Child safety standards

There is no version of this we tolerate. Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and the sexual exploitation of children are not a moderation category with a threshold attached; a single confirmed instance ends the account permanently, without warning and without appeal, and is reported onward.

We say that plainly because a vague commitment is not a commitment. What follows is what is prohibited, what we do about it, and how to tell us.

The following are forbidden on Letterway, in a letter, a profile, a display name, an avatar, or anywhere else a person can put words:

• Child sexual abuse material — any depiction, description or solicitation of the sexual abuse of a minor, real or fictional, drawn, written or photographic.
• Sexualisation of a minor — describing, discussing or portraying anybody under 18 in a sexual way, including yourself if you are under 18.
• Grooming — building a relationship with a minor for sexual purposes, including flattery, gifts, isolation from adults, requests for secrecy, or moving the conversation to another service.
• Sextortion — threatening to publish intimate material to coerce a minor into anything at all.
• Trafficking or solicitation — advertising, arranging or seeking sexual contact with a minor, or attempting to arrange an offline meeting with one.
• Off-platform CSAE — using Letterway to direct anybody to CSAE material or activity hosted anywhere else.

An adult who knowingly attempts to begin a private correspondence with a child for any of these purposes is in breach of these standards from the first letter, whether or not anything explicit is ever written.

You must be at least 13 years old to use Letterway, and where the law where you live sets a higher age for consenting to online services, that age applies to you instead. This is stated in our Terms and our House rules. An account we believe belongs to somebody below that age is closed.

If you are under 18: never share photographs of yourself, never share your address, school or exact location, and never agree to meet anybody you have written to. No adult with a good reason will ask you for any of those things.

Inside the app, without leaving it. Every profile and every letter has a Report control. One of its categories is “I think this person is a child”, and another is Sexual content. You do not have to be certain, you do not have to explain yourself well, and you do not have to be the person being harmed. Reports are private — the person reported is never told who reported them, or that a report exists.

By email, if you would rather not use the app, or if you are not a member and have nothing to report from: tryletterway@gmail.com. Write CHILD SAFETY in the subject line and it is treated as urgent.

If a child is in immediate danger, contact your local emergency services first. We are not an emergency service and we cannot reach anybody faster than the police can.

• We look at it ourselves. Reports in this category are read by a person, not triaged by a filter, and they are prioritised above every other kind of report.
• We stop the correspondence. An account under investigation for CSAE is suspended while we look, not after we finish. Letters still in transit from that account are withheld rather than delivered.
• We remove the account permanently where the report is founded, and we take reasonable steps to stop the same person returning.
• We preserve the evidence rather than deleting it, because destroying it would destroy the record an investigation would need. This is why our account-deletion process does not erase material held in a report.
• We report it onward.Apparent child sexual abuse material is reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) through its CyberTipline and, where applicable, to the relevant national or regional authority. We cooperate with lawful requests from law enforcement.

These standards are not only a promise to react. The way Letterway is built is part of them:

• Nobody can send you anything but words. There is no photo sharing, no video, no voice notes and no live chat — so the most common vectors for this material do not exist here.
• Nothing is instant. Every letter takes real time to travel, which removes the pressure and momentum that grooming depends on.
• Your location is never precise. We publish a city-level point displaced by up to about 25 km, never a coordinate, and never an address.
• Blocking is absolute. A blocked person cannot write to you, cannot see you, and any letter of theirs already travelling towards you is stopped before it arrives.

The designated point of contact for child safety, CSAM prevention practices and compliance is tryletterway@gmail.com. This address reaches a person who can speak to how these standards work in practice, and it is the address registered with Google Play for this purpose.

Letterwaycomplies with the child safety laws that apply to it and reports to regional and national authorities as those laws require. These standards are published in accordance with Google Play’s Child Safety Standards policy, and they are reviewed whenever the product changes in a way that touches them.

Related reading: Staying safe, House rules, Terms, Privacy.