Content Policy

Last Updated: Mar 10, 2023

As a global platform for creativity and self-expression, Padlet is deeply committed to supporting and protecting freedom of speech. At the same time, we draw lines around a few narrowly-defined but deeply important categories of content and behavior that jeopardize our users, threaten our infrastructure, or damage our community.

What Padlet is for:

Padlet celebrates creativity. We want you to express yourself freely and use Padlet to reflect who you are, and what you love, think, witness, and believe.

What Padlet is not for:

  • Malicious Bigotry. Don’t actively promote violence or extreme hatred against individuals or groups, on the basis of race, ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, or sexual orientation. While we firmly believe that the best response to hateful speech is not censorship but more speech, we will take down malicious bigotry, as defined here.

  • Harm to Minors. Be thoughtful when posting anything involving a minor. Examples of content you shouldn’t post:
    • Child sexual abuse: Don’t post any content that depicts or promotes child sexual abuse.

    • Pedophilia: Don’t post content that encourages or promotes sexual attraction towards children. For example, do not create padlets with images or video of children where the collection of images or text accompanying the images is sexually suggestive.

    • Bullying: Don’t bully minors, even if you are one. Life as a teenager is hard enough without the fear, anguish, and isolation caused by online bullying.

  • Promotion and Glorification of Self-Harm. Don’t post content that actively promotes or glorifies self-harm. This includes content that urges or encourages readers to cut or injure themselves; embrace anorexia, bulimia, or other eating disorders; or commit suicide rather than, e.g., seeking counseling or treatment, or joining together in supportive conversation with those suffering or recovering from depression or other conditions. Dialogue about these behaviors is incredibly important and online communities can be extraordinarily helpful to people struggling with these difficult conditions. We aim to sustain Padlet as a place that facilitates awareness, support and recovery, and to remove only those blogs that cross the line into active promotion or glorification of self-harm.

  • Gore and Mutilation Content. Don’t post gore just to be shocking. Don’t showcase the mutilation or torture of human beings, animals, or their remains.

  • Sexually Explicit Content. Don’t post pornography. Period. The line between pornography and art can be blur sometimes, or even differ from culture to culture. A good check is to ask yourself - “Would I post this on my public Facebook feed?” If you wouldn’t, don’t put it on Padlet.

  • Username and URL Abuse. Padlet’s URLs (Padlet addresses) are for the use and enjoyment of our users. Don’t squat, hoard, collect, trade, or sell Padlet URLs, and don’t register a URL or username for the purpose of impersonating an individual, organization, or brand.

  • Spam. Don’t abuse social gestures, and post unwanted messages or media. Don’t put deceptive links or dubious code in your posts. That includes using Javascript to inject unwanted ads in blogs, or embedding links to interstitial or pop-up ad services. Don’t use deceptive means to generate revenue or traffic, or create Padlets with the primary purpose of affiliate marketing. Spam doesn’t belong on Padlet.

  • Mass Registration and Automation. Don’t register accounts or post content automatically, systematically, or programmatically.

  • Copyright and Trademark Infringement. Respect the copyrights and trademarks of others. If you aren’t authorized to use someone else’s copyrighted or trademarked work (either expressly or by legal exceptions and limitations like fair use), don’t. It is our policy to respond to notices of alleged copyright infringement as per our Terms of Service and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

  • Impersonation, Stalking, or Harassment. Treat the community the way you’d like to be treated. If you want to parody or ridicule a public figure (and who doesn’t?), don’t try to trick readers into thinking you are actually that public figure.

  • Privacy Violations. Don’t use Padlet to deceptively obtain personal information. Don’t post content that violates anyone’s privacy, including personally identifying or confidential information like credit card numbers, social security numbers, unlisted contact information, or private photos of your ex’s junk (no matter how attractive).

  • Disruptions, Exploits, and Resource Abuse. Our servers and the valiant engineers who support them work hard for you. Don’t attempt unauthorized use, disruption, or exploitation of Padlet.com or our other products and services, or otherwise abuse Padlet’s resources.

  • Unlawful Uses and Content. This one’s pretty obvious, but Padlet is not a place for illegal behavior, including fraud, phishing, or illegally inciting violence.

And now, some words from our lawyers: If we conclude you are violating these policies, you may receive a notice via email. If you don’t explain or correct your behavior, your account may be suspended and/or your IP address may be blocked. We do our best to ensure fair outcomes, but in all cases we reserve the right to suspend accounts or remove content, without notice, for any reason, but particularly to protect our services, infrastructure, users, or community. We may even report you to law enforcement.

We reserve the right to enforce, or not enforce, these policies in our sole discretion, and these policies don’t create a duty or contractual obligation for us to act in any particular manner. We also reserve the right to amend these policies using the procedures set forth in our Terms of Service.

If you would like to report a padlet for any violation of this policy or if you have questions or feedback, don’t hesitate to contact us.