Content Moderation Policy

ScamVerify™ accepts community reports across multiple verification channels, including phone numbers, websites, text messages, emails, documents, and QR codes. This policy explains how we moderate that content to protect our community and maintain data quality.

1. What Gets Moderated

All user-submitted content is subject to moderation, including:

• Community reports on phone numbers (scam, robocall, telemarketer, legitimate business, debt collector, silent call, wrong number, other)
• Community reports on website URLs
• Community reports on text messages and emails
• Comments and descriptions attached to any report
• Contact form submissions

2. Automated Moderation

ScamVerify™ uses a multi-layered automated moderation system that reviews content before and after submission.

Client-Side Validation

Reports are validated before submission. The following content is blocked automatically:

• URLs and links (potential phishing vectors)
• Email addresses (privacy protection)
• Excessive capitalization (more than 50% uppercase)
• Excessive punctuation (repeated !!! or ???)
• Emojis
• Comments exceeding 200 characters

AI Content Classification

After submission, every report with a comment is analyzed by AI and classified into one of four categories:

• Helpful - provides useful information about the reported item
• Low Quality - vague, uninformative, or minimal effort
• Spam - promotional content, irrelevant, or testing
• Abusive - harassment, profanity, or hate speech

Each report also receives a quality score from 1 to 10. Reports classified as spam or abusive may be excluded from public display and risk score calculations.

Safety Moderation

All report comments are screened for harmful content across six categories: harassment, hate speech, sexual content, violence, self-harm, and illegal activity. Content that exceeds safety thresholds is flagged for review.

Rate Limiting

To prevent spam and abuse, users are limited to one report per hour per target (phone number, URL, text message, email, document, or QR code). Additional rate limits apply to contact form submissions (5 per hour).

3. Manual Review

Content flagged by automated systems is queued for manual review by our team. We also manually review content when:

• Automated moderation flags potential safety violations
• AI classification confidence is low
• Users report content through the contact form
• Unusual patterns are detected (e.g., coordinated false reports)
• Legal requests are received

4. Moderation Actions

Content Removal

Reports classified as spam or abusive are removed from public display. Removed content is retained internally for review and pattern analysis.

Visitor Bans

Users who submit abusive, false, or spam content may be banned from submitting further reports. Bans are applied based on device fingerprinting and affect all submission capabilities across the platform. Banned users can still view content but cannot submit new reports or contact form messages.

Score Impact

Community reports directly affect risk scores. Reports classified as helpful are weighted more heavily than low-quality reports. Reports classified as spam or abusive are excluded from score calculations entirely.

5. What We Do Not Moderate

We do not moderate based on:

• Political opinions (when relevant to a scam report)
• Negative but truthful experiences
• Criticism of businesses (when factual and relevant)
• Spelling or grammar errors

6. Transparency

• No pre-screening. Reports are published immediately. Moderation occurs after submission.
• No paid removal. Businesses cannot pay to remove legitimate reports.
• Consistent enforcement. These rules apply equally to all users.

7. Reporting Content Violations

If you believe content on ScamVerify™ violates this policy, is inaccurate, or is being used to harass a legitimate business or individual, please contact us using our contact form. Select "Report False/Abusive Content" as the subject. Include the phone number or URL in question and describe the violation.

8. Legal Requests

We comply with valid legal requests, including court orders, subpoenas, and DMCA takedown notices. For legal inquiries, use our contact form and select "Legal Inquiry" as the subject.

9. Appeals

If you believe your content was incorrectly removed or your access was wrongly restricted, you may appeal by contacting us through our contact form. Include the relevant phone number or URL, the approximate date of your report, and an explanation of why you believe the decision was incorrect. We will review appeals and respond within 5-7 business days. Appeal decisions are final.

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy at any time. Changes take effect immediately upon posting. Continued use of ScamVerify™ after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

11. Contact

For moderation questions, content disputes, or legal requests, please use our contact form.