Community Guidelines

Music Battle's mission is to encourage creativity and fun. We are creating a global community where everyone can authentically create and share, discover the world around them, and engage with users around the world. We are also committed to guaranteeing user safety. Our Community Guidelines reflect our values, define a common code of conduct, and describe the steps we take to prevent harmful behavior. These guidelines also allow the community to ensure the security of a shared space.

Music Battles is an inclusive app based on responsible freedom of speech. We encourage our users to celebrate what makes them unique, and to join a community that does the same. We greatly appreciate that our users belong to a wide variety of nationalities and cultures, and we take into account the cultural norms of the countries in which we operate.

Our top priority is to provide a safe and favorable environment. We believe that safety is a cornerstone in order for people to feel comfortable and express themselves in an open and creative way. We also want to encourage an environment that facilitates authentic interactions by keeping misleading content and accounts outside of our app.

Our values are the basis of our Community Guidelines. We remove content (such as videos, audio files, images, and texts) that violate the Community Guidelines and will suspend or block accounts that commit serious or repeated violations. In certain circumstances, we may go one step further and report the accounts to the competent authorities to ensure the safety of our community. We use a combination of technology, human review, and feedback from our community to identify and remove content that violates Community Guidelines.

All users must comply with the Community Guidelines, as well as all content shared on Music Battles. These guidelines provide general rules on what is allowed and what is not within the Application, but do not constitute an exhaustive list. We also recognize that some content that would normally be removed according to our rules could be useful to the public. Therefore, we may allow exceptions in certain circumstances, as described in the following sections.

We periodically update the Community Guidelines to adapt to community behavior, mitigate emerging risks, and ensure Music Battles is a safe place for creativity and fun.

Dangerous people and organizations

We do not allow dangerous individuals or organizations to use the App to promote terrorism, crime, or other behavior that may be harmful. Where there is a credible threat to public safety, we will block the account and report it to the corresponding security agencies.

Terrorists and terrorist organizations.

Terrorists and terrorist organizations are defined as any non-state actor who uses premeditated violence or threats of violence to cause harm to non-combatants in order to intimidate or threaten the population, government or international organization for political, religious, ethnic or ideological purposes.

Other people and dangerous organizations.

We define dangerous individuals and organizations as those that commit criminal acts or cause other types of serious harm. Here are some of the types of groups and crimes:

Hate-inciting groups
Extremist violent organizations
Organized crime
Homicide
Human trafficking
Organ trafficking
Firearms trafficking
Drug trafficking
Kidnapping
Extortion
Blackmail
Money laundering
Fraud
Cybercrime
Gender-based violence

The following should not be published:

Names, symbols, logos, flags, slogans, uniforms, gestures, portraits or other objects whose purpose is to represent dangerous individuals or organizations;
Content that encourages, praises, supports or incites terrorism, crime or other behaviors intended to cause harm;
Exceptions: educational, historical, satirical, and other content that can be clearly identified as replicas or whose purpose is to raise awareness of the damage caused by dangerous individuals or organizations.

Illegal activities and regulated goods

We prohibit the marketing, sale, promotion and use of certain regulated goods, as well as the representation or promotion of criminal activities. Some goods are not regulated or are not considered illegal in certain countries. However, due to the global nature of our community, we take into account different jurisdictions and strive to consistently enforce our standards around the world. This could happen in the removal of content that is not considered illegal in the jurisdiction where they are published.

Promotion of criminal activities.

Criminal activities cover a wide range of acts punishable by law, such as theft, assault, human exploitation and other harmful behaviors. Since we don't want such behavior to be normalized or imitated, we remove content that promotes criminal activity.

The following should not be published:

Content promoting acts of physical harm, such as assaults or kidnappings;
Content that jeopardizes the safety of others, such as jokes that consist in performing fake calls to emergency services;
Contents promoting human exploitation or wild life trafficking;
Contents offering the purchase, sale or exchange of illegally purchased goods;
Contents that provide instructions on how to perform illegal activities.

Sale or use of weapons.

To protect our community, we generally do not allow the representation, commerce or promotion of firearms, ammunition, fire arm accessories or explosive weapons. We also prohibit the publication of instructions on how to manufacture such weapons. We may grant exceptions for content showing firearms or other types of weapons in the following cases: in a fictional scenario, as part of a museum collection, carried by a police officer, in a military parade, or used in a safe and controlled environment, such as a shooting range.

The following should not be published:

Contents showing firearms, firearm accessories, ammunition or explosive weapons;
Contents that offer, sell, market or request firearms, accessories, ammunition, explosive weapons or instructions on how to manufacture them.

