Community Guidelines

• Intent and effect both matter. we look at what a piece of content is for and what it actually does. Wrapping something prohibited in a joke, a question, a quiz or a fictional frame does not change what it is, but neither does an unfortunate choice of words make an honest piece of work a violation.
• Proportionality. we aim to take the smallest action that fixes the problem. A first mistake in good faith is usually a warning and a removal, not a ban.
• You get told why. when we remove content or restrict an account we say which rule was broken, unless telling you would put someone at risk or compromise an active investigation.
• You can ask us to look again. every enforcement decision can be reviewed by a person. Section 19 explains how.
• We are not a court. we decide what stays on Guava. We do not decide who is right, and a decision here is not a finding that you broke any law.

What counts as strictly educational

• Explaining how something works: an electoral process, a piece of legislation, a court ruling, a budget, a government institution.
• Historical and archival material about a past political or news event, presented with sourcing and context rather than as a live account.
• Analysis of a policy, a law or a public decision, addressed to the substance rather than to a person, published after the fact rather than as the story breaks.
• An explainer that helps a reader understand a current event, provided it does not itself serve as the first report of that event.

Not allowed

• Live or breaking coverage. reporting an unfolding event as, or shortly after, it happens, before it can be properly sourced and placed in context.
• Campaigning and party promotion. canvassing for or against a party, candidate, coalition or referendum, or using party slogans, symbols or colours as promotion.
• Voter mobilisation or suppression. telling people how to vote, urging them to vote or not to vote, or discouraging participation.
• Calls to political action. organising or calling for protests, demonstrations, strikes or civil disobedience.
• Political fundraising and advertising. raising money for, or running paid or unpaid promotion on behalf of, any political actor.
• Hateful or inflammatory political rhetoric. content that dehumanises political opponents, or that stirs ethnic, regional or religious division for political ends.
• Fabricated political or news claims. invented quotes, invented results, doctored footage or false claims about an election, an event or a public official.

• Child sexual abuse material. any sexual depiction of a child, real, drawn, written or generated. Zero tolerance. It is removed immediately and permanently and the account is closed for good.
• Terrorism and violent extremism. promoting, recruiting for, financing or celebrating terrorist or extremist organisations or acts.
• Human trafficking and exploitation. including forced labour, sexual exploitation and smuggling.
• Illegal trade. narcotics, prescription medicines, weapons and ammunition, explosives, stolen goods, counterfeit goods, forged documents, human organs, and protected wildlife, ivory, trophies and other prohibited wildlife products.
• Financial crime. money laundering, unlicensed financial services, illegal lotteries and gambling, and unlicensed foreign exchange dealing.
• Computer crime. hacking, unauthorised access, malware, phishing kits and credential trading.

• Investment and money schemes. fake or unlicensed investment offers, foreign exchange or cryptocurrency guaranteed return schemes, money doubling, mobile money doubling, Ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes and network or matrix recruitment.
• Fake opportunities. fake jobs, internships, scholarships, visa or travel services and tenders, and anything that asks for a registration, processing or clearance fee up front.
• Impersonation for gain. posing as a bank, a mobile money operator, a government office, an NGO, a media house, a known creator, or Guava itself.
• Phishing and credential theft. links or messages designed to capture passwords, PINs or one-time codes. Never ask another user for a PIN or a one-time code, for any reason.
• Fake charity and emergency appeals. soliciting money for a cause, an illness or a funeral that you cannot substantiate.
• Counterfeit and non-delivery. counterfeit products, invented stock, prices changed after agreement, and taking payment with no intention of delivering.
• Fabricated credibility. fake reviews, fake testimonials, fake screenshots, fake certificates, fake press coverage, bought followers and bought engagement.
• Deceptive links. hiding where a link goes, disguising an affiliate or referral link as editorial, or using a shortener to conceal a destination.

• No malicious comments or insults. as defined above, in comments, replies, posts or messages.
• No threats or intimidation. threatening harm, death, violence, arrest, exposure or ritual harm against anyone or their family.
• No pile-ons or brigading. organising or joining a coordinated attack on an account, a post or a comment section.
• No stalking or unwanted contact. repeated messages after being asked to stop, following someone across features to keep contacting them, or making new accounts to reach someone who blocked you.
• No sexual harassment. unsolicited sexual messages or images, sexual comments about someone's body, and sexual pressure of any kind.
• No doxxing. publishing someone's home or work address, phone number, identification number, financial details, workplace, school, movements or family members.
• No non-consensual or revenge content. intimate images or recordings published without the consent of everyone in them, and content published to punish or expose a former partner.
• No malicious reporting. filing reports you know to be false, or filing them in bulk to get someone restricted, is itself a violation and is treated as one.

