Pawb.Social Code of Conduct and Policies

The Pawb.Social administration team wants to create and foster a diverse, welcoming community, and a safe space where those within the LGBTQ+ community can be themselves.

This Code of Conduct applies to all services run by Pawb.Social, including furry.engineer, pawb.fun, and pawb.social, any media or files uploaded by users to any of our services, as well as in any private communication conducted on or through any of our services.

Rules

By utilizing any of our services, you agree to abide by this Code of Conduct and breaking it may result in sanctions against your account.

1. Illegal content or conduct

Content or conduct that is illegal in the United States is strictly prohibited. Pawb.Social services are operated and maintained within the United States and all content must comply with the federal laws of the United States.

For the avoidance of doubt, this includes but is not limited to: Instructions on how to commit crimes, encouraging acts of violence or terrorism, child sexual abuse material (CSAM) or depictions thereof, and unauthorized access or exploitation of computer systems.

2. Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and other discrimination is prohibited

We take a hard stance against any form of discrimination or abuse towards users in our community. Users who engage in such conduct are not welcome on our platform.

3. Don’t stalk or harass other users

Respect other users of our service and other federated instances. If someone doesn’t want anything to do with you, leave them alone. Attempts to bypass blocks, including creating alternate accounts for that purpose, is prohibited.

“Screenshot dunking”, or the act of taking screenshots of posts to repost and harass without directly replying, is strongly discouraged. If someone is annoying you, harassing you, or a genuine danger to other users, block and report them.

4. Misinformation and deceptive content is prohibited

Misinformation, scams, Ponzi schemes, and other deceptive tactics have become rampant on other platforms and we don’t want to see a resurgence of it in the Fediverse.

Examples of prohibited content include, but are not limited to, the following: COVID and health misinformation, pro-insurrection (Jan 6th) comments or endorsement, NFTs, “crypto” (blockchain & tokens, NOT cryptography), MLMs / pyramid schemes, flat earth claims.

5. CW: Content warning policies

Please see the Content Warning Policy post.

6. Respect the service

Do not perform any manual or automated penetration testing against our production services without prior written approval which can be obtained by contacting us at [email protected].

Spam and advertising is not acceptable, but friendly automated bots are welcome. Where possible, try to restrict any recurring automated posts to Unlisted to avoid cluttering the Local and Federated timeline.

Use of automated tools on the service is permitted for personal use, where such tools do not impact the performance of the services.

Additionally, the use of automated tools by, or on behalf of, archival organizations (such as WaybackMachine) are permitted when limited in scope. For example, archiving a user’s profile or a specific toot. For larger scopes, please contact us at [email protected] for approval and assistance.

7. Use the report system

If a user or instance is breaking the rules, we recommend just reporting the content and not engaging. We don’t want users to end up getting caught in the crossfire for attempting to correct a user in good faith, as this makes our jobs significantly harder.

Additionally, the team is here to help – If you’re unsure on a particular post, user profile, instance, etc. and don’t think we’ve seen or dealt with it yet, please send in a report. No user will ever be penalized for genuine use of the report system.

8. AP: Account policies

8.1. Posting language

While English is the primary language of the instance, we have no restrictions on the languages that can be used. However, we do require that all posts are properly marked with the language used, which can be done at the account level through the account preferences page, or per-post by clicking the language button next to “CW” (Content Warning).

Setting the correct language allows users to utilize the built-in LibreTranslate system to translate posts to their preferred language, and assists the moderation team with addressing concerns raised by other users.

8.2. Misleading or deceptive impersonation

You may not impersonate an individual, group, or organization with the intent to deceive, confuse, and exploit other users.

However, it is not a violation of this rule to impersonate for the purposes of parody, commentary, or fan accounts, so long as such accounts remain respectful and abide by the Code of Conduct. Parody accounts should tag themselves clearly in their profile description.

8.3. Bot accounts

Bot accounts must be marked as a bot using the “This is a bot account” option under Profile → Appearance.

Bots must post using either “Unlisted”, “Followers only”, or “Mentioned people only”, so we can keep the local and federated timelines clear and focused on users.

Bots must be made to heed the API rate-limits and should have a minimal impact on the instance performance.

All bots are expected to refuse to communicate, scrape, or otherwise access profiles with the “#NoBot” (case-insensitive) tag in their profile.

Restrictions on posts and interactions with users do not apply to official, administrative use bots.

8.4. Brand and Government-affiliated accounts

No brand or government-affiliated account may be registered on Pawb.Social services without prior written and publicly recorded approval, except furry fandom-operated brands and events covered by the exception below. This approval may be revoked by Pawb.Social at any time for any reason.

Brand and Government-affiliated accounts and instances must post using either “Unlisted”, “Followers only”, or “Mentioned people only”, so we can keep the local and federated timelines clear and focused on users. Remote users and dedicated instances violating this rule will be limited and their content only available to followers and through boosts.

However, furry fandom-operated brands and events are exempt from this rule as we want to encourage and support business within the fandom. This rule may be revised at a later date dependent on the future volume impact on the public timelines.

8.5. Bypassing suspension

If you have been suspended from any Pawb.Social instance, you may not create another account on any of our services.

8.6. Inappropriate avatar or header image

All avatars and header images must not contain any content that is prohibited by any other rule in the Code of Conduct, especially content that requires a Content Warning.