Acceptable Use Policy

Last updated: August 2026

1. Purpose and principle

LibreTimes moderates by form and methodology, not by topic or opinion. We reject legitimate scholarship for being controversial. We reject pseudoscience for faking scientific form, regardless of its conclusion. This is how mature academic and reference platforms handle politically charged or ideologically sensitive subjects: arXiv rejects crackpot physics, not "controversial physics"; Wikipedia covers political topics with sourcing requirements, not topic bans.

This means we do not ban political topics, heterodox academic positions, politically uncomfortable empirical findings, or discussion of sensitive subjects (gender, race, war, colonialism, and similar) when the work is sourced and methodologically defensible. We do ban seven specific, concrete things, listed below — each is about how something is said or why it was posted, not what side it takes.

2. Prohibited content

2.1 Pseudoscience presented as science

Content that adopts the format and authority of scientific work without engaging the actual literature, using defensible methodology, or acknowledging contradicting evidence — astrology or flat-earth claims framed as research, "energy healing" presented as a journal article, and similar. A heterodox but rigorous paper on a controversial topic is welcome; a conventional-looking paper that fakes scientific form is not.

2.2 Hate speech

Content attacking groups based on identity — race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, and similar. Slurs, claims of group inferiority, calls for discrimination against a group, and denial of well-documented genocide are banned regardless of how they're framed ("research suggests…").

2.3 Personal harassment

Targeted attacks on individuals dressed up as critique — doxxing, sustained personal attacks on a named person (as opposed to critique of their work), coordinated pile-ons, and threats.

2.4 Disinformation contradicting scientific consensus

Claims that contradict clear, well-established scientific consensus, presented as settled fact rather than as a sourced heterodox hypothesis — for example asserting a thoroughly debunked claim as established truth. Discussing legitimate heterodox positions with sourcing is not this.

Auto-generated bulk articles, keyword-stuffed listicles, self-promotion with no substantive content, coordinated inauthentic behavior (sock puppets, vote manipulation), undisclosed bulk AI generation, and financial fraud — pyramid or Ponzi schemes, "get rich quick" pitches, fake investment opportunities.

2.6 Incitement to violence, terrorism, and supremacist ideology

This is about advocacy, not analysis — scholarship about political violence, terrorism, revolutions, or extremism is normal academic subject matter and is not restricted. What's banned, regardless of framing:

Calls to kill, injure, or attack a person or group
Instructions or calls to action for terrorist acts
Calls to overthrow a government by force
Propaganda declaring one race, ethnicity, or nation superior to another and entitled to dominate or eliminate it (fascism, Nazism, and similar supremacist ideology)
Nazi or fascist symbology and rhetoric used to promote the ideology, as opposed to appearing in historical, legal, or documentary analysis of it

2.7 Explicit sexual content

Scholarly discussion of sexuality, gender, art history, or clinical medicine in text is not restricted by this rule — it's evaluated like any other subject matter under the categories above. Sexually explicit imagery, however, is not hosted on LibreTimes regardless of academic framing: LibreTimes profiles are real-name academic CVs, not an anonymous posting surface. A publication that needs to show such material links out to an external host instead of embedding it.

(This category is newer than the other six and its edges are still being worked out — see Content Policy: open questions if you want the background.)

3. Advertising and sponsorship

Explicit advertising is prohibited. Your profile and publications are not ad space — no third-party product pitches written to read like an article, no sponsored-content-as-editorial, no affiliate-link farms.
Disclosing a sponsor is not advertising, and is allowed. If a grant, employer, or paid-subscription sponsor funds your work, you may say so in your own voice.
Promoting your own work is allowed. Linking to your other publications, your site, or your own paid-subscription offering is normal. It becomes spam (2.5 above) when self-promotion is the entire substance of a post, posted in bulk, off-topic, or dropped into other people's comment threads.

4. Academic integrity

Separately from the content rules above, all users are expected to:

Properly cite and attribute sources
Not fabricate, falsify, or plagiarize research
Accurately represent their credentials and affiliations
Disclose conflicts of interest

5. AI-assisted content

Publications carry a self-disclosed AI-usage level (none / assisted / mostly AI / fully AI). Using AI is allowed; misrepresenting how much you used is not — claiming a lower level than the truth is a violation, handled like any other bad-faith posting. Undisclosed bulk AI generation is already covered by 2.5 above regardless of the disclosure field.

6. One account per person

Each person may hold one account. Creating a new account to evade a suspension or ban on a previous one is itself a violation and will result in the new account being closed too.

7. How moderation actually works

A human always makes the decision. We may use automated tools to help triage reports, but no automated system has authority to remove content or restrict an account on its own.
Outcomes, softest to hardest: dismiss the report, a warning, reduced visibility (excluded from search and recommendations), removal, or account suspension/termination for repeated or severe violations.
Reduced visibility is disclosed, not secret. If your reach is limited, you are told, and why. We don't run a hidden "shadow ban" — a lighter penalty is still a penalty you're informed of.
You get a reason. Any decision that restricts or removes your content or account comes with a specific statement of what rule applied, not just a rule number.
Ties go to you. In a genuinely ambiguous case, we default to leaving content up — with reduced visibility if we're not sure, rather than removal — until a clearer signal resolves it.
Moderators can use editorial discretion to remove content that's clearly inappropriate for an academic platform even if it doesn't cleanly fit one of the seven categories above. This is used rarely, and the moderator records which category (if any) applied or a free-text reason if none did.

The full rationale and worked examples live in the (public) architecture doc this policy is derived from, if you want more depth than a terms page usually gives you.

8. Reporting a violation

Use the "Report" action on the content, or
Email report@libretimes.io with a link and a short description.

Reports are deduplicated (multiple reports on the same content become one review item) and go to a moderator queue. You and the content's author are both notified of the outcome, without revealing who reported it.

9. Appeals

If you believe a decision was wrong, email appeals@libretimes.io with the content link and your reasoning. A different moderator than the one who made the original decision reviews it. This is currently a manual, email-based process rather than an automated ticketing system — expect a response within 5–7 business days.

10. Updates

We'll update this policy as the platform and its moderation capabilities grow, and will note material changes here rather than silently editing enforcement expectations.