Not allowed

• Inciting or calling for hatred, discrimination, exclusion or violence against a person or group because of tribe, ethnicity, race, colour, national or regional origin, religion or belief, sex, gender, disability, appearance, health status including HIV status, occupation or social standing.
• Dehumanising language, slurs and hate symbols directed at such a group.
• Tribal, regional or religious agitation. In Tanzania this does real damage, and we treat it as one of the most serious violations here.
• Threatening or inciting damage to a place of worship or to a religious or ethnic community.

Allowed

• Criticism, analysis, satire and academic examination of religious ideas, doctrines, practices and institutions, where it addresses the idea or the institution rather than urging harm against believers.
• Reporting on the conduct of religious, cultural or political organisations and their leaders in their public role, where it is factual and sourced.
• Discussing discrimination, quoting a slur in order to report on or condemn it, and describing hateful events in documentary work.
• Comparative and historical study of religion and belief, including work that reaches uncomfortable conclusions.

• No threats or calls for violence. against a person, a group, a place or an institution.
• No glorification. of violence, killings, torture, mob justice or the people who carry them out.
• No gratuitous gore. graphic injury, death or mutilation posted for shock. Documentary footage of a real event is allowed where it is necessary to the story, contextualised and carries a clear warning.
• No instructions for harm. how to make a weapon or an explosive, how to attack a system, how to hurt a person or an animal.
• No dangerous challenges. stunts or trends likely to injure someone who copies them.
• No cruelty to animals. including staged fights and poaching content. Investigative documentary work exposing cruelty is allowed and welcome.

Self-harm and suicide

• No pornography, sexual acts, or nudity posted for sexual purposes, in images, video, writing, drawings or generated media.
• No sexual services, escort advertising or sexual solicitation.
• No sexualised depiction of a child, in any form. This closes an account immediately.
• No intimate images of anyone published without the consent of everyone in them.
• No sexually explicit usernames, avatars, cover images, bios or links.

What we act on

• Dangerous health claims. fake cures, claims that a serious illness can be cured by a ritual, product or herb, telling people to stop medical treatment, or false claims about medicines, vaccines or an outbreak.
• False emergency and disaster reports. invented accidents, attacks, outbreaks or deaths.
• False accusations of crime. asserting as fact that an identifiable person committed a crime, without a basis for it.
• Witchcraft accusations and ritual harm claims. accusing a named or identifiable person of witchcraft, and claims that harming a person or an animal produces wealth, luck or healing. People in Tanzania have been killed over both.
• Fabrication. invented quotes, invented statistics, invented sources and forged documents.
• Unlabelled synthetic or manipulated media. generated or materially altered footage, audio, images or documents presented as a record of a real event. Label it and it is fine.

Correcting things

• You can edit or delete your own work at any time. That is the first and preferred fix.
• Where we think something is materially wrong, we will normally ask you to correct or clarify it before removing anything.
• Correct visibly rather than quietly deleting. A published correction is worth more than a silent edit, and it counts in your favour.
• Cite your sources for statistics and factual claims, especially in research summaries.

• Do not publish someone's personal data without their consent: identification numbers, phone numbers, home addresses, financial details, medical information, school or workplace.
• Do not publish private conversations, private photographs or recordings made where a person expected privacy.
• Take particular care with children. Get the consent of a parent or guardian before publishing a child's image or details, and expect us to act quickly on a parent's request to remove one.

Filming and naming people in documentary work

• Public figures acting publicly. a person carrying out a public role in public has a narrower expectation of privacy than a bystander.
• Withdrawn consent. if a contributor withdraws consent, consider their reasons seriously and act fairly. Where the work is already published and is of real public interest, you are not automatically required to remove it, but we may ask you to justify keeping it and we may act if the intrusion outweighs the public interest.
• Bystanders. blur or exclude people incidentally caught on camera where they add nothing to the story, especially children.

• Do not upload footage, music, photographs, artwork, writing, subtitles, course material or logos you do not own or have not licensed.
• Do not republish another creator's work as your own, on Guava or from anywhere else.
• Quotation, review and commentary are legitimate. Keep the extract proportionate, credit the source, and add something of your own.
• Do not use another person's or brand's name, logo or identity in a way that suggests a connection that does not exist.

