Community Guidelines & Trust + Safety Policy

We want Patriots Protect to be a place where members can connect, communicate, learn, mentor, find opportunities, help one another, participate in events, discover benefits, share experiences, build professional relationships, support fellow members, and belong to something larger than themselves.

We do not expect every member to agree with every other member. We do expect members to treat one another with basic dignity and respect.

Be yourself. Do not:

• impersonate another person;
• create fraudulent identities;
• falsely claim military or first-responder service;
• falsely claim employment or organizational affiliation;
• falsify credentials;
• manipulate verification;
• create deceptive accounts;
• misrepresent a business or organization.

Patriots Protect may require verification where reasonably necessary.

Patriots Protect may provide multiple levels of verification including email verification, identity verification, service verification, organizational verification, credential verification, employment verification, professional verification, and other specialized verification.

A member may display an appropriate verification badge when verification has been completed, such as Military Verified, Fire Verified, Law Enforcement Verified, EMS Verified, First Responder Verified, Veteran Verified, Organization Verified, or Credential Verified.

Verification indicates that Patriots Protect completed a defined verification process. It does not guarantee current conduct, character, employment performance, professional competence, future eligibility, organizational endorsement, absence of criminal conduct, or accuracy of every statement made by the member.

Verification badges may appear on profiles, beside names, on posts, in comments, in search results, in messaging, at events, and in other community surfaces. The badge should communicate what was verified, not merely that "Patriots Protect likes this person."

Patriots Protect may display additional organization, unit, department, employer, credential, or affiliation marks where the member is legitimately entitled to the affiliation, the organization or mark may lawfully be displayed, and the use does not imply endorsement where none exists. We may remove an affiliation logo or badge if the underlying verification expires, changes, or becomes unreliable.

Examples include: falsified documents; altered documents; another person's credentials; fraudulent organizational email; false service claims; impersonation; manipulated verification responses; social engineering; unauthorized use of organizational marks.

Verification fraud may result in immediate suspension or termination.

Do not publish another person's home address, personal telephone number, private email, financial information, government identification, login credentials, private communications, or sensitive personal information without lawful authorization. Publicly available information is not automatically appropriate to republish.

Do not engage in targeted harassment, stalking, intimidation, threats, persistent unwanted contact, doxxing, humiliation campaigns, coordinated abuse, sexual harassment, or discriminatory harassment. Context matters. Criticism is allowed. Targeted abuse is not.

Threats of violence, credible intimidation, or content reasonably indicating imminent harm may result in immediate action. Patriots Protect may restrict an account, remove content, preserve relevant information, contact appropriate authorities where legally permitted or required, and take emergency safety measures. We do not attempt to replace emergency services. If you are in immediate danger, contact appropriate emergency services.

Patriots Protect does not permit targeted content that advocates or encourages serious harm against people based on protected characteristics. Political disagreement, criticism of institutions, debate, satire, and controversial opinions are not automatically prohibited.

Patriots Protect may restrict sexually explicit content, particularly where it involves minors; is non-consensual; depicts exploitation; constitutes harassment; violates applicable law; or is inappropriate for the Platform's community environment. Non-consensual intimate imagery is prohibited.

Any sexual exploitation of minors is strictly prohibited. Patriots Protect may immediately suspend accounts and make legally required reports when appropriate.

Do not use Patriots Protect to: conduct scams; impersonate businesses; create fraudulent investment opportunities; obtain money through deception; distribute phishing links; steal credentials; manipulate members; create fake promotions; or conduct fraudulent fundraising.

Do not use the Platform for: mass unsolicited messaging; automated spam; engagement manipulation; fake accounts; repetitive solicitation; deceptive referral schemes; or artificial follower growth. Commercial activity may be permitted where expressly supported by the Platform.

Prohibited activity includes: malware distribution; credential theft; phishing; unauthorized access; exploit deployment against Platform infrastructure; denial-of-service attacks; destructive automation; malicious scraping; and attempts to bypass security controls. Security researchers should use our designated vulnerability-reporting process where available.

Patriots Protect is not intended to be an all-purpose truth adjudicator. Members should distinguish fact, opinion, speculation, satire, personal experience, and unverified information. We may intervene where false or misleading information creates significant risk of fraud, physical harm, impersonation, financial harm, election or civic-process abuse, public safety threats, or platform manipulation.