Drugs and controlled substances

To protect our community, we do not allow the publication of content that represent the use or sale of drugs or other controlled substances.

The following should not be published:

Content that shows drugs, drug use or encourages others to prepare, use or traffic with drugs or other controlled substances;
Contents in which drugs or other controlled substances are sold, offered, marketed or requested;
Contents providing information on how to purchase controlled or illegal substances.

Fraud and scams

We do not allow the use of our Application to harm others (e.g., by using mechanisms to defraud or steal assets). We will remove content that is intended to deliberately deceive users to gain an illicit financial advantage.

The following should not be published:

Contents that promote phishing;
Contents promoting pyramid schemes or Ponzi;
Content promoting fixed bets, easy money systems or other scams.

Graphic and violent content

We do not allow the use of violent content whose purpose is to shock or cause the displeasure of users, or to encourage or facilitate acts of violence or physical harm outside the network. We will remove content that represent people or animals with a state of serious suffering, except in cases of educational, scientific, artistic or informative purposes. When we identify a genuine risk of violence or threat to public safety, we will block the account and report it to the relevant security agencies.

Graphic and violent content: human beings.

The following should not be published:

Bloody content, defined as bleeding injuries or open wounds;
Contents showing human corpses in a coffin or funeral. Contents with corpses preserved in a museum are allowed, in an environment of autopsy or mummies;
Contents showing the mutilation of real people, this includes amputation or injury of limbs with the purpose of causing permanent damage;
Contents showing violent or accidental deaths of real people;
Contents showing violent struggles, which are defined as two or more people physically attacking each other or others that may result in serious injury. Professional or performing wrestling, traditional martial arts or fighting in a fictional setting are allowed;
Contents showing violent torture, which is defined as deliberately causing serious physical or psychological suffering.

Graphic and violent contents: animals.

The following should not be published:

Contents showing the slaughter of real animals;
Contents showing the mutilation of real animals, which is defined as amputation or injury of body parts in order to cause permanent damage;
Contents showing cruelty to animals, which is defined as causing physical pain, suffering or death in real animals. Physical pain is allowed during surgery or other medical treatments.

Suicide, self-harm and dangerous acts

We do not promote participation in activities that may cause harm. We also do not allow users to encourage others to engage in dangerous activities. We do not allow the publication of content that promotes self-harm or suicide, but we allow users to share their experiences in order to raise awareness of these problems.

We encourage users who have recurring thoughts about self-harm or suicide, or those who know someone who is seriously thinking about suicide, to contact security agencies immediately, or a suicide prevention line.

Suicide

We will remove content that shows suicide acts or suicidal tendencies, as well as content that may encourage participation in similar actions. Examples include attempted suicide or content showing a person committing suicide or intending to commit acts that may cause self-inflicted death. We prohibit any form of content that encourages, praises, or promotes suicide, or that shows others how to kill themselves.

The following should not be published:

Contents that provide instructions on how to kill yourself;
Contents that encourage, praise or promote suicide;
Incitement to commit suicide.
Exceptions: motivating content to overcome suicidal tendencies, as well as advice or testimonies to combat suicide.

Self-harm

To avoid normalizing, animating, or triggering self-harming behaviors, we do not allow the use of images that display such behaviors, regardless of the intent of users to publish them. We will remove content that encourages or may encourage acts that are likely to cause self-inflicted physical injury. Also prohibited in the Application is content that promotes eating habits that may cause health problems.

The following should not be published:

Contents showing self-inflicted wounds;
Contents that provide instructions on how to self-harm;
Content promoting anorexia or other dangerous weight loss behaviors;
Exceptions: content that provides assistance to help people involved in self-harm or who suffer from eating disorders.

Dangerous acts

Perform risky activities or other dangerous behaviors in a non-professional context or without possessing the necessary skills that can lead to serious injury or death to the user or public. We do not allow the publication of content that encourages, promotes or praises such behaviors. Dangerous scenes made by amateurs or content showing or promoting dangerous challenges will be removed from the App.

The following should not be published:

Contents showing improper use of dangerous tools;
Contents showing how liquids are drank or substances not suitable for consumption are ingested;
Dangerous challenges that can cause injury;
Contents showing minors driving motor vehicles not legally permitted for their age.

Hate speech

We do not tolerate content that attacks or incites violence against a person or group of people based on protected characteristics. We do not allow the publication of hate-inciting content. If we find them, we will remove them from our Application. We will also suspend or block accounts that have repeated hate speech violations.

