Community Rules

We get that the fun of Caffeine means being able to banter, joke, and to be yourself, but for everyone to join in, we need to make sure no one feels unsafe or unwelcome. Harassment and Bullying goes against everything our community stands for, and will not be tolerated.

• Harassment means speech or behavior that makes anyone feel unsafe or is disruptive. It doesn’t have to be a pattern - sometimes once is enough
• To help you understand what we see as harassment, we’ve put together a list of examples below. If you’re still not sure, ask us
• Bullying can include posting rumors, threats, sexual remarks, a victims' personal information or comments that an individual or group takes as an attack, slight, or attempt to negatively call out

What we see as harassment on Caffeine
We review broadcasts and comments and will jump in when we spot harassment. Examples of clearly unacceptable behavior include:

• Calling someone names or deliberately trying to embarrass them - this is bullying and it’s not cool
• Unwanted sexual advances - if you flirt after someone has asked you to stop, that’s harassment
• Raiding a channel for mean purposes (doing it to show your support is encouraged!)
• Revealing someone’s identity or personal information i.e. “doxxing”
• Creating accounts for the purpose of hate or harassment - we look at user profiles as well as speech and conduct to root out trolls
• Stalking - ignoring requests to stop contact with someone, either online or IRL
• Creating multiple accounts to evade bans - waste of energy as you won’t succeed
• Submitting false reports against a broadcaster - we take reports seriously and ask that you do too

Arguing with moderators about their decisions is harassment - if you really think they are wrong and want to appeal, follow our process.

When and how to report harassment
While we take harassment extremely seriously, not all banter, jokes and nasty comments are harassment. Sometimes people unintentionally push the boundaries and it can be helpful to call them out.

Each broadcast will have its own feel and the broadcaster should create and maintain the type of environment that makes them and their viewers comfortable. Both broadcasters and viewers have the ability to ignore anyone. If the person persists or their harassment goes above and beyond what could reasonably be ignored, you can report them.

You can at any time report harassment against you or any Caffeine community member. Please use the report function within the Caffeine broadcast where the harassment is happening for the fastest response. If that is not possible you can report the offending user via their profile page or by submitting an incident here.

Hate speech means any comment that attacks an individual or group based on characteristics including - but not limited to - their race, nationality, age, sexuality, physical appearance (e.g. weight), gender identity, disability, veteran status or religion. It is never ok - not in game play, not in profile pics, not anywhere.

Terrorist organizations and hate groups are prohibited from using Caffeine.

We will remove any content that supports terrorism, hate groups, or communicates hateful, harmful, or misleading information including:

• Sharing misleading or harmful information. For example, creating and/or spreading conspiracy theories, perpetuating lies about public health matters, etc.
• Promoting violence or exclusion of a class or group of people
• Glorification or promotion of terrorist or hate organizations, including ideologies, prominent terrorist or criminal figures and acts
• Content that depicts the insignia, logos, or symbols of violent criminals or terrorist organizations in order to praise or promote them
• Claim that individuals or groups are physically or mentally inferior, deficient, or diseased for any of, but not limited to, the characteristics listed above

We have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to these issues, so please do not even “joke” about it as you may be banned.

Overly violent content is not allowed on our platform. Broadcast or rebroadcasting of real life acts of violence, extremely graphic movie clips or video games from our banned list is not permitted.

• Real-world violence is not allowed on Caffeine. This includes re-streaming or streaming real-world violent content from other platforms and showcasing real-life weapons
• We get that violent language can be part of gameplay, but at no point should anyone wonder whether you're joking. We take threats of real-world violence extremely seriously and will contact law enforcement authorities if necessary
• If you witness anything which appears to be a life-threatening situation, immediately call local law enforcement and report it to us using the report function
• No showing or promoting animal abuse, we love animals here at Caffeine

Broadcasting or re-broadcasting explicit violent content is considered zero tolerance behavior and will result in an insta-ban.

We all have different ideas of how naked is too naked, so please just keep your clothes on while on camera. This means:

• Pornographic content is never welcome on Caffeine and will result in an instant ban of the offending account once we spot it
• Broadcasting of sexually explicit games is not allowed, our list of banned games can be found here
• Keep your shirt and pants/skirt, etc. on -- at all times you should be dressed to walk down a public street
• No underwear or exposed genitals, buttocks or nipples
• Obviously in some contexts full clothing is ridiculous, so we allow exceptions including:
• Where bathing suits are appropriate (i.e., the beach or the pool)
• When sports clothing is needed (i.e., for sports)
• When breastfeeding children
• If you’re ever unsure whether your outfit meets our requirement, please check with us

Broadcasting or re-broadcasting pornography or sexually explicit content is considered zero tolerance behavior and will result in an insta-ban. Content that is overly sexual or features excessive nudity is also not allowed.

