Child safety standards
Budgie is a social app for small communities, chats and calls, made by Teofil Ionescu-Mihai. People can join from the age of 13, so keeping children safe comes first. Budgie has zero tolerance for child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSAE), including child sexual abuse material (CSAM). These standards apply everywhere in Budgie: on budgiesocial.com and in all of Budgie’s apps.
The short version
- Anything that sexually abuses, exploits or sexualises a child is never allowed on Budgie, and nothing sexual is allowed at all, for anyone.
- Pictures, videos and messages are checked automatically before they’re posted or sent, and only friends can message or call each other.
- Report it in the app (choose Child safety), or contact us without an account.
- We remove it, ban the account for good, and report it to the authorities.
1. What isn’t allowed
- Child sexual abuse material (CSAM): any picture, video, drawing or text that shows or describes a person under 18 in a sexual way, including ones that are drawn or made with AI.
- Grooming: building trust with a child in order to sexually abuse or exploit them, on Budgie or anywhere else.
- Sextortion: threatening to share someone’s intimate pictures, or using them to get more pictures, money or anything else.
- Asking a minor for sexual pictures or sexual talk, or to meet up for anything sexual.
- Sexualising minors in any way, including comments about a child’s body.
- Trafficking children, or offering or advertising them for sex.
- Sharing links to any of this, or explaining how to find it or how to get in touch with children to harm them.
This adds to Budgie’s Terms of Use (section 6), which don’t allow anything sexual or sexually suggestive, for anyone.
2. How Budgie prevents it
- Age. Everyone on Budgie must be at least 13, and needs a parent’s or guardian’s permission if they’re younger than the age of digital consent where they live.
- Pictures and videos are checked before anyone sees them. Every picture, GIF and video uploaded to posts, chats, profile pictures and banners is checked on Budgie’s own server by an AI model that looks for nudity and sexual content. One it’s sure about isn’t posted or sent. In chats, profile pictures and banners, a picture it isn’t sure about is refused too; in posts, it goes to a moderator.
- Messages are checked before they’re sent. Word lists and a text AI model block asking for nudes and sexual messages. Warning signs of grooming, such as asking someone to keep secrets from their parents or whether they’re home alone, and messages that may be sexual, are shown to a moderator.
- Strangers can’t get in touch. Only friends can message or call each other, and someone only becomes your friend if you accept their request. Only a friend can add you to a group chat.
- Blocking. Anyone can be blocked: they can’t message, call or add you, and they aren’t told. You can also stop anyone from ringing you (Settings → Calls).
- Calls go straight between devices and aren’t recorded, so on a call, hang up and report anyone who breaks these rules.
3. How to report
In Budgie, choose Child safety as the reason:
- a post or comment: its ⋯ menu → Report;
- a person: their profile → Report;
- a message: press and hold it → Report;
- a group chat: its info → Report.
Without an account, contact us through github.com/teofilcelzmecher (see section 8 of the Terms). You don’t have to give your name. Say where it is (a link or a username), but please don’t send us copies of abuse material.
If a child is in danger right now, call your local emergency number. You can also report child sexual abuse material directly to NCMEC’s CyberTipline, or to the hotline in your country, listed by INHOPE.
4. What we do
- Every child safety report is reviewed by a person, before other reports.
- Abuse material, and anything else that breaks these standards, is removed, and the account behind it is banned for good.
- We report child sexual abuse material, and the child sexual exploitation we find out about, to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and to the police or other authorities of the country concerned, as the law requires.
- We cooperate with the police and other authorities investigating child sexual abuse and exploitation, as the law allows.
5. The law
Budgie complies with the child safety laws that apply to it, including the laws on reporting child sexual abuse material.
6. Child safety contact
Budgie’s point of contact for child safety is its developer, Teofil Ionescu-Mihai, who can answer questions about these standards and how Budgie enforces them. Contact: github.com/teofilcelzmecher.