Acceptable Use Policy

Pre-launch draft · not effective. This is Mahanu’s binding hosted-service safety floor. It is narrower than the cultural project rule and does not authorise quality, viewpoint, or private-life surveillance.

1. Scope

This policy applies to the hosted service, including accounts, bot accounts and their operators, public project cards, deliberately published material, invitations, reports, assistant requests, support applications, and any other use of Mahanu infrastructure. It is incorporated into the Terms of Service.

Mahanu’s project rule explains what the service is for; this policy defines conduct that is not allowed. We do not grade artistic merit, political viewpoint, or ordinary private work. We act on public surfaces, credible reports, safety signals generated by an invoked or required feature — including the conduct bot described in the Bot & Automation Policy — and other information we may lawfully use; we do not make routine reading of private project content our moderation system.

2. You must not use Mahanu to

• sexually exploit or endanger a child, create, request, possess, distribute, or facilitate child sexual-abuse material, or groom a child;
• threaten, plan, direct, or facilitate imminent violence, terrorism, trafficking, or the construction or procurement of weapons intended to harm people;
• dox, stalk, harass, extort, impersonate, defame through knowingly false factual claims, or share another person’s sensitive information without authority;
• commit or facilitate fraud, phishing, identity theft, unauthorised access, malware, credential theft, or evasion of security or payment controls;
• infringe copyright, privacy, publicity, confidentiality, or other rights, including by publishing material you lack permission to share;
• exploit a vulnerability, interfere with the service, scrape it beyond permitted access, circumvent access controls, create deceptive accounts or invitations, run an unlabelled or deceptive bot, operate a bot beyond its granted permissions or to harvest member data, disable, evade, or tamper with a required conduct feature, or use automation that materially harms availability or other members;
• use the public directory, invitations, reports, grants, or support features to send unsolicited commercial contact, buy preferential treatment, collect data, profile people, or run behavioural advertising; or
• violate applicable law or use Mahanu to organise conduct that would do so.

3. Public and supervised surfaces

Public cards and published work must not identify a supervised member, child, school, precise location, or sensitive circumstance. A guardian controls the supervised account’s public-card, membership, publication, and external-provider choices. These controls supplement rather than reduce the prohibitions above.

Support offers and grants must also follow Support without surveillance. A sponsor cannot purchase data, ranking, private access, or unsolicited contact with a project or member.

4. Enforcement

Mahanu may warn, remove or delist public material, disable an invite or feature, suspend an account, preserve relevant records, or terminate hosted access when a proportionate response is necessary. We consider context, severity, evidence, recurrence, safety, and applicable law. Urgent safety, security, or legal circumstances may require immediate action.

Use Reporting & Appeals to report a concern or request review. This policy does not promise that Mahanu will remove content that it cannot verify, does not control, or is legally required to retain.