Harassment is not permitted here. What that means is content aimed at a particular person to degrade, shame or frighten them: insults pointed at someone, repeated unwanted contact, and calling in others to do the same. Much of what is written on this service is written by people who are ill and read by people who are grieving, and being followed around by somebody's contempt is not a thing anyone should have to carry on top of that.
Writing about harassment or abuse that was done to you is a different thing, and it is allowed. The section below says so in full, because a rule against abusive words, read literally, can look like a rule against ever telling anyone what was said to you. It is not one.
We forbid behavior and content that harasses, shames, or demeans another person, as set out below. We do not screen anything before it is posted, so a report is how this reaches us, one person runs Goodbye App and reads every report, and we review reports within 24 hours of receiving them. Where the decision turns on something only the person being targeted can tell us, we need to hear it from them, and a report filed by that person is how it reaches us.
Targeted Harassment: Directing content at a person who has not asked for it, by mentioning them, tagging them or replying to them, is not permitted. What a person reading a report can see is the pattern: how much of it there is, how close together it came, and who it was pointed at.
This may include: Sharing numerous posts in a brief period or repeatedly posting replies containing malicious content to target an individual. This encompasses accounts solely dedicated to harassing one or more individuals. Mentioning or tagging users with malicious content.
Encouragement of Harassment: Asking other people to harass or single out a person or a group is not permitted. This encompasses, but is not limited to, the following: Direct calls to target individuals or groups with online abuse or harassment. Actions that advocate for offline activities, such as physical harassment, against individuals or groups.
Derogatory Language: Insults and profanity aimed at another person are not permitted. Not every strong word is that. Grief and anger are written plainly here, and swearing about an illness, a hospital, a death or the state of your own life is not harassment of anybody. What the rule turns on is whether the words are pointed at a person, which is something a person reading a report can see.
Writing about harassment or abuse that was done to you is not a violation of this policy. You can name what happened, describe it plainly, and say what was said to you, including words that would break this policy if you were the one saying them to someone. That is as true of abuse done to you as a child as of anything that happened last week. This policy is about targeting a person. An account of having been targeted is not that, and it belongs here.
Some posts look harmful read on their own and mean something else in the exchange they belong to. Friends use words with each other that would be an insult between strangers, and that is not what this policy is for. A friendship is not visible in a report, so it is not something to claim once a report has been made. Where the answer turns on it, the person the words were pointed at is the one who settles it: if they are the one who reported the post, it was not welcome, and it is read as it stands. Describing what someone did, in your own words, is not harassment of them either.
What is different is taking somebody else's abusive post and putting it in front of a new audience in order to denounce it. That puts the same words in front of more people, and reading a report we see the words rather than the reason they were posted, so a rule that turned on that reason is one we could not apply evenly. Say it in your own words instead. This is not the same as your own account of what was said to you, which is covered above.
Furthermore, we uphold the principle that critique of institutions, practices, and concepts constitutes an essential aspect of freedom of expression. Consequently, we refrain from taking action on such critical assessments.
Any user with a Goodbye App account has the ability to report potential violations of this policy.
In-app and Desktop
You can report content for review in-app and desktop as follows:
What happens depends on what was posted, how much of it there was, and the account's history. Content in breach of this policy is removed. We may warn the account, restrict what it can do, lock it temporarily, or suspend it. Every one of those decisions is made by a person reading the report and the account, not by an automated system.