All types of people come to Caffeine to connect with each other and have a good time. Some of you may be going through difficult times, and we want to try our best to keep you safe:

• Do not encourage others to embrace self-harm or suicide. This is the opposite of supportive. We do not permit speech or behavior that in any way glorifies suicide or self-harm
• Do not engage on Caffeine in activities that might cause you physically harm. The behavior we don’t allow includes - but is not limited to - threats to commit suicide or self-harm, illegal or dangerous use of drugs or alcohol, and dangerous pranks that could injure you

If you, someone you love, or any member of the Caffeine community might be thinking about self-harm or suicide, please use the resources below for help.

If you are having thoughts of suicide or self-harm, contact one of these services, both of which are free of charge and confidential:

• Call: 1-800-273-8255 to reach counselors at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, or visit https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
• Text: WELL to 741-741 to text with a counselor through Crisis Text Line, or visit www.crisistextline.org

If you are outside of the US and the above do not work for you here are a couple of other options that can provide help:

UK - https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/suicide/

International - http://www.suicide.org/international-suicide-hotlines.html

If you are concerned about someone else in the Caffeine community, please consider reaching out to them (if you feel comfortable doing so). https://www.bethe1to.com/ can help you with information on how to reach out to a person that is struggling. You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 1-800-273-8255 for advice.

If you see someone else in the Caffeine community engaging in self-harm or believe that they are at imminent risk of committing suicide or self harm; please Immediately let us know at via the Caffeine “Report” feature

While hot sauce challenges, trying weird foods, and waxing legs or arms are things that are ok to do, some challenges should be avoided.

Challenges that are not allowed on Caffeine include but are not limited to:

• Any challenge that prevents breathing or can lead to suffocation like choking, drowning, or hanging games; or eating non-food items
• Ingesting Harmful Substances: Eating, consuming, or inserting non-food objects or chemicals may cause illness, or poisoning. Includes things like such detergent-eating challenges
• Burning, Freezing & Electrocution: Activities with inherent risk of severe burns, freezing, frostbite, or electrocution. Includes things like the fire challenge or hot water challenge
• Mutilation & Blunt Force Trauma: Activities like self-mutilation, abstaining from normal health practices, falling, impalement, collision, blunt force trauma, or crushing
• Challenges featuring children: Showing minors drinking alcohol, vaping, using tobacco or marijuana, or misusing fireworks
• Driving while broadcasting

We never want to see anyone hurt by a prank gone wrong or scared for their safety due to someone's idea of humor.

Pranks that are not allowed on Caffeine include but are not limited to:

• Intentional physical harm: Inflicting physical harm on unsuspecting prank victims through things like punching attacks, drugging food or drinks with laxatives, slapping someone with thumbtacks, sitting on glass, breaking light bulbs, or other objects, on others or shock pranks
• Making people feel in immediate danger: Tricking people into believing they're in real danger, even if no physical harm comes to them. This includes threats with weapons; bomb scares; swatting or fake 911 calls; fake home invasions or robberies; or fake kidnapping
• Emotional distress to minors: Any prank that causes emotional distress to children or other vulnerable people. This includes fake death or suicide; fake violence; pretending that a parent or caregiver will abandon a child; or showing a parent or caregiver verbally abuse and shame a child

Other harmful or dangerous content that is also prohibited include, but is not limited to:

• Instructional content with the intention of hurting others, for example, showing users how to steal, create weapons, or bypass security systems to steal data
• Promoting dangerous remedies or cures as having health benefits
• Glorifying hard drug use or providing instructions on how to create drugs and illegal substances

It’s at the Caffeine Team’s full discretion to make a judgment call on what is harmful or dangerous content.

Nobody likes spams, scams or being cheated. Please don’t impersonate another user, create misleading information, or encouraging participating in schemes.

What do we define as spam, impersonation and scams?

