Community rules and policies

Last updated 21 October 2026. These rules are part of Marsa's terms of use and privacy. They cover Marsa.

The short version

Marsa is for adults (18 or older) who want to keep in touch with people they chose.
Treat people the way you would face to face. No harassment, hate, threats or scams.
Nothing that sexualises or endangers a child, ever. We close the account and report it to the authorities.
No nudity or sexual content in Marsad posts.
Respect people's privacy: do not share someone's pictures, details or conversations without their permission.
Be yourself. No fake accounts and no pretending to be someone else.
You can report and block anyone. Someone who did not make the decision looks at every appeal.

1. Where these rules apply

These rules apply to everything you share or do on Marsa: Marsad posts, messages and voice notes, photos, videos and files, group chats and group names, your name and picture on your card, handles, reach-code labels, polls, shared costs, family trees you send or publish, and the way you use reports, Pings, tokens and the assistant.

Messages and Marsad posts are end-to-end encrypted. Marsa's server cannot read them, and we do not scan them. We only see content when someone who received it reports it, which sends us what their phone shows. Encryption does not make anything allowed: the rules apply to private messages and posts just as they would to anything public.

The rules apply wherever you are. Something that is legal where you live can still break these rules, and something allowed here can still be against the law where you or the other person are. You must follow both.

2. Age and accounts

18 or older. Marsa is for adults. Creating an account, and agreeing to these rules before your first Marsad post, confirms that you are 18 or older. Accounts we find belong to someone younger are closed.
One person, one account. An account is for one real person. Do not share it, run it for someone else without their knowledge, or create accounts to get around a block, a limit or a closed account.
No buying or selling accounts. Accounts cannot be sold, rented or transferred. Handles can be sold or rented only through Marsa's own handle market (see section 15).
Keep it safe. You are responsible for what happens on your account. Keep your passphrase private. Nobody from Marsa will ever ask you for it.
Invitations. Anyone 18 or older may join. If you joined with someone's invite or reach code, they vouched for you; misuse of invitations or codes (selling them, making fake accounts) breaks these rules for everyone involved.

3. Child safety

Zero tolerance. Anything that sexualises, exploits or endangers a child is never allowed. We close the account at once, without a warning, keep the evidence for a year, and report it to the authorities (in the United States, to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, and elsewhere to the competent authority). A child is anyone under 18.

Not allowed, in any form, including drawn, animated, edited or AI-generated material:

Child sexual abuse material, or links to it, or asking for it, offering it or trading it.
Sexualising children in any way: sexual comments about a child, sexualised pictures of children even if clothed, or sexual role-play involving a child.
Grooming: building trust with a child, or with their family, in order to abuse or exploit them; asking a child to keep a secret, send pictures, or meet.
Sextortion: threatening to share a child's (or anyone's) intimate images to get more images, money or anything else.
Child trafficking, child marriage arranged through Marsa, or offering children for any kind of exploitation.
Sharing a child's private details (school, address, daily routine) in a way that could put them at risk.
Content showing children being physically abused, or encouraging harm to children.

Ordinary family life is welcome: pictures of your own children, a child's milestones shared with family, and family trees. Keep children's pictures to people you trust, and never post a child in a sexualised or humiliating way.

If you believe a child is in immediate danger, contact your local emergency services first, then report it in Marsa.

4. Violence, threats and dangerous groups

Threats. No threats to hurt or kill anyone, to damage their property, or to harm their family, including "jokes" that a reasonable person would take seriously.
Incitement. No calling for, encouraging or organising violence against any person or group.
Praising attacks. No praising, celebrating or making heroes of people who carried out violent attacks, or mocking their victims.
Dangerous organisations. No supporting, recruiting for, raising money for or spreading the propaganda of terrorist or violent extremist groups, organised hate groups, or criminal organisations such as trafficking networks. News reporting and condemning them is allowed.
Instructions to harm. No instructions for making weapons, explosives or poisons intended to hurt people, or for carrying out attacks.

Credible threats and support for terrorism lead to the account being closed at once, and may be reported to the authorities.

5. Suicide, self-harm and eating disorders

People can talk about their own struggles, and about recovery. That is often how people get help, and it is welcome.

Not allowed: encouraging, promoting or giving instructions for suicide or self-harm; pictures of self-harm injuries; "challenges" that involve hurting yourself; promoting eating disorders, extreme weight loss or dangerous fasting as goals.
Not allowed: telling someone to hurt or kill themselves.

If someone you know is at risk, reach out to them, and contact local emergency services if they are in danger. If it is you, please talk to someone you trust or a local helpline.

6. Graphic and dangerous content

Gore. No real images or videos of death, serious injury, torture or cruelty shared to shock, mock or celebrate. Animal cruelty is included.
Dangerous acts. No content that encourages others to do something likely to cause serious injury, such as dangerous stunts, challenges, or misuse of medicines and chemicals.
Context matters. Something hard to see can be shared to raise awareness, for news, or with family about a real event, but keep it to people who chose to see it, and never post it to shock.

