Content and Moderation Policy
Legal
What gets published, how it is verified, and the standard each entry is held to.
Effective date: 1 AUGUST 2026
We publish allegations and patterns, clearly labelled as such — never findings of guilt. A report says "a traveller says this happened here", not "this business is criminal". Every design and moderation decision follows from that distinction.
A report may be published where it:
describes a method of deception or theft targeting travellers;
is tied to a location (an area, landmark, transport route, or venue);
describes something the reporter experienced or directly witnessed;
is specific enough to be useful and, in principle, checkable.
We reject reports that:
name or identify a private individual — including by photograph, physical description plus workplace, vehicle registration, or social media handle;
allege serious crimes against a named person (assault, fraud) rather than describing a method at a location;
read as a competitor attack, a personal grievance, or part of a coordinated campaign;
are pure price complaints — "expensive" is not deception; undisclosed or switched charges are;
contain slurs, discriminatory generalisations about nationality or ethnicity, or harassment;
rely on hearsay ("someone told me") with no first-hand basis;
are unclear about the location, or so vague no traveller could act on them.
Reports must describe conduct, never the ethnicity, nationality, or appearance of the people alleged to be involved. Descriptions like "watch out for [nationality] men near the station" are rejected outright. This is both an anti-discrimination rule and a legal risk rule.
Every published report carries a visible label. The label is part of the publication — removing or obscuring it is not permitted.
Two things are shown together, because they answer different questions: where the entry came from (provenance) and what review it has had (status).
Provenance label | Criteria |
|---|---|
Reported by a traveller | Submitted through the app by a user describing their own experience |
Curated from public reporting | Compiled by our team from publicly reported travel-safety patterns |
Found in public reviews | Surfaced from public review text, human-checked before publication |
Status label | Criteria |
|---|---|
Checked by our team | A moderator has reviewed and published it |
Not yet reviewed | Published pending moderation |
Disputed | Contested by a named party; under review |
Removed | Withdrawn after review |
No entry is ever labelled as a verified finding of fact about a business.
Defamation requires a statement to be "of and concerning" an identifiable party. A report that names nobody is very difficult to sue over; a report that names a business is not. Staying at area and pattern level is therefore our primary legal protection, and it is enforced by the system rather than left to judgement.
The rule: reports are published at area, route, or pattern level by default. Naming a specific business is an exception that must be justified.
Requirement for naming a business | Enforced by |
|---|---|
Entry is explicitly flagged as venue-naming |
|
At least one source citation is attached | Same constraint — |
A city lead or super admin signs off | API rejects a moderator attempting it; approver recorded in |
Multiple independent reports or documentary evidence | Moderator judgement, recorded in the citation notes |
The API also screens every submission for language that reads like a business name and refuses to publish it silently — an entry that trips the screen must either be rewritten at area level or resubmitted with the flag, citations, and sign-off.
Other standing requirements:
Describe the method, not motive. "Charged for items not ordered" is checkable; "they are thieves" is not.
Certain markets restrict naming entirely — see the per-market appendix, which counsel must complete.
Every report carries a label describing where it came from, and that label must be true:
Label shown to users | Means |
|---|---|
Reported by a traveller | An app user submitted it about their own experience |
Curated from public reporting | Our team compiled it from publicly reported patterns |
Found in public reviews | Surfaced from public review text, human-checked before publication |
Curated entries are never presented as traveller reports, and nothing is presented as a verified finding of fact. Misstating provenance to appear more authoritative — or to appear more like user-generated content than it is — is prohibited. It is both dishonest to users and, if it ever came under legal scrutiny, considerably worse than the underlying claim.
Automated scoring is used only to prioritise material for human attention. It never publishes, removes, or ranks content in front of users on its own. Every publication and removal decision is made by a person.
This is a deliberate commitment, not just current implementation: it keeps us outside the scope of rules on solely automated decision-making (GDPR Art. 22) and gives an accountable human decision behind every published allegation.
Moderators:
record a reason for every approve, reject, and dispute decision;
do not moderate reports concerning a business they have any interest in;
escalate anything involving a named individual, a legal threat, or a possible criminal allegation against a specific person;
work only within their assigned city scope, enforced by the system.
If we publish something inaccurate, we correct it promptly and, where it materially affected a named business, note that a correction was made. We do not quietly delete and pretend it never happened.
This policy is reviewed at least annually, and after any legal challenge, regulatory contact, or significant moderation failure.
CONTACT for more information [email protected]