• Misleading Broadcast Titles: Using the title, thumbnails, or description to trick users into believing the content is something it is not. (eg “View for skins” when no skins will be gifted)
• Scams: Content offering cash gifting, “get rich quick” schemes, “miracle pill” promotion, or pyramid schemes (sending money without a tangible product in a pyramid structure)
• Self Promotion Spam: Going in to a broadcast only to hype your own broadcast on Caffeine or elsewhere is bad form. If promotion comes about organically in a conversation fine but jumping from broadcast to broadcast to hype yourself is a no go
• Off Site Promotions: Starting a new stream just to get clicks, views or traffic off of Caffeine for any reason. We don't mind having links to your other channels in your profile but actively driving viewers away from Caffeine is not permitted
• Comment Scams: Comments where the sole purpose is to gather personal information from users, misleadingly drive users away from Caffeine, scripting, or attempting to monopolize the chat
• Repetitive Comments: Leaving large amounts of identical, unintelligible or repetitive comments
• Impersonation: Claiming to be a well known person that is not on Caffeine, celebrity of note, widely recognized brand (Disney, Coca-Cola, etc.), creating a username similar to another Caffeine user with the intention of trolling them, or posing as a Caffeine employee can result in the deletion of the account

Everyone should feel safe at Caffeine, which is why we encourage you to let us know if anything that happens on the site violates your privacy or sense of safety. If someone has posted your personal information or broadcasts images of you without your consent, you should immediately ask them to stop and report them via the Report function within Caffeine.

When assessing if an individual's personal information has been shared in a violation of this rule, we consider the following factors:

• Image or voice clip used in a broadcast that is not their own and that they did not agree to appear on
• Full name
• Bank, credit card, or employment information
• Contact information, including email, social media, phone number, address
• Other personally identifiable information

While we will consider all complaints sent in, we give the most weight to a user that was personally impacted over second hand information.

Tips on how to protect your privacy:

• This is a public platform, think carefully about where you post personal information in chat or talk about it on broadcast. This includes things like the town you live in, where you go to school, and your home address
• Protect your account data and don’t share your password with others. Caffeine employees will never ask you for your password and do not have access to passwords. Don’t be fooled if someone contacts you pretending to be a Caffeine employee. If you feel that your account is at risk, change your password
• Keep your Caffeine accounts secured by turning on Two-Step Authentication in the settings of your Caffeine account
• Get permission first. As a rule of thumb, you should get permission before filming other people or posting their personal information

Respect copyright. Only share content that you're authorized to use. This means don't broadcast content you didn't make, or use content that someone else owns the copyright to, such as music tracks, snippets of copyrighted programs, or videos made by other users, without necessary authorizations

• Only broadcast content that you have the right to broadcast. Do not share any video you didn’t create unless you have specific rebroadcast rights (just because you paid to watch a pay-per-view wrestling match doesn’t mean you have the right to share it with people outside of your living room)
• Only broadcast what you created or what is permitted by the copyright owner, If a game publisher doesn’t allow broadcasting of a particular game, it’s off limits
• Don’t broadcast closed alphas/betas. You have been given a gift from the developer. Don’t make them regret it. Besides, it’s cool to see games before anyone else
• We take SWATting extremely seriously and will report suspected instances to the authorities. Don’t do it. Getting banned from Caffeine will be the least of your problems
• Don’t broadcast illegal drug use, underage drinking, or any other irresponsible behavior connected with drinking or drug use (such as drinking and driving)

Basically anything that could get you arrested does not belong on Caffeine full stop. If it is illegal and you are doing it on Caffeine we will contact and assist authorities to the fullest extent.

No one should have to guess if a member of our community is underage. If you’re obviously too young to use Caffeine and cannot provide proof of age, we’ll remove your account.

Any content or behavior that sexually exploits or endangers young users is prohibited on Caffeine. We report exploitation to authorities we see via the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in compliance with applicable law.

If you see content that suggests a young user is in imminent danger, please contact local law enforcement and report it to us either via the “Report” function in Caffeine or by submitting an incident.

Mark Your Broadcast 17+
If you plan on swearing, playing M rated games, engaging in smoking or drinking, having conversations about sex, or if you think that might happen in your broadcast, please mark your broadcast with the 17+ tag. If something you are doing would only show up in an “R” rated movie or you are playing an “M” rated game, use that label.

Vulgar language
Some language is not appropriate for younger audiences. Use of sexually explicit language or excessive profanity in a broadcast not marked 17+, or continuing on with sexually explicit language or excessive profanity in a 17+ broadcast if asked to stop, may lead to account suspension. Racism of any sort is never tolerated and may result in a suspension, if our moderators feel the racism has gone into the realm of hate speech your account will be banned.

Usernames/Profiles
Usernames and profiles may not be racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, overtly sexual, contain offensive language, or be otherwise inappropriate, including “angry usernames”, like “[Insert Name] sucks”. That’s not the tone we want for our community.

Ignoring Caffeine Employee Directions
We prefer to provide education and redirection before taking action against any account. If you are contacted by a Caffeine employee, typically a community moderator, and refuse to comply with their requests actions, we may ban your account. Avoiding moderator actions taken against your account by creating multiple accounts, is not allowed and will result in further action.

