Our Philosophy
Civil but free discussion is the cornerstone of Republic. We believe a strong community depends on people being able to exchange ideas, challenge one another, and participate in civic life. These Guidelines protect that community by setting boundaries against harmful conduct.
We enforce our Guidelines only when we determine that intervention is absolutely necessary to safeguard our users, protect Republic, or meet our legal obligations. When we act, we use the least restrictive effective response that fulfills the spirit of the rules while preserving civil but free discussion. Consequences reflect both the seriousness of the violation and your account standing, with increasingly serious penalties for repeated violations.
Everyone on Republic must follow these Guidelines. They apply to posts, replies, reposts, direct messages, profiles, media, links, and all other use of our platform, including conduct by official accounts and staff. Using coded language, another account, or an external service to carry out a violation does not remove responsibility.
Protect One Another
1. Do not target people with harassment. Stalking, intimidation, persistent unwanted contact, coordinated abuse, and campaigns to frighten someone or force them off Republic are prohibited. This includes evading a block to continue harassment or directing others to target someone.
2. Do not communicate threats of harm. Threats of physical violence, death, sexual assault, kidnapping, or attacks against a person or group are prohibited. This includes indirect and conditional threats that communicate a serious intent to harm. Swatting and false emergency reports intended to endanger someone are also prohibited.
3. Do not disclose personally identifying information (PII). Republic has a duty to safeguard its users. Posting, sharing, soliciting, selling, linking to, or threatening to disclose PII is prohibited, whether the information belongs to you or another person. Permission or consent does not make sharing PII acceptable. This rule applies to direct messages as well as public content.
PII includes private or sensitive information that identifies, locates, or exposes a real person, such as home addresses, private contact details, precise or live locations, identification documents, financial information, medical records, account credentials, and identifying details about family members or private schools or workplaces. Revealing the real-world identity behind an account or compiling scattered information to identify or locate someone is also prohibited.
Attempts, threats, reposts, and services that facilitate exposing PII violate this rule. Information being available elsewhere or a claim of good intentions does not excuse a violation. Every confirmed PII violation results in automatic permanent suspension, including a first offense and disclosures made with permission.
4. Do not attack people through hateful conduct. Slurs, degrading identity-based attacks, dehumanization, and advocacy of violence or persecution against people because of race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, religion, sex, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, or serious medical condition are prohibited. This includes using hate symbols or coded references to intimidate or promote hatred. A targeted slur can violate this rule in a single post.
5. Do not encourage or assist violent extremism. Recruiting, fundraising, planning, or providing practical assistance for terrorism, mass attacks, or extremist violence is prohibited. Do not celebrate attacks or praise perpetrators in a way that encourages further violence.
6. Do not exploit or sexualize children. Creating, requesting, uploading, distributing, linking to, or promoting child sexual abuse material is prohibited. This includes sexualized depictions of anyone under 18 in text, images, audio, video, illustrations, animation, or AI-generated material. Grooming, sexual solicitation, sexual conversations directed at minors, and arranging sexual contact with them are prohibited. Confirmed child sexual exploitation results in permanent suspension, and Republic will make reports required by applicable law.
7. Do not distribute pornography or explicit sexual material. Pornography, explicit sexual acts, sexualized nudity, and material created primarily for sexual gratification are prohibited throughout Republic, including profiles and direct messages. Do not solicit sexual services or advertise sexual exploitation.
8. Do not sexually harass or exploit another person. Unwanted sexual material, coercive sexual demands, and degrading sexual targeting are prohibited. Do not create, distribute, or threaten to distribute intimate material of someone without their consent, including secretly recorded material or fabricated sexual depictions. Consent to create material does not establish consent to distribute it.
9. Do not encourage suicide or self-harm. Pressuring someone to harm themselves, providing methods intended to facilitate self-harm, or glorifying suicide, self-injury, or eating disorders is prohibited. Telling someone to kill themselves violates this rule, including when presented as an insult or joke. Do not use threats of self-harm to coerce or blackmail another person.
10. Do not use graphic violence or cruelty to shock, intimidate, or celebrate suffering. Gratuitous depictions of mutilation, torture, severe injury, violent death, or animal cruelty for these purposes are prohibited. Do not use such material to harass someone, encourage imitation, or promote dangerous challenges that create a serious risk of injury or death.
Protect Republic's Integrity
11. Do not flood Republic with spam. Bulk unsolicited messages, disruptive repeated posts or replies, mass unwanted mentions, and tools or services designed to facilitate this activity are prohibited.