7. Harassment and bullying

No targeting someone with insults, humiliation, or repeated unwanted messages, including through group chats, introductions or Pings.
No contacting someone again through a new account, someone else's account or a different handle after they blocked, removed or declined you.
No sexual harassment: unwanted sexual comments, advances or images.
No encouraging others to pile on someone, and no sharing someone's posts or messages to mock them.
No wishing or celebrating someone's death, illness or misfortune.
No intimidation of people because they reported you.

Disagreeing, even strongly, is not harassment. Attacking the person instead of their opinion is.

8. Hate

No attacking, dehumanising or calling for the exclusion of people because of who they are: their race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability, serious illness, or age. This includes slurs, harmful stereotypes, comparing people to animals or disease, denying well-documented atrocities to target their victims, and hateful symbols used to attack.

Discussing religion, culture, history and ideas respectfully, including criticism of beliefs and of institutions, is allowed.

9. Nudity and sexual content

No nudity or sexual content in Marsad posts, profile pictures, group pictures or anything that others see without asking for it.
No sending sexual images to anyone who has not clearly agreed to receive them.
No offering or asking for sexual services, and no content that promotes prostitution or sexual exploitation.
No intimate images of anyone shared without their consent (see section 10). This leads to the account being closed.

Breastfeeding, medical and health information, and art without sexual intent are not treated as sexual content, but keep them to people who chose to see them.

10. Privacy and personal information

Intimate images. Never share, or threaten to share, intimate or private images or videos of someone without their consent, whether real, edited or AI-generated.
Other people's pictures. Do not share pictures or videos of people who would not want them shared, especially pictures of women or girls taken or shared against their wishes, or pictures that reveal where someone is.
Personal details. No sharing someone's home address, phone number, ID numbers, financial details, health information, or location without their permission ("doxxing"), or encouraging others to find or contact them.
Private conversations. No secretly recording people, and no sharing screenshots or recordings of private conversations to embarrass, threaten or expose someone.
Codes and links. A reach code or invite someone gave you is for you. Do not publish it to flood them with requests.
View-once and timed media. Respect what the sender chose. Capturing and spreading a view-once picture breaks these rules.

11. Impersonation and fake accounts

No pretending to be another person, a public figure, a business, a government body, or Marsa itself.
No accounts with made-up identities used to deceive people.
Parody and fan accounts must say so clearly in their name and card.
No handles, names or pictures chosen to make people believe you are someone you are not.

12. Scams, fraud and spam

Scams. No tricking people out of money, tokens, passwords, codes or personal information: fake investments, romance scams, fake prizes, fake charities, advance-fee and job scams, fake support agents, and "send me your code" schemes.
Phishing and malware. No links or files meant to steal accounts or harm devices.
Spam. No mass unwanted messages, chain messages, repeated identical posts, or mass contact requests. Daily limits on requests and reports help keep this in check; trying to get around them breaks these rules.
Fake engagement. No automating accounts, or buying, selling or trading reactions, views or contacts.
Shared costs. Use split costs honestly; do not invent debts.

13. Harmful false information and manipulated media

No spreading false information that could cause real harm: false health claims that put people in danger, false information about emergencies or disasters, and false information about how, when or where to vote.
No pictures, videos or voice recordings edited or generated to make it look like someone said or did something they did not, when shared as if real.

Getting something wrong, opinions, satire that is clearly satire, and honest debate are not breaches.

14. Illegal and regulated goods

Marsa is not a marketplace. Do not use it to buy, sell, trade or arrange: illegal drugs or the misuse of prescription medicines; weapons, ammunition, explosives or their parts; counterfeit goods or documents; stolen goods; wildlife and animal parts that are protected; human organs; gambling services; or alcohol, tobacco and vaping products where the law restricts them. Talking about these subjects, including harm reduction and recovery, is allowed.

15. Handles, tokens and Pings

Handles must not impersonate anyone, use someone else's trademark to deceive, or contain hate, sexual terms or threats. Marsa's team can take such handles back, without a refund of tokens. Buying many handles only to block others from them, or to resell names that belong to real people or brands, is not allowed.
Tokens have no money value and cannot be cashed out. Do not sell or buy tokens, handles or Pings for real money outside Marsa, and do not use paid codes, offers or the handle market to scam people.
Pings are for things that matter. Using them to harass someone breaks these rules; people can shield themselves or mute you for free.

16. Family trees

Family trees hold real people's names, ties, pictures and stories. Share a tree only with people who should see it, and respect the picture and privacy choices the app gives you, including keeping women's pictures to those they allow.
Published public trees are for well-known families only, and must be built from published sources. Do not publish living private people's details.
Do not use family information to harass, shame or expose anyone.

