Content Moderation Policy

Status: pre-launch operational draft

Last updated: 25 July 2026

1. Principles

Underground moderates content to protect rights, people and service integrity while respecting freedom of expression, artistic context and proportionality.

Decisions should be:

• based on published law or policy grounds;
• evidence-based and documented;
• proportionate to severity and recurrence;
• consistent across comparable cases;
• reviewable where required or reasonably possible;
• attentive to artistic, journalistic, documentary, educational and satirical context.

2. Detection sources

Potential violations may be identified through user reports, rightsholder notices, trusted flaggers, authority orders, security signals, automated detection or staff review.

Automated systems may prioritise or flag material but should not be treated as conclusive where a decision materially affects rights and meaningful human review is feasible.

3. Measures

Available measures include warning, labels, visibility reduction, recommendation exclusion, feature restriction, temporary disablement, removal, account suspension and termination.

We may choose the least restrictive effective measure, but severe or clearly unlawful conduct may justify immediate removal or termination.

4. Evidence and audit

Moderation records should include:

• content and account identifiers;
• report or detection source;
• policy and legal ground;
• evidence considered;
• decision and scope;
• automated-system involvement;
• timestamps and reviewer;
• notification and appeal outcome.

Sensitive evidence must be access-controlled and retained only as long as justified.

5. User communication

Where required and safe, affected users receive a statement of reasons and review route. We may limit details to protect reporters, minors, victims, security controls, trade secrets or active investigations.

6. Appeals

Appeals should identify the decision, explain the alleged error and provide relevant evidence. Successful appeals result in reversal or modification and restoration where technically and legally possible.

7. Emergency handling

Credible imminent threats, child safety issues, serious cyber incidents and legally mandated preservation or disclosure requests follow dedicated incident-response and authority-verification procedures.

8. Policy evolution

These rules will evolve with the product, community and applicable law. Material policy changes will be versioned and communicated.