Sewer Rules

1. The basic rule

Attack ideas, behaviour, institutions, public claims and, within lawful limits, one another's arguments. Do not use the Sewer to create a credible threat to another person's safety, privacy or ability to use the service.

Being offended does not automatically mean a rule has been broken. Equally, calling conduct a joke does not immunise conduct that is threatening, coercive, privacy-invasive or unlawful.

2. What the Sewer permits

Herpegram permits robust expression more readily than many mainstream social networks. The following are not automatically violations merely because they are rude or controversial.

• Profanity, sarcasm, ridicule and dark humour.
• Strong criticism of opinions, organisations, products, public policy, religion, ideology or public conduct.
• Arguments and unpopular or minority opinions expressed lawfully.
• Insults and abrasive replies that do not cross into prohibited threats, stalking, doxxing or serious targeted harassment.
• Parody and satire where they are not used for fraud, malicious impersonation or another prohibited purpose.

3. Threats and violence

Do not make credible threats of violence, encourage a specific violent attack, solicit another person to commit violence, or use Herpegram to coordinate violent wrongdoing.

Fiction, hyperbole, news discussion, historical discussion and obvious non-credible jokes are assessed in context. Herpegram may nevertheless act where context gives us reasonable grounds to believe there is a genuine or material safety risk.

4. Doxxing and real-world identity

Variants are pseudonymous by design. Do not expose or coordinate the discovery of another Variant's private real-world identity, home address, personal telephone number, personal email address, private workplace information, credentials, non-public records or live location without a lawful basis and appropriate permission.

Do not invite other users to identify, locate, contact, intimidate or confront a Variant outside Herpegram against that person's wishes. A fact being obtainable somewhere on the internet does not automatically make its targeted republication safe or lawful.

5. Harassment and stalking

A hostile exchange between adults is not automatically harassment. Persistent targeted conduct can become prohibited when its pattern, severity or purpose reasonably amounts to stalking, coercion, intimidation, unlawful harassment or a material safety risk.

Blocking is a boundary. Deliberately creating accounts, recruiting others or manipulating features principally to defeat another user's block or continue prohibited contact may result in enforcement.

6. Sexual content and exploitation

Herpegram is an adults-only service, but that does not make every form of sexual content lawful or acceptable. Child sexual abuse material, sexual exploitation, grooming of minors, non-consensual intimate imagery, sexual extortion and other illegal sexual material are prohibited.

Do not publish intimate material of another person without the rights and valid permission necessary to do so. Herpegram may restrict additional categories of explicit content through product-level upload rules even where the content is otherwise lawful.

7. Hate, discrimination and protected characteristics

Herpegram does not promise a sanitised environment and does not remove every offensive statement concerning a protected characteristic. However, expression may be restricted where it is unlawful, constitutes prohibited harassment, credibly incites violence, targets a person with threatening conduct, or otherwise creates a material safety or legal risk.

Moderation should assess meaning and context rather than treating the presence of a slur or quoted term as conclusive by itself.

8. Fraud, scams and impersonation

Do not use Herpegram to obtain money, credentials, access or personal information through deception. Phishing, fraudulent investment schemes, credential theft, malicious impersonation and knowingly deceptive commercial schemes are prohibited.

Parody accounts and fictional personas must not be operated in a way reasonably intended to deceive another person about a material fact for fraud or harm.

9. Spam and manipulation

Do not flood the Sewer, mass-create accounts, operate unauthorised bots, buy or coordinate artificial engagement, manipulate Mutations or rankings, or use organised inauthentic behaviour to manufacture apparent popularity or consensus.

CERBERUS is allowed to have enough problems without humans manufacturing additional ones.

10. Images and personal information

Only upload media you have a lawful right to submit. Do not deliberately defeat face-obscuring, metadata-removal, file-size or other privacy and safety measures implemented by Herpegram.

Technical privacy measures reduce risk; they do not transfer responsibility for an unlawful upload to Herpegram.

11. Transmissions

Private Transmissions remain subject to the Terms of Use and applicable law. End-to-end encryption is not permission to threaten, exploit, defraud or harass another person.

A recipient may report a Transmission and deliberately provide relevant material to Herpegram for review. Blocking, trusted-device controls and Transmission access controls must not be bypassed.

12. Reports are not weapons

Report content because you reasonably believe it requires review, not because you want to punish someone for winning an argument. Knowingly false, fabricated or coordinated abusive reports may themselves result in enforcement.

A report is evidence to assess, not a verdict. Herpegram may decide that reported content does not violate these Rules.

13. Enforcement

Enforcement is proportionate to context, severity, repetition, risk and legal obligations. Possible outcomes include no action, warnings, removal, reduced functionality, visibility restrictions, temporary suspension or permanent termination.

Serious conduct may justify immediate action without a prior warning. Where appropriate or legally required, evidence may be preserved and disclosed to competent authorities under a valid legal basis.

14. Appeals

Where Herpegram provides or is legally required to provide an appeal route, eligible moderation decisions may be challenged. Appeals should identify the decision and explain why it is wrong or materially incomplete.

An appeal is a genuine reconsideration, not a promise that a different outcome will be reached.

15. These rules evolve

Abuse patterns change, features change and law changes. We may update these Rules accordingly. Material changes will be communicated where required, and the current version will state its effective date.