AFK or Sleeping While Broadcasting
We want Caffeine to be as interactive and social as possible, being AFK for long periods of time, or sleeping while broadcasting will result in a termination of broadcast. Our Moderators will observe any broadcast reported to be AFK, and if there is no activity after five minutes, they will terminate the broadcast. While we typically will not sanction an account where this happens once in a while we may take action if it becomes a repeat issue.

Inactive Accounts
In general, users are expected to be active members of Caffeine. If an account is found to be overly inactive (few followers, no logins noted in the last six months, etc.) or the email was never verified the account name may be reclaimed by Caffeine. We will contact the email account on record informing you that this action was taken. Any gold or credits associated with the account may be lost.

Encouraging Terms of Service violations
If you encourage other users to violate our Terms of Service or Community Rules, your account may be penalized, and in some cases banned.

Contest Policies and Guidelines
Caffeine is not responsible for fulfilling or completing any contests you perform in broadcasts. Your contest must follow Caffeine’s terms of service and community rules. Make sure to comply with all applicable federal, state, and local laws, rules and regulations including U.S. sanctions.

Sex Offenders
We want to support a healthy and safe community for all of our users. We take strong action against any kind of sexual misconduct, and we reserve the right to ban registered sex offenders and users engaged in sexual harassment.

Our Community Rules and Terms of Service exist for a reason - to help us make Caffeine an inclusive, non-toxic platform - and if you breach them, our Community Team will take action against your account. In some cases, we will do their best to warn you to change the behavior before taking any action. All official Caffeine Community Team Moderators will have a name that starts with MOD_, their profile picture will be the Caffeine logo, and they will have a checkmark by their name.

We want this process to be fair and transparent, so here is an explanation of what you can expect and - if you really disagree with our decision - how to appeal.

Actions for Breach of our Community Rules

The types of account action we’ll take for breaches of our Community Rules are:

• Muting: We mute accounts that do not follow our Community Rules, typically this happens if someone is spamming the chat, engaging in harassment or bullying, swearing excessively in a non 17+ broadcast. Mutings allow you to continue to view, but your comments will be put on a time-out. Mutings can last from anywhere between two to 24 hours
• Suspensions: We suspend accounts that violate our Community Rules and/or Terms of Service. Most violations will result in a temporary suspension of one day and a strike will be noted on your account. Suspensions can last longer than a day for serious incidents
• Bans: For the most serious violations, we will terminate your account and ban you from the platform. Because bans are reserved for behaviors that clearly and gravely violate our Community Guidelines and/or Terms of Service, they are not appealable

If we mute, suspend or ban your account, you will receive an email from our Community Team informing you of the reason and, in the case of muting and suspension, how long it will be in place. We run a general three strikes and you are out policy, seldom will we make exceptions to this. Strikes do not fall off of accounts after a set amount of time. Certain severe violations will result in a ban on the first violation.

While your account is suspended, you will not be able to use Caffeine in any way, including to watch broadcasts, broadcast, chat, or give out Props. After the suspension is lifted, you will be able to use our services once again.

Appealing an Account Suspension
If you really believe you did not violate our Community Rules, you may appeal the suspension on your account, up to and including the third strike. In order to appeal, you must contact us.

• When filling out the form make sure you are contacting us from the email account associated with the account that has been suspended and include the account name on the form
• State the reason you believe you were unfairly suspended. Please note when an account is suspended a record of the offending chat messages is logged by our team
• After your appeal has been submitted you will receive an auto-response acknowledging receipt of your appeal
• Once your appeal has been reviewed, we will reply notifying you of the status of your appeal and account(s). This will complete the appeal process

Only the owner of the suspended account may appeal, and we will review appeals in the order they are received.

We understand that many breaches can be unintentional -- that’s why for all but the most serious cases, suspensions will be lifted and accounts reinstated. Remember, though, that abusing or spamming the appeals process, or arguing with moderators outside of the appeals process may lead to your suspension being extended or - in the worst cases - an account ban. Finally, any appeals that are abusive will be automatically declined --our rules carry over in all parts of Caffeine.

We know that in online interactions - as in life - some behaviors are not so cut and dried. In these cases, our team will try to take multiple perspectives into account to determine the best course of action. At all times, but especially in these moments, we will do our best to make decisions based on the values that we believe are important as we attempt to form a vibrant and diverse community. Our community members should:

• Be welcoming - say hi and welcome new people to Caffeine, just like you would if someone new sat next to you at school or moved in next door.
• Show respect - give proper regard for the feelings, wishes, rights, and traditions of others.
• Take accountability - help us create a better community by encouraging others to act in accordance with our values.
• Value difference - expect that you will meet people who talk about, create, and love things that you do not and embrace sharing a space with them.