Members remain responsible for content they submit. Content may be public, member-only, group-limited, private, or restricted according to account settings. Patriots Protect may moderate content consistent with these Guidelines and applicable law.

Patriots Protect may use automated systems and AI to identify harassment, fraud, spam, impersonation, threats, malicious links, abnormal behavior, coordinated abuse, and potential policy violations. AI detection is a signal, not necessarily the final decision. Automated systems can be wrong. Where appropriate, flagged content may proceed through: Detection → Risk Assessment → Moderation Queue → Human Review → Decision → Appeal.

Patriots Protect may calculate internal risk signals. Risk scores may consider account age, verification, behavior, reports, content, device or technical signals, abnormal activity, prior enforcement, and network patterns. Risk scores are internal safety tools and are not intended to constitute statements about a person's character.

Moderators may consider context, intent, severity, history, credibility, evidence, potential harm, and applicable rules. Moderators may take different actions for similar-looking content where context differs.

Members may report people, posts, messages, groups, events, profiles, scams, impersonation, verification concerns, and safety issues. Reports should be made in good faith. False or malicious reporting may itself violate these Guidelines.

Blocking may prevent another member from viewing certain content, contacting you, interacting with you, or discovering you, depending on Platform capabilities. Blocking is primarily a member-control tool, not necessarily an enforcement action.

Mute may allow a member to reduce content from another member without notifying that member.

Restrict may provide a stronger interaction-control mechanism than mute while avoiding the visibility of a full block. Specific behavior depends on the Platform implementation.

Possible actions include:

• Informational notice — We notify a member of a concern without restricting access.
• Content removal — Specific content is removed.
• Content limitation — Distribution or visibility may be reduced.
• Feature restriction — Certain functionality is temporarily restricted.
• Temporary suspension — Account access is suspended for a defined period.
• Indefinite restriction — Access remains restricted pending further review.
• Permanent termination — The account is terminated.
• Verification removal — A verification badge or affiliation may be removed.

Actions may be combined.

Patriots Protect may take immediate action for: child exploitation; credible threats; terrorism-related activity; serious fraud; account takeover; identity theft; verification fraud; malicious cyber activity; severe harassment; non-consensual intimate imagery; and deliberate safety-system circumvention.

We generally do not publicly disclose individual enforcement decisions. We may provide information where necessary to affected members, investigators, authorities, legal proceedings, or to protect safety.

Where an appeal is available, members may request review. An appeal should identify the action being challenged, why the member believes it was incorrect, relevant evidence, and relevant context. Appeals may be reviewed by another moderator, a specialized moderation team, senior Trust & Safety personnel, automated assistance, or other designated reviewers. Not every enforcement action will have an appeal where immediate safety or legal requirements make that impractical.

Patriots Protect may maintain a community reputation system intended to reward helpfulness, reliability, mentorship, constructive contributions, verified participation, event participation, and positive community behavior. Reputation is not primarily a popularity contest. Follower counts and likes may exist as ordinary social functionality, but they are not intended to be the foundation of trust.

Members may not artificially manipulate reputation through fake accounts, coordinated fake reviews, purchased engagement, automated interactions, fraudulent endorsements, or reciprocal manipulation schemes.

Members may participate in emergency assistance, scholarships, disaster response, member-to-member support, and charitable campaigns. Fundraising must accurately represent beneficiary, purpose, organizer, restrictions, and material fees or deductions where required.

Members may post resumes, job opportunities, career advice, professional experiences, and business information. Patriots Protect does not guarantee job placement, employment, credential validity, employer behavior, compensation, or career outcomes.

Event organizers must provide accurate information. Patriots Protect may remove events involving fraud, unsafe activity, prohibited conduct, or material misrepresentation.

Members must not exploit vulnerable individuals. Additional restrictions may apply to accounts involving minors.

We seek to improve transparency around major categories of enforcement, safety trends, appeals, verification, and platform abuse. We may publish aggregated Trust & Safety reports without exposing private member information.

These Guidelines may evolve as the community grows, threats change, technology develops, laws change, and moderation experience improves.