12. Do not manufacture engagement or manipulate the platform. Fake account networks, purchased engagement, deceptive automation, and coordinated schemes to manipulate followers, reactions, reposts, trends, or visibility are prohibited. Do not use these methods to suppress other users or overwhelm platform functions.
13. Do not deceive others about who you represent. Impersonating a person, organization, public official, or Republic representative to mislead users is prohibited. Do not fabricate verification, credentials, affiliations, endorsements, or authority to obtain trust, information, money, or access. Parody, commentary, and fan accounts must use Republic's corresponding designation and clearly identify their unofficial status; concealing that designation or using it to excuse deception violates this rule.
14. Do not interfere with civic participation through deception or intimidation. Deliberately misleading people about when, where, or how to vote, register, or participate in a civic process is prohibited. Do not impersonate election authorities, fabricate official instructions, or intimidate participants. This applies to civic processes on Republic and real-world elections.
15. Do not spread deceptive material that facilitates serious harm. Fabricated emergency instructions or official safety notices that foreseeably endanger people are prohibited. Do not present manipulated media, AI-generated content, forged documents, or fabricated statements as authentic evidence to facilitate fraud, impersonation, threats, or other prohibited conduct.
16. Do not compromise accounts or systems. Unauthorized access, credential theft, phishing, malware, malicious links, denial-of-service attacks, and exploitation of vulnerabilities to compromise Republic or its users are prohibited. Do not bypass access controls, collect private data without authorization, or distribute tools intended to enable these activities.
17. Do not circumvent moderation actions. Using alternate or borrowed accounts, third parties, or technical workarounds to evade a suspension or restriction is prohibited. Do not repost removed content to continue the same violation.
18. Do not weaponize reports, appeals, or support requests. Knowingly false reports, fabricated evidence, retaliatory reporting campaigns, and attempts to manipulate review systems into punishing someone are prohibited. Do not threaten or harass anyone to influence a decision.
Respect Rights and the Law
19. Do not use Republic to defraud or extort people. Scams, fraudulent fundraising, deceptive commercial offers, forged documents, and schemes to steal money, property, information, or access are prohibited.
20. Do not arrange unlawful transactions. Illegal sales or exchanges involving weapons, drugs, stolen property, counterfeit goods, or regulated services are prohibited. Do not organize or facilitate illegal gambling.
21. Do not facilitate human exploitation or dangerous criminal activity. Trafficking, forced labor, arranging abuse, and coordinating crimes that endanger people are prohibited.
22. Do not infringe others' intellectual property rights. Unlawfully copying, distributing, selling, or claiming ownership of protected work is prohibited. Do not misuse protected names, logos, or other material to deceive people about ownership, affiliation, or endorsement.
Account Standing and Consequences
Republic uses a tiered punishment system. Confirmed violations affect your account standing. As violations accumulate, penalties become more restrictive or last longer, up to permanent suspension. Violations of different rules can contribute to the same escalation.
Depending on the violation and your history, consequences may include a warning, removal of content, required corrections, temporary feature restrictions, temporary suspension, or permanent suspension. Content removal may accompany an account penalty. Serious violations can result in immediate suspension; the tiers do not guarantee a fixed number of chances or require every lesser penalty first.
We consider evidence, context, severity, risk of harm, and relevant violation history when choosing the least restrictive effective response. Repeated violations may show that earlier measures have not been effective and make stronger enforcement necessary.
PII violations always result in automatic permanent suspension, including a first offense and disclosures made with permission. This consequence does not depend on the reach of the disclosure or proof of resulting harm. Confirmed child sexual exploitation also results in permanent suspension.
If we take action, your notice will explain the violating conduct, the applicable rule, the penalty, and its duration where applicable. Your Account Standing provides information about violations and restrictions affecting your account. Finishing a temporary restriction does not, by itself, erase the violation from your history.
Reporting and Appeals
Report suspected violations through Republic's reporting tools. Do not publicly reproduce PII or repost harmful material to draw attention to a violation. We assess reports against these Guidelines; the number of reports alone does not establish a violation.
If you believe an enforcement decision was mistaken, you may appeal through Republic's appeals process. We review the finding and the penalty. When a violation is overturned, its effect on your account standing and penalties resulting from it will be corrected. Restrictions from other upheld violations may remain.
A PII suspension may be reversed if the finding was mistaken. A confirmed PII violation is not reduced to a temporary penalty through an appeal.
We may update these Guidelines as Republic develops and will communicate material changes through official channels.