Community rules.

Each story belongs to a business. Webstory provides the comments and the chats, and the business looks after the comments on its own stories and answers its own chats. Sections 1 to 6 are about comments, Sections 7 to 9 about chats, and Sections 2 and 10 about both.

1. Commenting

• You need a Webstory account to comment, like or report. Anyone can read comments.
• You appear with your nickname, or your first name and last initial if you haven’t picked one. If you’ve added a profile picture, it shows too. Your nickname, picture and comments are public on the story. Your phone number never is.
• A comment can be up to 500 characters.
• Web addresses show as plain text, not as links.
• A reply from the business shows the business’s name and logo with the label “Author”. One of its team wrote it.

2. Please don’t post or send

In comments and in chats:

• Spam, scams, or the same message over and over
• Harassment, threats or hate
• Sexual content, graphic violence, or anything that encourages self-harm
• False information presented as fact
• Advertising for yourself or for other businesses
• Other people’s private details
• Anything illegal
• A name or picture that pretends to be someone else, including the business or Webstory

3. How comments are checked

Comments normally appear straight away. Nobody approves them first. So that a thread doesn’t fill up with spam and abuse, each comment is also checked automatically.

• Limits. There’s a limit on how often you can comment, and new accounts have a lower one.
• Automatic rules. These look for things like links, contact details, repeated text, and swear words and slurs. They also take your account into account, such as how new it is, whether you’ve bought from a shop on Webstory, and whether your comments have been hidden before.
• An automatic AI check. It reads the text of your comment and scores it for things like spam, scams and hate. It sees the text only, not your name or account. See the Privacy Policy.

Depending on the result, a comment may be:

• Held: other people don’t see it for about 15 minutes. It then appears, unless someone reports it or the business hides it.
• Hidden: other people don’t see it unless the business brings it back.

A held or hidden comment still looks normal to you. It carries no label, and at the moment we don’t send you a message about it. If nobody seems to be seeing your comment, this may be why.

4. What the business can do

On its own stories, the business can reply, like, pin, hide or delete comments, and block someone from commenting on its stories. It can also choose its own settings, for example hiding comments that contain links or certain words, or how many reports hide a comment. A blocked person is told “You can’t comment here.”

Businesses decide about their own comment sections, so what’s acceptable can differ a little from story to story. They can’t change these rules for Webstory as a whole.

5. Reporting a comment

Tap ··· on a comment, then Report, and choose a reason:

• Spam or a scam
• Harassment or hate
• Nudity, violence or self-harm
• False information
• Something illegal

The business sees that a comment was reported and why, but not who reported it. If enough different people report a comment, it’s hidden until the business looks at it. That takes at least three people by default, and each business can change the number. Reports from new accounts count for less.

If you report something as illegal, we ask which law you think it breaks. These reports also go to Webstory, and we keep a copy of the comment for our review, with the account that wrote it and the story it was on, even if it’s later deleted.

6. Your own comments

You can delete your own comments at any time. Deleting your Webstory account deletes your comments, likes and reports. The exception is the copy described above, for a comment someone reported as illegal.

7. Chatting with a business

• You can message a business from its stories or from the Webstory app. You need a Webstory account, and there’s one chat per person and brand. Chats hold text and Webstory cards (a product, story, chapter, collection or order), not photos or files.
• The business sees your nickname, or your first name and last initial if you haven’t picked one, your profile picture, when you joined Webstory, where the chat started and your orders with that business. It never sees the phone number or email you sign in with. Web addresses you send show as plain text.
• A reply shows the business’s name, usually with the first name of the person on its team who wrote it.
• A business can write to you first only about an order you placed with it, never to advertise, and it can send at most three messages in a row before you answer. If a business sends you ads, report it.
• You can edit a message for 15 minutes after sending it, unsend it, mute a chat, turn “Seen” off, or delete a chat. Deleting a chat removes it for you; the business keeps its copy.
• Chats are private, but not end-to-end encrypted. See the Privacy Policy for what’s kept and who can see it.

8. How chats are checked

Messages arrive straight away. So that businesses don’t get spam, messages are also checked automatically:

• Limits. There’s a limit on how many messages you can send a minute and how many new chats you can start a day.
• The same message to many businesses is held.
• New accounts. The first messages from a new account are checked by automatic rules (links, contact details, shouting, swear words and slurs) and by an AI check that reads the text only, not your name or account.

A held message still looks sent to you. The business sees it apart from its other messages and can let it through. A check never deletes a message.

9. Blocking and reporting in chats

You can block a business: it can’t message you any more, and its chat leaves your list. You can also report a chat or a message to Webstory, for example as spam, harassment, a scam, sexual content, hate, “This shop sends me ads”, someone underage, or something illegal. We ask whether to send us the last messages with your report; only then can we read them.

A business can block you from messaging it (you’ll see “You can’t message” and its name) and can report you to Webstory.

10. Webstory’s own action

Webstory can remove comments, and can stop an account from commenting, liking and reporting anywhere on Webstory, when someone keeps breaking these rules. We can also stop an account from sending chat messages, and turn off a business’s chats, after reports.

11. Contact

Questions and legal notices: hello@webstory.app. We may update these rules; the version and date at the top of this page show the current one.