Acceptable Use Policy

This Acceptable Use Policy ("AUP") supplements the Venoly Terms of Service. It applies to every user, server, channel, message, voice or video call, file upload, bot, integration, and connected account. It binds you whether you are signed in, browsing as a guest, accessing the platform through the web, desktop, or mobile clients, or interacting via the API.

Where the Terms of Service set out the contract between you and Venoly, this AUP sets out the conduct rules that contract requires you to follow. A violation of the AUP is a violation of the Terms of Service.

We try to keep the rules short. If something feels obviously wrong — like it would hurt someone, get us subpoenaed, or get reported on the front page — it's probably not allowed even if it isn't spelled out below. Three principles cover most situations:

• People over performance. Don't treat other users as raw material for engagement, content extraction, or harassment campaigns.
• Don't do here what would be illegal there. Conduct that violates the law of your country, the Netherlands, or the EU is not made acceptable by being online.
• If you wouldn't want it as a screenshot, don't post it.

You may not encourage, glorify, organize, plan, or assist in causing bodily harm to any person, group, or yourself. This includes:

• Threats of violence — direct, conditional, or coded — against any identifiable target.
• Coordinating physical attacks, raids, or doxxing campaigns whether or not violence occurs.
• Encouraging suicide, self-harm, or eating disorders. Educational and recovery-focused discussion is permitted.
• Sharing or selling weapons, explosives, or instructions to manufacture them, where prohibited under Dutch (Wet wapens en munitie) or EU law.
• Posting graphic gore, animal cruelty, or trauma content outside spoiler tags and content warnings.

Imminent threats are escalated to law enforcement under Article 53 of the Dutch Code of Criminal Procedure (Wetboek van Strafvordering).

Venoly is for users 13 and over. The following are absolute prohibitions:

• Any sexual content involving minors. This includes drawings, cartoons, computer-generated imagery, deepfakes, and AI-generated content depicting minors.
• Grooming, age-of-consent rationalization, or any conduct that targets minors for sexual contact.
• Solicitation of personal information, images, or in-person meetings from users known or believed to be minors.
• Adult content in any channel, server, or DM where a minor is present or could reasonably be present.

Suspected child sexual abuse material (CSAM) is preserved as required by Dutch and EU law and reported immediately to NCMEC (US) and EOKM (NL). See our Child Safety Policy.

You may not:

• Engage in persistent unwanted contact, including DMing across accounts after being blocked or asked to stop.
• Pile on, brigade, or coordinate harassment campaigns against any person, server, or community.
• Share intimate images of any person without their explicit consent (so-called "revenge porn"). This is prosecuted under Art. 139h of the Dutch Penal Code.
• Out a person's sexual orientation, gender identity, immigration status, mental health history, or other sensitive information without consent.
• Use AI-generated audio or video to depict a real person without their knowledge in a manner intended to harm them.

We do not allow content that promotes violence, harassment, or dehumanization of people based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, religion, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, disability, or serious medical condition.

Slurs used to attack a protected class are prohibited. Reclamation by members of the targeted group is generally permitted in private spaces. Discussion of hateful ideology for academic, journalistic, or counter-speech purposes is allowed where it is clearly so framed.

You may not use Venoly to commit or facilitate any of the following, whether or not these are also enumerated elsewhere in this policy:

• Sale or distribution of controlled substances, weapons, stolen goods, or counterfeit currency.
• Human trafficking, smuggling, or commercial sexual services.
• Fraud, money laundering, sanctions evasion, or terrorist financing.
• Distribution of copyrighted material outside fair-use, research, or educational exceptions under EU Directive 2001/29/EC and Auteurswet 1912.
• Distribution of malware, exploits, or unauthorized access to computer systems prohibited by Article 138ab of the Dutch Penal Code.

