What may be posted on PageLab, what is banned outright, and what actually happens when something is reported. This page is about content; how the service may be used is covered by Acceptable Use. Where this page and Child Safety touch the same subject, Child Safety governs.
The standard
PageLab is for readers aged 13 and over, and there is no age-gated tier: nothing on PageLab is hidden behind an adults-only door, because no such door exists. Post accordingly. Discussing a book that deals with violence, sex, addiction or abuse is entirely normal here — reviewing Lolita is not the same as posting pornography, and we do not confuse the two. What is not welcome is content that exists to titillate, shock or harm rather than to talk about books.
Banned outright
None of this is permitted anywhere on PageLab, in any context.
- Sexual content involving minors, in any form. No maturity marking, age gate, fictional framing or private setting makes it permissible. This applies to posts, replies, reviews, quotes, groups, buddy reads, direct messages, uploaded images, and profile pictures and covers alike. It is the one thing on this page with no argument attached to it.
- Threats, and incitement to violence against a person or a group.
- Harassment — sustained targeting of a person, including organising others to do it.
- Sexual content of any kind presented for its own sake. PageLab is not an adult platform and has no mechanism for being one.
- Content that publishes private information about someone without their agreement.
- Malware, and anything designed to damage a device.
Handled, but not by removal
Not everything unwanted is a violation. Some things are better labelled than deleted, and PageLab treats them that way.
- Spoilers. Mark them, and the post appears behind a cover other readers choose to lift. If two different readers report a post as a spoiler, we apply that cover for you. A spoiler report never costs anyone reach and never counts against an account — it is a labelling mechanism, not a punishment. Reviews and quotes carry their own spoiler flag, and a post about a book can be marked as going only up to a given chapter.
- Disagreement, and negative reviews. Not a violation, however strongly worded. Reporting a review because you liked the book is a misuse of the report queue.
- Claims about a book's contents that others dispute. We are a reading community, not an arbiter of literary fact.
Written works
Where PageLab lets people publish their own writing, an author must give the work an honest rating — all ages, mature, or explicit — and may add content warnings. A work cannot be published without one.
That rating is a warning label, not an age gate. It tells a reader what they are about to open; it does not restrict who may open it, and it does not create a permitted category. Everything under “Banned outright” above stays banned at every rating, and a fictional frame does not change that.
Reporting something
The report control is in the app and on the site, on posts, comments, profiles, messages, groups and written works. Use it rather than emailing us — a report filed there reaches the review queue directly, and a message to a mailbox does not.
You do not need a verified email address to report something, and reporting works whatever state your own account is in. Those are deliberate: a barrier in front of a report is a barrier in front of the harm being seen.
The reasons you can choose from are: spam, harassment, child sexual abuse material, violence, misinformation, spoiler, copyright, plagiarism, unmarked mature content, an inappropriate profile cover, and other.
What happens next
Nothing is screened before it appears. PageLab does not review posts in advance, and no automated system scans what you write or upload. New groups are the one exception: creating one is a request that a moderator approves.
Child sexual abuse material acts on a single report. It is the only reason that does anything before a human has looked: one report from one account, and the post immediately stops being distributed — and for a written work or chapter, it is hidden outright. We then place a retention hold on the material and the account, quarantine the file, and block that file from being uploaded again anywhere on PageLab. Reports of this kind are handled in a restricted lane that ordinary moderators cannot see.
Everything else waits for people. Most reasons need several different readers to report the same thing before anything automatic happens, and that first automatic step limits distribution rather than removing anything: the post stops being amplified, and the author keeps it, can still read it, edit it and delete it. A moderator can undo it. Copyright and plagiarism reports against a post or comment never trigger anything automatically however many arrive, because an ownership dispute cannot be settled by counting accusers.
Reports on a written work are treated more cautiously in one direction and less in another: three different reporters, for any reason, will freeze the work for review and its author will lose access to it until a moderator looks. That is a deliberately blunt instrument on a surface where a whole book can be at stake.
Cases are worked oldest first, and several reports about the same thing are read together as one case rather than as a pile. We do not publish a response-time promise, because we are a small team and a number we could not keep would be worth nothing.
What you are told
- If you reported something, you are told when the case is closed, and not what was decided. Telling you “dismissed” invites an argument about evidence you cannot see, and telling you “resolved” would be a statement about somebody else's account.
- If we act against your content, you are told what and why. If we act against your account, you are told that too, with the reason, the end date, and a link to appeal that works without signing in.
- If a post's distribution is limited, neither you nor the reporter is notified. A visible limit would tell whoever reported it that their report worked, which turns the report queue into a scoreboard.
- The moderator who acted is never named to you.
Blocking, which is yours to use
Reporting asks us to act. Blocking does not involve us at all: it hides the two of you from each other, removes any follow in either direction, and the other person is not told. It is reversible from Settings, and it is often the right tool for someone who is not breaking a rule but whom you would rather not see.
Changes
When this changes we update the date on this page. The Terms of Service are the agreement; this page says what may be posted under it.