM), or any sexual content involving a minor
Non-consensual intimate imagery (revenge porn, deepfakes of a real identifiable person)
Sharing a real person's contact information together with incitement, harassment, or a call for others to target them
Sharing a real person's contact information into a teacup that has no local context — e.g., posting someone's home address into the World tier or a teleported teacup far from where they live
Credible threats of violence against a specific person or group
Content that depicts, plans, or recruits for terrorism or mass violence
Content targeting an identifiable real person for harassment
Hate speech that calls for harm to people based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or other protected class
Sexual exploitation or "hot-or-not" objectification of a real identifiable person
Spam, commercial scams, phishing, malware links
Broadcast pornography (explicit sexual acts shared at large to a neighborhood feed)
Content that violates U.S. law or the law of the country where the user is located

Allowed we do not remove

These are not removed. If you report content in this bucket, your report will be reviewed but will not result in any action against the author. We will not tell you to "be nice." We will tell you that you can mute, block, or scroll past — those are your tools.

Profanity, blue language, adult vocabulary
Frank discussion of sex, drugs, mental health, trauma, grief, illness, or other sensitive topics
Strong political, religious, or philosophical opinions, including ones you find wrong
Anonymous criticism of public figures, brands, governments, or institutions
Dark humor, gallows humor, satire, irony
Unpopular opinions, dissent, contrarian views, conspiracy theories not tied to a real targeted person
Sincere expressions of anger, sadness, hopelessness, or any other strong emotion
Discussion of historical atrocities, current violence, war, crime, or other heavy subject matter
Personal opinions about other commenters' opinions — even rude ones — as long as they don't cross into the "removed" categories above

Community-moderated by heat your neighbors decide

Tone matters in a neighborhood. Content here isn't removed by us, but if your neighbors keep reporting you, "heat" accumulates on your device. Persistent low-grade nastiness, edge-walking, or making people feel unsafe in their own block can lead to warnings and eventually a ban — not because any single message crossed the line, but because a pattern of them did.

Persistent cruelty or contempt aimed at the people in your zone
Performative provocation — saying the thing just to upset people, repeatedly
Bad-faith argument designed to derail conversations
Repeated misgendering, slurs, or harassment that doesn't quite meet the threshold of targeted abuse but consistently makes the zone hostile
Behavior that drives away your neighbors from a public conversation they otherwise wanted to have

The community decides. If you don't like what's happening in your zone, report it. If a critical mass of your neighbors agree, the heat system takes care of it. If a critical mass don't, that's also information.

A note on "doxxing" within a neighborhood

teacups is geographically bounded. Inside a block-level teacup, your neighbors already know who lives above the pizzeria. Telling your neighbors something they already know about their own neighborhood is not doxxing — it's how neighborhoods talk. The harm is not in the information itself; it's in two specific things attached to it.

Incitement. "Frank lives above the pizzeria" is conversation. "Frank lives above the pizzeria, go break his windows" is incitement, and we remove it.

Out-of-context broadcast. Local information posted to teacups that don't share that local context — the World tier, or a teleported teacup hundreds of miles away — strips out the protective effect of "your neighbors already know." It hands personal details to an audience that has no reason to have them. Be more careful what you say in those tiers than in your block.

Reviewers and the heat system are calibrated to this distinction. A neighbor recommending Frank's pizza phone number to their block is not a violation. The same message posted into World, attached to "this guy ripped me off, here's his number, blow up his phone," is.

How content moderation actually works

Photos and videos — pre-screened before delivery

Every photo and video is scanned by a commercial content-moderation service (Hive AI) before delivery. Uploads that match the "removed and enforced" categories above are dropped automatically.
Every photo and video is also hashed and checked against known restricted-content databases (NCMEC's CSAM hash list, where we are registered).

Text messages — not pre-screened

Before relay, text is length-capped, rate-limited, and blocked from banned devices. These are abuse-mechanics protections, not content checks.
We do not pre-screen the content of text messages. We don't run a profanity filter, a toxicity classifier, or a banned-word list. Text moderation happens after posting, through the reports + heat system described below.

After content is posted — reports and heat

Anyone can report a message they think violates this policy. Reports include a severity guess.
An AI classifier reviews each report to suggest where it lands in the three buckets above.
For borderline cases, the report is sent to a small group of community reviewers in the same zone, who vote anonymously.
The reported user's device accumulates "heat" based on confirmed violations. Heat decays over time. Enough heat triggers warnings, then bans.
For "removed and enforced" content, the message itself is also taken down immediately — spliced from the zone and removed from every neighbor's feed — and the author's device may be banned without prior warning.

For our staff

Our staff do not remove content simply because they personally find it offensive. The categories above are the only basis for staff action.
Staff escalations to law enforcement happen only for content in the "removed and enforced" category and only as required by law.
Every staff moderation action is logged and reviewable.

What this policy does not promise

We will not guarantee that you never see content you find offensive. teacups is anonymous, public, and live. If you cannot tolerate seeing opinions you disagree with or language you find coarse, this is not the right product for you.
We will not arbitrate disputes between users about who was rude first. We are not your parent. Block who you want to block; report what is reportable.
We will not tell you who reported you, who voted on a community review, or what specific content triggered a ban. Anonymity protects reporters and reviewers from retaliation.

Appeals

If your device has been banned and you believe it was a mistake, contact support@teacups.com with your App Attest key identifier (Settings → About → Privacy in the app). We will review the ban. Ban records tied to "removed and enforced" content are very rarely overturned.

Contact

Tilted Planet, Ltd.
support@teacups.com · legal@teacups.com · privacy@teacups.com