One live stream. One set of rules.

What is not allowed

The following content and behaviour are prohibited:

• sexual exploitation or sexual content involving minors;
• threats of violence or calls to harm people;
• illegal content;
• publishing another person's personal data with the intent to cause harm;
• fraud, phishing, and other deliberate deception;
• malicious links;
• mass spam and automated flooding;
• deliberate impersonation of a person or organisation for deception;
• other content prohibited by applicable law.

Do not use Talk to cause harm, deceive people, or distribute prohibited content.

Author Identity

To send messages, a user creates a persistent Identity through Passkeys / WebAuthn.

Talk stores the public information required to recognize that Identity. The private key stays with the user's authenticator or Passkey provider.

Talk does not require a real name, email address, phone number, password, or public biography. Reading does not require an Identity. Identity is required only to speak.

Session controls

Talk lets you control how the live stream appears in your current session. Commands may apply to an @name or a #tag.

-@alice
-#crypto

Hide matching messages from your current stream.

|@alice
|#ai

Add a visual marker to matching messages.

_@alice
_#ai

Underline matching messages.

*@alice
*#ai

Keep up to the three most recent matching messages in the shared top panel.

These commands:

• affect only your current session;
• do not affect what other users see;
• do not modify another Identity;
• are not complaints;
• are not moderation actions;
• are not bans;
• do not create permanent relationships between users.

Repeating an active command removes it. Session controls are temporary and do not need to be stored as a permanent list. They are not tied to the underlying Identity or public key. If a person changes their @name, an old command does not automatically apply to the new name.

Complaints

A complaint is a separate request asking Talk to review a possible violation by a specific Identity.

A complaint may include a description of what happened, the relevant @name, screenshots, or other supporting material when necessary.

A complaint is associated with the Identity being reported, not only with its current displayed name. Changing @name does not erase the complaint. A complaint does not create a permanent archive of the ordinary Talk conversation.

What a complaint does

A complaint does not automatically block, remove, or punish anyone. Its purpose is to trigger a review.

complaint
→ review

Complaint volume may affect review priority, but complaints are not votes. A large number of complaints does not automatically prove a violation or create a ban.

Mutual and mass complaints

Two users may complain about each other. These are treated as two separate signals, do not cancel each other, and do not automatically mean that both users violated the rules.

Mass or coordinated complaints may increase review priority or indicate a larger conflict, but the result still depends on the review.

Complaints identify what should be checked. They do not decide who is guilty.

Review result

If the review does not confirm a violation:

complaint
→ review
→ no confirmed violation
→ no restriction

If the review confirms a violation:

complaint
→ review
→ confirmed violation
→ temporary ban on sending messages

The sanction is a temporary restriction on the ability of that Identity to send messages. The Identity and current @name are not automatically deleted.

Temporary ban

A temporary ban affects only the ability to send messages. It does not restrict reading. Anyone can read Talk without registration, including a person whose Identity is temporarily unable to send messages.

read Talk
→ no registration required
→ no Identity required
→ unaffected by Send ban

The duration is determined by the moderation decision or a separate moderation policy.

#tags do not create separate communities

#tags are filters and context markers inside one shared live stream. They do not create private rooms or separate communities with their own rules. The same Talk rules apply everywhere.

Protecting the live stream

Talk may automatically limit mass flooding, automated spam, technical attacks, and known malicious links. These protections keep the live stream usable without creating a permanent history of ordinary messages.

The basic rule

Speak freely. Do not cause harm.

If you simply do not want to see something, use a session filter. If you believe the rules were violated, submit a complaint for review. If the violation is confirmed, the result may be a temporary ban on Send.

Reading remains public. Conversation is open. Moderation affects the right to speak, not the right to read.

How to submit a complaint

Complaints are opened from the Talk input using the command:

rep:@alice

Press Enter to open the complaint form for that current @name. Describe what happened and optionally attach a screenshot.

A complaint must be signed with your active session key. You need to create an Identity by sending a message before submitting it.

rep:@name
→ complaint form
→ signed submission
→ review

rep: is not a visual session control. Unlike -, |, _, and *, it starts a complaint flow.