Community Standards
Cloud & Culture Ltd · Last updated 24 August 2026
Every comment is reviewed by us
Comments are not moderated by the museum or contributor whose exhibition they sit on. If something breaks these rules it is our decision and our responsibility. These standards form part of our Terms and Conditions.
Pocket Museum is a place to talk about art and cultural heritage. Comments are read by a general audience of all ages, in museums, classrooms and at home. These are the rules we apply, written out in full so you can see exactly what we check for before you post.
A comment is removed if it contains any of the following, directed at real people or groups:
- Abuse, harassment or bullying, including sexual harassment and pile-on abuse where several people target one person.
- Hate or discrimination based on who someone is — racism, xenophobia, sexism, homophobia, or any other hate speech.
- Insults, slurs or demeaning personal attacks.
- Defamation — false statements of fact that damage a real person or organisation.
- Personal information about someone, such as tying a real person to an address, phone number, email address or workplace.
- Spam, scams, advertising or repetitive link-posting.
- Unsubstantiated conspiracy theories presented as fact.
And the following, whether or not it is aimed at anyone:
- Gratuitous profanity, obscenity or vulgar language.
- Sexually explicit content.
This second group is separate from the rules above, and it catches strong swearing or crude sexual language even inside an otherwise reasonable, good-faith comment. The reason is simply the audience: this is an all-ages space. A harsh opinion does not need profanity to be expressed.
- Harsh criticism of the art, the exhibition, the museum or a historical figure. Disliking something, and saying so bluntly, is not a breach of these rules.
- Difficult subject matter in the work itself — nudity, violence, war, colonialism, religion. Describing and debating what a work depicts is the point of the Service.
- Quoting crude or explicit language that genuinely appears in the artwork, its title or a historical source, where you are presenting it matter-of-factly for descriptive or scholarly purposes.
The line is between the work and the person. Discussing a difficult theme in a piece is fine. Attacking or demeaning a real person or a protected group is not. The profanity rule is aimed at a commenter’s own gratuitous swearing, not at analysis of a work that happens to contain it.
- Anything genuinely uncertain, or where the context is ambiguous.
- A claim that might be defamatory, where it is not clear whether it is factual.
- Disguised swearing — asterisks, punctuation or letter substitutions in place of letters.
- Borderline vulgarity where the intent or severity is unclear.
These are not refusals. The comment simply waits until a person has read it.
We use both automated tools and people, and we would rather be straightforward about which does what.
- An automated tool checks every comment first. Where it judges a comment to clearly break the rules above, the comment stops being shown to other readers straight away, before a person has looked at it.
- Where the tool is unsure, a person decides instead — that is the list in the previous section.
- We never restrict or suspend an account automatically. Only a person does that.
- You can always see your own comment, whatever we have decided about it, marked with the decision we reached and why.
- A member of our staff reviews what the automated tools have decided at least once a month, and we correct anything we find to be wrong.
Where automated tools are used to reach a decision about your content, we tell you so.
You can challenge any decision free of charge, for six months from the day we tell you about it. Email [email protected] with “Appeal” in the subject line.
A person decides every appeal, never a tool. If an appeal shows our decision was wrong we will reverse it without undue delay and tell you. The same applies in reverse: if you reported something and we decided not to act, you can challenge that too.
Anyone can tell us about content they believe is illegal or breaks these rules, and you do not need an account to do it. Use the Flag as inappropriate or Report this user controls in the app, or email [email protected].
So that we can act, please tell us why you believe there is a problem, where the content is, and how to reach you — except where your report concerns child sexual abuse material, where you do not need to identify yourself.
Where someone repeatedly posts content that breaks these rules, we may suspend their account for a reasonable period after warning them, and for serious breaches we may suspend or close it. That decision is always made by a person, never automatically. We will normally give you notice first, together with our reasons and how to challenge it. We may also stop handling reports or appeals from anyone who frequently submits ones that are clearly unfounded.
These standards sit alongside our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy. Where the Terms and these standards differ, the Terms govern.