Attacks on protected groups

Hate-inciting content is defined as that whose purpose is to attack, threaten, incite violence or dehumanize a person or group of people based on protected traits. We also do not allow the publication of content that verbally or physically threatens with signs of violence or that represent harm to a person or group of people based on protected traits.

Here are some of the protected features:

Race
Ethnic group
National origin
Religion
Class
Sexual preference
Sex
Gender
Gender identity
Serious illness or disability
Immigration status

They should not be published:

Content that incites violence or hatred, or that dehumanizes individuals or groups of people based on the characteristics listed above, which include:

Affirming that they are physically or morally inferior;
Inciting or justifying violence against them;
Claiming that they are criminals;
Refer negatively to them as animals, inanimate objects or other non-human entities;
Promoting or justifying exclusion, segregation or discrimination against them.

Insults

Insults are defined as derogatory terms whose purpose is to denigrate an ethnicity, race or any other of the protected characteristics indicated above. They are not tolerated in our Application because we do not want to contribute to the dissemination of notoriously offensive expressions. However, we are aware of the fact that insults can be used in a self-referential way, or could be reappropriated, so we may make exceptions when such insults are used in a song or in a self-referential satirical context.

They should not be published:

Contents containing insults

Ideologies that incite hatred

Hate-inciting ideologies are not compatible with the inclusive and open community of our Application. We will eliminate content that promotes hate-inciting ideologies.

They should not be published:

Content that promotes any hateful ideology by showing or speaking positively about logos, symbols, flags, slogans, uniforms, greetings, gestures, portraits, illustrations or names of people related to these ideologies;
Contents that deny the existence of violent and well-documented events that have taken place;
Music or lyrics from songs that promote ideologies that incite hatred.

Bullying and harassment

Users should feel safe expressing themselves, without fear of being embarrassed, humiliated, harassed or disturbed. We are aware of the psychological suffering that abusive content can cause in individuals and will not tolerate abusive content or behavior on our Application.

Abusive behavior

We will eliminate all expressions of abuse, such as violent threats, sexual harassment, and denigrating statements regarding appearance, intellect, personality traits, and hygiene.

The following should not be published:

Content that threatens a person with violence;
Contents wishing the death, serious illnesses, physical harm or any other harm to a person;
Content that incites violence or coordinated harassment;
Content that sexually harasses a user by denigrating their sexual activities or attempting to make unwanted sexual contact;
Content that denigrates a person based on attributes such as intellect, appearance, personality traits or hygiene;
Contents that entol violent tragedies and denigrate their victims;

Third-party privacy violation

Revealing or threatening to disclose personally identifiable information can cause serious emotional distress and cause actual injury. We consider these actions a form of abuse and will not allow them in Music Battles.

The following should not be published:

Content that reveals or threatens to disclose personally identifiable information, such as address, private email address, private phone number, bank statements, Social Security number or passport number;
Threats to reveal sexual or intimate images not consented to.

Adult nudity and sexual activities

We do not allow the publication of sexually explicit or sexual pleasure content on Music Battles, nor do we allow such animations. Sexualized content involves a lot of risks, such as the application of legal penalties in some jurisdictions, and may cause harm to our users if non-consensual images (e.g., non-consensual dissemination of sexual acts) are shared. In addition, explicit sexual content may be offensive in certain cultures. We allow certain exceptions, such as educational, scientific or artistic content. For example, we allow or debated contents that show mastectomy scars.

Sexual exploitation

Sexual exploitation is an attempt to harm a person by improperly disclosing the victim's previous sexual acts or sexuality to obtain sexual pleasure, for lucrative purposes or for other personal benefits.

The following should not be published:

Contents that show, commit or incite the performance of non-consensual sexual acts;
Content that omits, promotes or praises the request of sexual activity or sexual objectification.

Adult pornography and nudity

Pornography in which sexual organs or sexual activities are explicitly displayed for the purpose of obtaining sexual pleasure.

The following should not be published:

Contents showing sexual activities, such as penetration, non-penetration sex or oral sex
Contents showing human genitalia, female nipples or buttocks merely for sexual pleasure purposes
Contents that show sexual arousal
Contents showing sexual fetishes

Child safety

We are very committed to child safety and apply a zero-tolerance policy against harassment or abusive behaviour towards minors. We do not allow content that shows or disseminates child abuse, child nudity or child sexual exploitation, and we will report such content to the relevant security agencies. We also prohibit content showing minors performing criminal behavior.