17. Copyright and trademarks

Share only what you made yourself or have the right to share. Do not post other people's films, music, books, photos or artwork in a way that infringes their rights.
Do not use a trademark in a way that misleads people about who you are.
Reporting infringement. If you own the rights to something shared on Marsa without permission, write to us (see section 24) with: who you are and how to reach you; what the work is; where it appears in Marsa (a handle, a public tree, a screenshot of the post); a statement that you believe in good faith the use is not authorised; and a statement that what you sent is accurate and that you own the rights or act for the owner.
Accounts that repeatedly infringe are closed.

18. The assistant

Do not use the assistant to create content that breaks these rules, or to try to get around them.
The assistant can be wrong. Check anything important, and do not present what it wrote as someone else's words.
What you send to the assistant is not end-to-end encrypted: it is processed on Marsa's server to answer you.

19. How we enforce these rules

What we can see

We do not read messages or Marsad posts, and we cannot: they are end-to-end encrypted. We act on what people report, on what is public (handles, published trees), and on signs of abuse the server can see without reading content, such as how many requests an account sends.

What we do

Action	When	What happens
No action	The report does not show a breach	The report is closed. The person reported is not told.
Take a post down	A Marsad post breaks a rule	The post is removed from everyone's phone. You are told which rule it broke. It counts as a strike.
Warning	A first or less serious breach	You get a notice in the app saying which rule. It counts as a strike.
Account closed	Serious breaches, or repeated ones	You can no longer sign in, your Marsad posts are taken back from everyone's phones, and you are told why when you try to sign in. You can appeal.

Strikes

Warnings and posts taken down are strikes. They count for 90 days. Three strikes within 90 days normally lead to the account being closed. Some breaches close an account at once, without any strike first: anything in section 3, credible threats of violence, support for terrorism, sharing intimate images without consent, sextortion, serious scams, and coming back after a closed account.

How we decide

A person on Marsa's team decides every case; nothing is closed automatically by a machine.
We look at what was shared, its context, the reason given, the account's history, and how many people reported it. Reports about a child's safety are looked at first.
We apply the same rules to everyone, whoever they are, and whoever reported them.
Every decision is written to a moderation record: who decided, when, about whom, the rule, and a fingerprint of any picture or video involved. The record is kept for safety even if the account is later deleted.

Evidence

The picture or video attached to a report is deleted once the report is handled, and only its fingerprint is kept. For a report about a child's safety, the file is kept for one year in case the authorities need it, then deleted.

Limits

To keep Marsa workable for everyone: up to 100 Marsad posts a day for everyone; contact requests and reports are limited per day, more tightly in an account's first week.

20. Reporting

A Marsad post: tap ⋯ on the post, then Report this post.
A message: hold the message, then Report.
A person: open their card, then Report.

You choose a reason and can add a note. Because everything is end-to-end encrypted, a report sends Marsa's team what your phone shows you: the text, and the picture or video. The person you report is never told who reported them. After reporting you can block them; a blocked person can never reach you again.

You can also hide someone's Marsad posts without reporting them, mute their Pings, or block them at any time.

Reports are for real breaches. Reporting people falsely or repeatedly to harass them, or to get an account closed, breaks these rules.

21. Appeals

If your account was closed, sign in as usual: Marsa tells you which rule it was closed under and when, and offers Appeal. Say why you think the decision was wrong.
You can appeal each decision once. Your appeal is looked at by someone on Marsa's team other than the person who made the decision, whenever that is possible.
The outcome is shown the next time you try to sign in: the account is opened again, or the decision stands, with a short reason.
We aim to decide appeals within 14 days.
If you live in the European Union, you may also take a decision to a certified out-of-court dispute settlement body, and you can always go to court.

22. Law enforcement and emergencies

We respond to valid legal requests from the authorities, under the law that applies to us. We check every request and push back on requests that are too broad.
Because messages and posts are end-to-end encrypted, we cannot hand over their content. What we may have: the username, when the account was created, the role it was invited with, who it is connected to and when, and when messages were sent.
If we believe someone's life is in immediate danger, we may share the information we have with the authorities without waiting for a formal request.
We report child sexual abuse material and child exploitation to the competent authorities as the law requires.

23. Child safety standards

Marsa publishes these standards for app stores and the public:

Marsa prohibits child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSAE) and child sexual abuse material (CSAM), as set out in section 3.
Marsa is for adults (18 or older).
Anyone can report content or a person inside the app (section 20). Child-safety reports are handled first.
When we find CSAM or child exploitation we remove access, close the account, keep the evidence as the law requires, and report it to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children or the competent national authority.
Marsa complies with the child-safety laws that apply to it.
Child-safety contact: see section 24.

24. Changes and contact

We may update these rules as Marsa grows. The date at the top says when they last changed; for important changes we tell you in the app and may ask you to agree again before posting.

To reach Marsa's team, including about child safety, copyright or a legal request, use Feedback in the app (Marsa › Feedback) or the contact address on Marsa's Google Play listing.

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