You may not undermine the platform itself. Specifically:

• Run distributed denial-of-service attacks against Venoly or any third party from Venoly.
• Bypass rate limits, captchas, fingerprinting, or any other anti-abuse control.
• Operate multiple accounts to evade a ban or to manipulate features that rely on per-user uniqueness (votes, reactions, reports, server invites, decisions).
• Use stolen credentials, credit card fraud, or session hijacking to access any account.
• Probe Venoly for vulnerabilities without going through the responsible-disclosure process at /legal/bounty.

If you sell, accept tips, or run a paid community on Venoly:

• Deliver what you advertised. Pre-purchase descriptions must be accurate.
• Honor EU consumer law, including the 14-day cooling-off period for digital content unless a valid Art. 16(m) waiver was obtained.
• Don't list prohibited products (weapons, drugs, accounts, ban-evasion tools, doxx services).
• Don't use Stripe Connect to launder funds, accept proceeds of crime, or pay people in sanctioned jurisdictions.

See our Refund Policy for the consumer-facing terms and the Developer & Creator Terms for the commercial conduct rules.

You may not post:

• Spam — repetitive, automated, or unsolicited content sent to many users.
• Phishing links, malware payloads, or files designed to compromise other users.
• Sexual content in channels or servers configured as general-audience or accessible by minors.
• Personal data of others, including home addresses, government IDs, school information, or workplace details, without consent.
• Election manipulation content within 60 days of any Dutch, EU, or member-state election where you are known to be circulating to voters.

You may not impersonate Venoly staff or representatives, government officials, law enforcement, journalists, or any other specific person in a way intended to deceive. Parody and satire are permitted where the parodic intent is reasonably clear.

You may not create an account on behalf of another person without that person's consent. You may not use AI to depict another person without their consent in a misleading way (AI Act Art. 50(4)).

Bots are permitted when registered through the Venoly developer portal and operating under the Developer Terms. Self-bots (using a regular user account driven by automation) are prohibited.

AI characters must be clearly labelled as AI in their profile and at the start of any direct conversation. This is mandatory under EU AI Act Article 50.

We apply graduated enforcement. The most common ladder is:

1. Warning — a documented note plus a notification.
2. Mute or temporary restriction — limited ability to post or join calls for a defined period.
3. Suspension — full account access removed for a defined period.
4. Termination — permanent removal; in extreme cases (CSAM, raid coordination, blackmail), with cascading IP, device, and email bans ("deep ban").

We may skip levels where a single incident is severe enough to warrant termination, where the user is a repeat offender, or where the law requires immediate action.

Whenever we restrict an account, we issue a Statement of Reasons as required by DSA Article 17, and we keep a non-public internal note separate from the user-facing reason so that candid moderator commentary never reaches the affected user.

You may appeal a decision we took within six (6) months of it, free of charge. A suspension, a termination, a posting limit or a warning from the Venoly team is appealed inside Venoly:

• Signed in: Settings → Account standing lists your decisions; choose Appeal this decision on the one you want reviewed.
• Suspended or terminated: the sign-in screen offers "Appeal this decision", or go to venoly.nl/appeal and enter the email address on your account to receive a code.
• If neither works, email appeals@venoly.nl with your username, the Statement of Reasons reference you received, and what you would like us to reconsider and why.
• Any other decision we take, such as removing your content: email appeals@venoly.nl in the same way, within the same six months.

Each decision can be appealed once. You can withdraw an appeal until someone starts reviewing it, and file it again; a denied appeal is final. A person reviews every appeal, and where possible it is someone other than the person who made the decision. Venoly is a very small team, so that is not always possible; when it is not, the appeal record says so. We aim to decide within 14 days and tell you the outcome and the reasons. Timeouts end on their own and cannot be appealed. A ban or warning inside a server is appealed to that server's moderators, who can switch appeals off for their server. You also have the right to out-of-court dispute settlement under DSA Article 21, and to lodge a complaint with the Autoriteit Consument & Markt (ACM) or the Digital Services Coordinator of your country.

We'll post material updates to this page and notify users in-product. Continued use after a material change is deemed acceptance. You can always see the "Last updated" date at the top of this page.