Safety & Community Guidelines
Last Updated: September 6, 2026
Dropout is a place for candid, anonymous campus conversation. Anonymity is a feature, not a shield — the same rules apply whether or not your name is attached. These Guidelines are part of our Terms of Service, and breaking them can get content removed and accounts suspended or banned.
What's not allowed
Harassment and bullying
No targeting a person with abuse, threats, or sustained unwanted contact; no coordinating pile-ons; no content whose purpose is to demean or humiliate a specific person.
Hate speech
No attacks on people based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, disability, disease, age, sex, gender identity, or sexual orientation — including slurs, dehumanizing language, and calls for exclusion.
Threats and violence
No threats of violence, incitement, or glorification of violence against any person or group.
Doxxing and privacy — including indirect identification
Do not share private or identifying information about a private individual without their consent. This includes indirect identification — using initials, "rhymes-with," a photo, a schedule, a dorm, or a uniquely identifying description to point at a specific person you have not named. If a reasonable reader could figure out who you mean, it is doxxing.
Sexual content and exploitation
No pornographic content, and no unsolicited sexual content directed at another user. Child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSAE) are prohibited, including child sexual abuse material (CSAM), grooming, sexual extortion and trafficking or commercial sexual exploitation of children. We remove violating content and take action against accounts involved. Confirmed CSAM is escalated for reporting to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) as required by applicable law.
Illegal activity
No using Dropout to buy, sell, or coordinate illegal goods or services (including drugs, weapons, or stolen credentials).
Self-harm
No content that encourages self-harm, suicide, or eating disorders. If you or someone you know is struggling, in the US you can call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline), available 24/7. We may surface resources on, and limit the spread of, content about self-harm.
Spam and manipulation
No spam, scams, fake engagement, ban evasion, or automated abuse of the Service.
Impersonation
Pseudonyms are welcome; pretending to be a specific real person or an official account is not.
Harmful misinformation
No false information that could cause real-world harm (for example, about safety, health, or an emergency on campus).
Protecting people under 18
Dropout is an 18+ app, gated at sign-up. We moderate any content that references or targets a minor with heightened caution and severity, and we act on it quickly.
How we moderate
We combine automated tools with human review:
- Screening at creation. A local filter rejects detected profanity and specific threatening or abusive phrases so the author can edit their draft. With your permission, OpenAI also checks submitted text when available; depending on the feature, content it flags is withheld for review or rejected. During an OpenAI outage, we may continue accepting content that passes the local filter without holding it for advance human review. The local filter has a limited English vocabulary and does not understand context like an AI model. Reports, blocking and staff review remain available during outages.
- In-app reporting. Use Report on posts, comments, messages, message requests and course reviews. Events and clubs have a safety menu; club roster entries also offer Report user. One report enters the appropriate moderation queue. Some content types automatically hide after multiple distinct reports, but human review does not require that threshold. Repeat pending event, club and user reports from the same account do not create extra queue entries.
- Human review. Our team reviews reported and auto-flagged content and takes action. We aim to review reports within 24 hours, and prioritize urgent safety concerns.
- Moderation records. We keep records of reports and enforcement actions to support accountable review. Account deletion removes identifying information as described in our Privacy Policy.
We try to be honest about what this is: a small, growing team supported by automated tooling, not a promise that nothing harmful will ever appear. Reporting is what makes it work.
What happens when a rule is broken
Depending on severity and history, we may:
- Remove the content
- Issue a warning
- Temporarily suspend the account
- Permanently ban the account (immediately, for the most serious violations)
Blocking and hiding. Block controls on named user-content surfaces prevent direct contact and hide the blocked account’s profile, posts, comments, messages, hosted events and club roster entries in both directions. A shared club itself remains available to its members; blocking does not remove either person’s membership. Course reviews are authorless: use Hide review to remove an individual review from your own view without identifying its author. Reporting remains available independently of hiding.
Appeals
If you believe we made a mistake, email support@dropoutsocial.com with the details and we'll take another look.
Deleting your content and account
You can delete any post or comment you made at any time, and you can delete your entire account in the app at Profile → Settings → Delete Account.
Legal requests
We respond to valid legal process (such as a subpoena or court order) only when legally required, and disclose only what the law requires. See our Privacy Policy for more.
Contact
Safety concerns, child-safety reports or questions about moderation: support@dropoutsocial.com. You can also report suspected child exploitation through the in-app Report controls; select the unsafe/inappropriate content reason. This is the public contact for Sori Labs LLC, the operator of Dropout.
We're building a place that stays candid without becoming cruel. That balance depends on everyone — thank you for helping.