Shout Social Media Child Safety Standards

This covers every part of Shout: profiles, photos, shouts (text and voice), comments, posts, events, hangouts, business listings and private messages. It also covers anything arranged through Shout that then happens somewhere else, whether on another app or in person.

Shout is for adults aged 18 and over, so children should never be on it. That does not lessen our responsibility. We act on anything that sexually exploits, abuses or endangers a child, whoever the child is and wherever they are.

These standards apply to everyone who uses Shout and sit alongside our Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy. Breaking them is a serious breach of our terms.

• A child or minor is anyone under the age of 18.
• Child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSAE) is content or behaviour that sexually exploits, abuses or endangers children. This includes grooming a child for sexual exploitation, sextorting a child, trafficking a child for sex, or otherwise sexually exploiting a child.
• Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) is any visual depiction, including but not limited to photos, videos and computer-generated imagery, involving the use of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct. We treat drawn, animated, AI-generated and edited images in exactly the same way as photographs.

You must not use Shout to do any of the following, to attempt it, or to help anyone else do it:

• share, request, sell, trade, store or link to child sexual abuse material of any kind;
• contact or interact with a child in a sexual or otherwise inappropriate way, or try to meet a child;
• groom a child, meaning build a relationship with a child, or with the adults around them, in order to sexually abuse or exploit them;
• sexualise a minor, including sexual comments about children, sexualised images of children, or sexual roleplay involving children;
• sextort a child, meaning use intimate images of a child, real or fake, or the threat of sharing them, to pressure, blackmail or threaten that child;
• traffic a child, or advertise, arrange or profit from the sexual exploitation of a child;
• share content that promotes, excuses or gives instructions for the sexual abuse of children;
• move a conversation to another app or to a meeting in person in order to do any of the above; or
• do anything else that sexually exploits, abuses or endangers a child.

These rules apply to public and private content alike, and whether the content is real or made up. A child cannot consent to being sexually exploited, so claims of consent make no difference.

• You must be 18 or over to use Shout.
• We check your date of birth when you sign up, and Shout will not create an account for anyone whose date of birth shows they are under 18. Giving a false date of birth breaks our terms.
• If we have reason to believe an account belongs to someone under 18, we close it. We may ask for proof of age first.
• If you think someone on Shout is under 18, report their profile and choose Underage User as the reason.

In the app

You can report a child safety concern from inside Shout without leaving the app. Every profile, conversation, post, shout, event and hangout has a report option, and your report goes straight to our moderation team.

• Open the profile, conversation, post, shout, event or hangout you are worried about.
• Open its menu and tap Report. Depending on where you are it reads Report User, Report Post, Report Shout, Report Event or Report Hangout. In a conversation, use Report User from the menu at the top of the chat.
• Choose Child Safety Concern as the reason. If your concern is that the person is under 18, choose Underage User.
• Add anything that will help us, such as what was said and when, and tap Submit Report.

You can also block the person from the menu on their profile. Blocking stops them contacting you, and it does not cancel your report.

By email

If you can’t use the app, or you don’t have a Shout account, email our child safety contact at contact@shoutsocialmedia.app. Tell us what you saw, where on Shout you saw it (for example the person’s first name, the shout or the event) and when.

Please don’t copy the material

Do not screenshot, download, save or forward child sexual abuse material, even to report it. Doing so can be a crime in itself. Describe what you saw in your report instead, and we will find it.

A member of our team reviews every child safety report as a priority. These decisions are made by people, not automatically.

When we find, or are told about, child sexual abuse material or any other CSAE on Shout, we:

• remove the content so that nobody else can see it;
• ban the accounts involved permanently;
• preserve evidence, keeping the content and the relevant account information securely for as long as the law requires, so that it is available to law enforcement;
• report it to the authorities, as set out in the next section; and
• cooperate fully with the police and other law enforcement agencies.

We act in the same way on behaviour as we do on images. Someone trying to contact, groom or meet a child is removed, banned and reported just the same.

Only the people who need to review a report can see the material, and we pass it on to nobody except the authorities. We may not be able to tell you the outcome of your report, especially where the police are involved.

We report child sexual abuse material, and any other child sexual exploitation and abuse we find on Shout, to the UK National Crime Agency (NCA), as UK law requires of online services like ours. If a child is at immediate risk, we contact the police straight away.

Where another authority is better placed, for example when the people or content involved are outside the UK, we report to that authority instead, such as the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) in the United States through its CyberTipline. We may also refer material hosted elsewhere on the internet to the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) so that it can be taken down.

Shout Social Media Limited is a UK company and Shout is a UK service. We comply with the child safety laws and regulations that apply to us, including:

• the Online Safety Act 2023, including the duties to deal with illegal content and to report child sexual exploitation and abuse content to the National Crime Agency;
• UK criminal law on indecent images of children, grooming and the sexual exploitation of children, including the Protection of Children Act 1978 and the Sexual Offences Act 2003; and
• the child safety laws of any other country where Shout is available.

Nothing on this page limits what the law requires of us. Where the law asks more of us than this page describes, we do what the law asks.

Our designated point of contact for child safety is:

Child Safety Lead, Shout Social Media Limited
Email: contact@shoutsocialmedia.app

This person can explain how we review reports and enforce these standards, and can take action when needed. They receive notifications about CSAE from Google Play and other app stores, and requests from regulators and law enforcement.

If you are worried about a child, or you are a young person who needs help, these organisations are there for you. They are independent of Shout.

• Police: call 999 if a child is in immediate danger, or 101 if it is not an emergency.
• CEOP, the National Crime Agency’s child protection command: children, young people, parents and carers can report online sexual abuse or grooming at ceop.police.uk.
• Internet Watch Foundation (IWF): report images or videos of child sexual abuse you have seen online, anonymously, at iwf.org.uk.
• NCMEC CyberTipline: the United States’ National Center for Missing & Exploited Children takes reports of child sexual exploitation at report.cybertip.org.
• NSPCC helpline, for adults worried about a child: 0808 800 5000.
• Childline, free and confidential for children and young people: 0800 1111.

We review these standards regularly, and whenever the law or Shout changes. The date at the top of this page always shows the latest version.