We are committed to providing information and resources to help parents and children understand how to safely navigate Music Battles. We rely on voluntary statement and user complaints to identify the ages of account holders. When minor account holders are identified, we remove their accounts from our Application.

Nudity refers to contents showing visible private parts. Sexual exploitation of minor users is defined as an attempt to cause harm to a minor user by improperly disclosing past sexual acts or sexuality to obtain sexual pleasure, profit or for other personal benefits.

The following should not be published:

Contents showing minors private parts;
Contents showing the sexual exploitation of minors;
Contents showing sexual activities, such as penetration, non-penetration sex or oral sex with minors;
Contents showing sexual arousal with minors;
Contents showing sexual fetishes with minors;

Criminal behavior of minors

Criminal behaviors include the use or use of drugs, alcohol and tobacco.

The following should not be published:

Contents in which minors appear to consume, possess, or suspect to consume, alcoholic beverages, drugs and tobacco.

Child abuse

Child abuse is defined as a person in a position of power that causes physical or psychological abuse to a minor. Physical abuse is defined as deliberately inflicting injuries on a child's body. Psychological abuse is defined as rebuking a child with physical or sexual threats or violence, or through bullying practices.

The following should not be published:

Contents showing physical or psychological abuse of minors

Harassment of minors

Child harassment is defined as an adult who establishes an emotional relationship with a minor to earn their trust for sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, or sex trafficking purposes.

The following should not be published:

Content that encourages, displays, or justifies child harassment.

Sexualization of minors

Sexualization occurs when a person's value is judged solely by their physical appearance or sexual behavior, until other characteristics are excluded. We do not allow the publication of content that uses minors as sexual objects.

The following should not be published:

Contents showing erotic dances of minors
Contents showing sexual or erotic texts involving minors

Integrity and authenticity

Content that aims to deceive or confuse community members jeopardizes our trust-based community. We do not allow the posting of such content on our Application. Some of these activities include sending unsolicited advertising, phishing, and misinformation campaigns.

Unsolicited advertising

It is prohibited to publish content or carry out activities whose purpose is to artificially increase popularity in the Application. We also prohibit any attempt to manipulate the Application's mechanisms for increasing interaction metrics.

The following should not be published:

Content that shares instructions on how to artificially increase views, likes, followers, shared content, or comments;
Content that tries to sell or buy views, likes, followers, shared content or comments;
Contents that promote artificial traffic generation services.

Phishing

We are a community of authentic people and there is no better way to be authentic than to be yourself. We do not allow our users to deceive others by impersonating their identities or purposes in our Application.

The following should not be published:

Contents posing as another person or organization by using the name, biographical data or profile picture in a misleading manner, or by intentionally using a username similar to that of another user for misleading purposes. We allow exceptions for parody purposes, comments or follower accounts, provided that the account does not deceive other users in relation to their identity or purpose.

Misleading information

We do not allow content with misinformation that may cause harm to our community or the general public. While we encourage our users to have respectful conversations regarding the issues they are interested in, we will remove misleading content that may cause harm to a person's health or general public safety. We'll also remove content distributed by disinformation campaigns.

The following should not be published:

Content with misinformation that incites fear, hatred or prejudice;
Content with misinformation that may cause harm to a person's health, such as misleading information about medical treatments;
False, manipulated or targeted content specifically against a victim for the purpose of causing harm;
Content that attempts to deceive community members in connection withchoices or other civic processes.

intellectual property

We encourage all users to create and share original content. We do not allow users to post or distribute content that infringes the intellectual property rights of third parties.

The following should not be published:

Content that infringes the copyright, trademark or other intellectual property rights of third parties.

Threats to the security of the Application

In addition to the content and behavior described above, our policies prohibit activities that harm the service provided by Music Battles.

Do not attempt to unlawfully access the Music Battles website, application or associated networks, or attempt to circumvent our security measures to restrict user access;
Do not distribute files containing viruses, Trojans, worms, logic bombs, or other materials that are considered malicious or harmful;
Do not modify, adapt, translate, reverse engineer, disassemble, decompile or create derivative products based on Music Battles, such as files, tables or documentation, or attempt to regenerate any of the source code, algorithms, methods or techniques belonging to Music Battles;
Do not use automated scripts to collect information from Music Battles.

Thank you for being part of our vibrant global community and for working with us to ensure a safe space for all users. If you find content or accounts that you believe may violate the Community Standards, please contact us ayuda@musicbattles.mx so that we can review them and take appropriate action.

Last updated: February 2020.