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What counts as harassment in an app?
Harassment is conduct directed at a person or group that threatens, targets, humiliates, intimidates, or persistently disrupts them. A keyword list can help surface cases, but it cannot reliably distinguish an abusive message from a discussion quoting it, a joke between consenting participants, or a report that includes the offending text as evidence. Review behavior and context, not just isolated terms.
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Google Play’s UGC policy gives examples including threats, harassment, bullying, targeted abuse, malicious attacks, ridicule, and humiliation. It also flags apps that continually fail to address user complaints. Apple’s App Review Guidelines identify bullying and physical threats, and say apps used primarily for bullying or physical threats may be removed. These are platform examples, not a single universal definition that every app must copy.
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Which moderation categories should a startup define?
Google Play and Apple require safety measures and prohibit certain harmful conduct, but neither provides a complete, cross-platform category taxonomy. The following proposed categories are a practical starting point. Adapt their wording to your product, audience, interaction features, data types, and jurisdictions.
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Threats and intimidation
Include credible or targeted physical threats, coercive messages, and threats used to silence someone. Make the reporting option easy to find even when a threat appears in a private or one-to-one interaction.
Targeted harassment and bullying
Cover content or conduct primarily intended to single out someone for abuse or ridicule, including malicious attacks and humiliation. You may want internal subcategories for repeated unwanted contact or coordinated targeting; those distinctions are useful design choices, not exact platform wording.
Rank #2
Private information exposure or doxxing
Define this as sharing another person’s private information without permission, then specify which information your policy protects and how consent and context affect decisions. X uses “doxxing” for sharing someone’s private information without permission and notes safety and security risks. That is a platform example, not a universal app-ready definition or legal standard. Do not assume one list of data types fits every context.
Privacy and data-handling concerns
Keep unauthorized collection, sharing, insecure handling, or retention of personal data distinct from user-to-user harassment. A report that a user posted someone else’s information calls for content review; a complaint about the app’s own data practices needs a privacy and security review.
Reports about users and failures to act
Let people report both offending content and a user’s conduct. Make sure your process can also identify complaints that have not been addressed, since Google Play’s policy calls out continual failure to address user complaints.
What moderation tools does an app with user posts need?
Store policies specify safeguards, not a particular classifier, staffing model, severity matrix, appeal flow, evidence-retention period, or response-time promise. Design the workflow around the interactions your app enables and make its rules and controls understandable to users.
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Before a user posts
Google Play requires UGC apps to obtain acceptance of their terms or user policy before users create or upload content, and to define and prohibit objectionable content and behavior in those rules. Use plain-language examples so users and moderators can recognize the categories in practice. Google Play describes the required approach as “robust, effective, and ongoing UGC moderation” in its User Generated Content policy.
At the point of harm
Put reporting controls near content and provide a way to report users where the product supports interaction between them. Ask the reporter to choose a category and provide enough context to investigate, without making a long form a barrier to urgent reports. Offer blocking where users can interact, and explain what it does: for example, whether it hides posts, prevents messages, or both.
Google Play calls for in-app reporting and blocking, with examples that vary by feature, including identified-user communities, one-to-one interaction, public UGC, and augmented reality. Apple’s guideline calls for “a mechanism to report offensive content and timely responses to concerns,” and requires the ability to block abusive users. Apple also expects published contact information. See Apple’s App Review Guidelines, section 1.2.
During review and action
Triage reports by the alleged behavior and its context. Apply the published rules consistently, take appropriate action on content or accounts, and make a process for addressing complaints. The platform sources call for effective moderation and timely responses but do not set a universal response deadline. Set response targets and escalation rules according to the risks and resources of your service; do not promise a timing your team cannot reliably meet.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How should an app handle doxxing or someone posting personal information?
Separate the immediate safety decision from the broader privacy investigation. When a user reports exposed information, assess the content under your private-information policy and decide whether it should be restricted or removed and whether action against the account is warranted. Your policy should explain how users can report this material and what information moderators need to evaluate consent and context.
Separately, review what the app itself collects, uses, shares, secures, retains, and deletes. Google Play requires disclosures about personal and sensitive data practices, including security, retention, and deletion. The FTC’s U.S. guidance says, “The FTC expects app developers to adopt and maintain reasonable data security practices.” Its App Developers: Start with Security guidance concerns app security, not a moderation taxonomy. Neither source supplies a universal legal definition of PII for every country or situation.
How do Apple and Google’s requirements differ?
Both platforms expect safety controls for UGC, but their wording and examples are not interchangeable. The table summarizes the cited policies; it is not a complete legal compliance checklist.
Quick Recap
| Area | Google Play | Apple App Store |
|---|---|---|
| User-facing rules | Require users to accept terms or a user policy before contributing UGC; define and prohibit objectionable content and behavior. | Guideline 1.2 requires practical safety measures; developers are responsible for removing content that violates the guideline, terms, or community standards. |
| Reporting | Requires in-app reporting for objectionable UGC and, in several cases, users. | Requires a mechanism to report offensive content and timely responses to concerns; published contact information is also expected. |
| Blocking | Calls for blocking objectionable users, including in one-to-one interaction. | Requires the ability to block abusive users. |
| Harassment examples | Examples include threats, harassment, bullying, targeted abuse, malicious attacks, ridicule, and humiliation. | Identifies bullying and physical threats; apps primarily used for those purposes may be removed. |
| Privacy and data | Developer policies require disclosures about personal and sensitive data collection, use, sharing, security, retention, and deletion. | Privacy guidance emphasizes care with personal data and compliance with applicable obligations and customer expectations. |
What to decide before publishing your policy
- Write prohibited conduct as observable behavior, with examples users can recognize.
- Specify what your app treats as private information and how permission and context are evaluated.
- Map reporting and blocking controls to each way users can interact, including direct messages and public posts where offered.
- Define who reviews reports, how cases are prioritized, what actions moderators can take, and how unresolved complaints are escalated.
- Keep the user-facing conduct policy separate from accurate privacy disclosures about the app’s data practices.
- Review the policy against applicable laws and the needs of your actual user population; platform rules do not replace jurisdiction-specific legal analysis.
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