Reporting and removal

This page says exactly what happens when you report something or ask for it to be taken down. Most of it is unusual, so it is worth two minutes.

The short version. There is nobody here reviewing reports. Some things happen instantly and completely; some things Pods genuinely cannot do and says so instead of pretending. Almost nothing you write is kept, because there would be nobody to read it.

Blocking someone

This is the main one, and it is immediate. Blocking separates you both straight away and in both directions: they cannot knock on you, your doorway closes, and any Signal handle either of you sent the other is destroyed. Reporting a person does all of that in the same action.

Nothing about what happened is written down. There is no form asking why and no box to type in, because Pods keeps no account of what you said and there is nobody here who would read one. What is kept is a single mark saying somebody reported that account. It cannot be read back to you, marks about two different people cannot be joined together, and the whole set is deleted a fortnight after the last one. The only thing it can do is slow that account down.

A picture of you

If you are in a photograph on a notice, you can have it taken down. Open the notice, choose Report or remove, then I am in this picture. The picture goes; the notice stays up with its words, its date and its place.

Nobody checks whether you are really in it. That is deliberate: the ways to check are face matching, photo comparison and identity documents, and every one of them is worse than the thing it would prevent. Nothing is written down, including that you asked, and the person who posted it is not told who you are. They can put up a different picture.

An intimate image shared without your consent

This is different, and it is a legal request rather than a preference. There is a form for it. You do not need an account and you do not need to be a member of anything.

It is acted on when you send it, not within the 48 hours the law allows, and it also reaches copies of the same image anywhere else on Pods. Unlike everything else on this page, this request is written down and kept for a year, because it is a legal request and you may need to come back to it. You are given a reference number, and that reference is the only way to look it up.

Things Pods cannot do

Some complaints have no button here, and that is honest rather than lazy. Working out that somebody is impersonating you needs identity documents, which this app will never collect. Telling a phone number on a flyer apart from a home address posted to frighten someone needs judgement a server does not have. And a notice nobody signed has no account behind it to block.

Those are supposed to go to a published address, and this deployment has not set one up yet. That is a gap and it is named here rather than hidden.

What the menu actually does

This is the app’s own routing table, printed rather than described, so it cannot drift from what the buttons do.

I am in this picture: The picture comes down and the notice stays up, with its words, date and place. Nobody checks this and nobody is told who asked.
An intimate image of me was shared without my consent: This is a legal request with its own form. It is answered inside 48 hours, it reaches copies of the same image elsewhere on Pods, and unlike everything else here it is written down.
This is harassing, spam or a scam: Nobody signed this notice, so there is no account to block and nothing automatic Pods can do. This one goes to a person.
This is impersonating someone: This one goes to a person. Pods cannot work out who anybody really is, so it is not automatic.
This gives out private information: This one goes to a person, because whether something is private depends on things Pods cannot see.
Something else: Tell us what is wrong and it goes to a person. There is no system behind this one.

What nobody does

Nobody reviews a report, and nobody will get back to you.
No model reads anything you write.
Nothing here decides whether an accusation is true. There is no appeal, in either direction, because there is no decision.
Pictures are not checked for what they show unless this deployment has switched a checker on. This page says which way round it currently is.

The full reasoning, including what the law requires and where Pods falls short of it, is in the project’s own safety document. What Pods holds about you is in the data contract, and it is the same text this app is built from.