• No repetitive, bulk or off-topic posting, commenting or messaging.
• No unsolicited bulk direct messages, and no mass adding people to groups.
• No bots, scripted accounts or scraping, and no automated access we have not authorised in writing.
• No buying or selling accounts, usernames, followers, likes, comments or verification.
• No engagement farming: fake giveaways, misleading thumbnails, false titles or coordinated liking.
• No second account to evade a restriction, inflate engagement or dodge a block.
• No links to malware, phishing pages or deceptive downloads.
• No probing, overloading or attempting to bypass Guava's access controls.

• Do not impersonate a person, brand, publication, channel, government body, NGO or Guava.
• Do not use someone else's photograph, name or biography as your own identity.
• Do not claim or imitate a verified badge, staff status or a partnership you do not have.
• Parody, fan and commentary accounts are welcome, and must say clearly in the display name and the bio that they are not the real thing.
• A pen name is fine. A network of accounts pretending to be separate people is not.

• Disclose it. any sponsored, paid, gifted or affiliate content must say so clearly, where the reader sees it before they act on it.
• Keep it honest. claims about a product or service must be true and capable of being backed up. No invented urgency, discounts or endorsements.
• Some categories are closed. no political advertising, no gambling or betting promotion, no unlicensed financial or investment offers, no medicines or health products making treatment claims, no adult products, no weapons, no tobacco, and no alcohol promotion except where it is lawful and clearly age-appropriate.
• Sell only what is real. partner listings must be a genuine business with a genuine website, described accurately.
• Guava is not part of the deal. transactions arranged through Guava are between the parties. We do not hold funds and cannot refund anyone.

1. 1Use the report option on the post, comment, account or listing, and pick the closest reason. Add detail if the reason alone does not explain it.
2. 2For anything urgent, or anything that does not fit the options, write to this address or use the Support Inbox in the app.
3. 3We review it and decide. The content may be left up, removed, restricted or corrected, or the account may be actioned.
4. 4The person you reported is never shown who reported them. Reporting is not a confrontation.

• Blocking and muting. you can block or mute an account yourself at any time, without a reason and without our permission. For most personal friction this is faster and better than a report.
• No retaliation. harassing someone because they reported you, or because you think they did, is a serious violation on its own.
• We may not reply individually. we read reports and act on them, but we do not promise a reply to every one, and we do not tell you what action was taken on someone else's account.

• Automated checks. automatic limits apply to new accounts and to behaviour that looks like spam or a scam wave. These can delay or restrict posting temporarily. They do not close accounts by themselves.
• Human decisions. removing content, restricting or closing an account, and refusing a creator application are made or confirmed by a person, and the reason is written down at the time.
• Reports. we aim to look at reports within 48 hours. That is a target we work to, not a guarantee, and complicated or sensitive cases take longer.
• Records. we keep the report, the reason and the decision so that repeat behaviour can be seen and so an appeal can be judged against what was actually decided. The Privacy Policy sets out how long.
• Consistency. we apply the same rules to large accounts, to popular creators and to people we know personally. Where we get that wrong, tell us.

Closes an account on the first occurrence

• Any sexualised content involving a child.
• Unmistakable fraud or theft from members of this community.
• Credible threats of violence, or incitement to violence against a tribal, ethnic or religious group.
• Terrorism, violent extremism, trafficking, or trade in weapons, drugs or protected wildlife.
• Non-consensual intimate images.
• Hacking, malware, phishing or attacking Guava's systems.
• Running a political campaign operation on Guava.
• Evading a previous permanent closure.

1. 1Write to this address within 30 days of the decision, from the email address on the account.
2. 2Say which account, content or decision you mean, and why you think it was wrong. New information helps more than a restatement.
3. 3A person who can overturn the decision reviews it against the reason recorded at the time. We aim to reply within 14 days.
4. 4If the review finds we were wrong, we restore what we can and remove the record from your account history.
5. 5One review per decision. After it, the decision stands.

• While it is being reviewed. a restriction normally stays in place. If the review is likely to take a while and the restriction is causing real harm, say so and we will consider lifting it in the meantime.
• The erasure window still runs. content past its 12 day window is gone and cannot be restored even by a successful appeal, so appeal early.
• Nothing here takes away your other rights. an appeal to us is not a substitute for legal advice or for any right you have under Tanzanian law.