Community Rules

Last updated 15 October 2026. These rules are part of our Terms of Service.

The short version

• Talk about anything that's legal, and be decent to each other.
• Never anything that sexualises children, terrorism or real extreme violence.
• Adult content is fine between adults who want it, in age-restricted places, and never where it can reach anyone under 18.
• If something's wrong, report it. Nobody is told who reported them.

Never allowed

We remove this as soon as we know about it, ban the accounts involved for good, and report it to the police where the law requires.

Child sexual abuse or exploitation

Any sexual or sexualised material involving someone under 18, whether it's real, drawn or made by AI. It also covers grooming, meaning trying to get sexual material or contact from anyone under 18. Looking for it counts too. Searches for it get a warning instead of results, and known illegal pictures are refused and reported to our safety team.

Terrorism and violent extremism

Material that promotes, instructs in or recruits for terrorist acts, or shows them in a way that celebrates or encourages them.

Extreme crime and violence

Real material showing murder, torture, rape or other extreme violence or cruelty, shared to glorify, promote or incite it.

Not allowed

We remove this when we find it. Serious or repeated breaches get accounts suspended or banned.

Instructions for crime or violence

Detailed instructions for, or promotion of, serious crimes or violence, like making weapons or explosives to hurt people. Talking about crime, the news, history, fiction and how to stay safe is fine.

Illegal drug instructions

Detailed instructions for making illegal drugs, or promoting their use. Talking about drugs, harm reduction and getting help is fine.

Intimate images without consent

Sharing, or threatening to share, nude or sexual images of someone who didn't agree, including fake and AI-made ones. That includes demanding money or more images (sextortion). If it's you in the image, report it in the app or use our contact page, with or without an account. It's hidden from everyone straight away, and we remove it within 48 hours of a valid request.

Sexual content and anyone under 18

Sending or showing porn or other sexual content to anyone under 18, for any reason.

Threats, harassment and doxxing

Threatening to hurt someone, targeting someone with harassment, or sharing someone's private details (like their address, real name or photos) without their consent.

Encouraging suicide or self-harm

Talking about your own struggles is okay, and so is supporting someone else. Encouraging or instructing someone to hurt themselves isn't.

Scams, malware and impersonation

Fraud, phishing, malicious files, spam, and pretending to be someone else (Grumble staff included) to deceive people.

Anything else that's illegal in Australia

Grumble runs from Australia, so Australian law sets the floor.

Adult content

Legal adult content, such as nudity, sexual content and strong themes, is allowed between adults who want it, in channels the server has marked age-restricted and in private conversations with adults who have agreed to it.

It isn't allowed:

• in any channel that isn't marked age-restricted;
• sent or shown to anyone under 18, or to anyone who didn't ask for it;
• in anything everyone can see, meaning profile pictures, banners, names, bios, server names and icons, and emoji;
• anything illegal in Australia, including material refused classification.

Age-restricted channels ask adults to confirm before they open, and stay closed to anyone under 18. On iPhone, Apple's rules mean adults switch age-restricted channels on in Grumble on the web or a computer instead (Safety Centre → Allow age-restricted content on iPhone). If you own a server and a channel is for adult content, mark it age-restricted in the channel's settings.

Running a server or a bot

You run your server and can set its own rules on top of these. If you own a server, moderate it, or run a bot, you're responsible for making sure it isn't used to break these rules. Remove what breaks them when you see it, and don't run a server or bot for anything these rules forbid.

What happens when someone breaks the rules

We look at how serious it is, its context, and whether it keeps happening. We might:

• remove the message, file, profile details or server;
• warn the person;
• suspend the account for a while;
• ban the account for good;
• report it to the police, where the law requires us to or someone's safety is at risk.

Whenever we act on your message, account or server, we tell you what we did and why, and you can ask us to look again. We act on reports, on notices sent through our contact page, on notices from eSafety and other authorities, and on what we find ourselves. Direct messages, servers and calls are end-to-end encrypted, so we can't see them. For those we rely on reports, and the person reporting can share their own copy with us.

Reporting

Right-click (or long-press) a message, a person or a server and choose Report. Pick what's wrong, add anything we should know, and send it. We'll tell you what we decide in the app's Safety Centre. If you disagree, you can ask us to look again within a month, and someone else will review it.

No account? Use our contact page. If you think we got it wrong, or you're not happy with how we dealt with a complaint, you can also go to eSafety. More on our safety page.