Community rules

Charla Club is for talking: in voice rooms, at hangouts where people meet in person, in groups that gather around a topic, and in private with someone you have chosen. Any legal topic is welcome here, and a rule exists only if it protects a specific person, if the law requires it, or if the app store you download the app from requires it.

These rules are part of the terms. What we do with your data is in what we do with your data. This version is for people who use Charla Club from the United States and Puerto Rico. Some of the features described here may not be active yet in your country or for your account: what is not active is not offered on the screen, and these rules apply just the same the day it is switched on.

What a room is

A room is a group of up to 8 people who talk by voice at a set time, for 45 minutes unless whoever creates it picks another length. It may or may not have a host. On screen we call the person who runs the room its host: whoever created it, or whoever took it over later with [Let me be the host]. A host trained by Charla Club is marked with the "Trained host" badge. The host is always a real person. Anyone with an account can create a room, with its title, its category, its length and, if they want, one of the images the app offers for that category.

Rooms are voice only: nobody sees you here. The camera exists only in a call with someone from "Your people", and there it is yours: you turn it on if you want to, off whenever you want, and you see each other only if you both turn it on.

To come in

• You are 18 or older.
• You use your first name and a current photo of yourself in which your face can be seen. There is no anonymity here: you are going to talk to people, and they to you.
• You have given, at sign-up, your consent to the panic-button seconds explained below. In the United States and Puerto Rico nobody enters a voice room or a call without it; hangouts do not need it.
• You say "I'm going" before it starts. If in the end you cannot come, give up your seat: it becomes free for someone else, and giving up many seats on the same day limits how many more rooms you can sign up for that day.
• You come in with your microphone off, and you open it yourself when you want to speak. You can also come in just to listen.
• One person, one device: the room belongs to the first device you enter with; another device of yours cannot come in until the first one leaves.
• Whoever runs the room can take the microphone: while they hold it, only that person is heard, and the other microphones close until they let it go or pass it to someone else.

What you can talk about

Anything legal. Health, grief, faith, politics, sexuality or money fit like any other topic. You can disagree, criticize a law or tell the story of a fine. An opinion that bothers someone is not a breach.

What is not allowed:

• Anything that is a crime or encourages one.
• Harming a specific person: harassing, threatening or humiliating them.
• Insulting someone or mocking them.
• Recruiting, selling or scamming: asking for or giving money, payment-app handles or "investments", or coming to sell products or courses. Talking about money or faith is fine. The exception is the price of a hangout, set by whoever organizes it and explained below.
• Sexual content in the room, in comments, in discussions and in photos. Talking about sexuality as a topic is fine.
• Recording other people.
• Telling anyone outside the room something that identifies another person from the room.
• Pretending to be someone else, or using someone else's photo.

In the room chat, in private messages, in comments, in discussions and in titles, phone numbers and shortened links do not get through, and in messages neither do payment details. A program on our server stops them before they go out; it reads nothing else.

If you fancy someone

Fancying someone is not a breach. A remark is not a breach; insisting after a no is. And the no is not always said out loud: a change of subject or a silence are a no too. Asking for a phone number once is fine; asking again after a no is not.

Who looks after the room

If the room has a host, the host shares out the floor and looks after the conversation. If someone else has been talking for a while, wait; if you have, leave room. Whoever runs the room can take the microphone to keep order or give a talk, and can always take it back. They can also turn off one person's microphone and turn it back on: that person is told, every time is recorded, and in rooms created by members the microphone reopens by itself after a few minutes. If yours gets turned off, one tap lets you ask to speak or report an abuse to us; the report reaches us, not the person running the room. Turning off someone's microphone to humiliate them or push them out of the conversation is a breach. A trained host can also remove someone from the session without discussion. Their decisions are reviewed afterwards, not live.

Host or no host, every room has a named person behind it, its host or whoever created it, and Charla Club moderation can enter any room, always in plain sight: it appears as "Charla Club moderation" and can remove someone or end the room.

You can leave whenever you like, without explaining yourself.

When a room closes you can rate the person who ran it from 1 to 5: stars only, no text, and nobody knows what you gave. The stars go into a single score for that person, shown next to their name when they run something, and they are added in batches so that nobody can tell whose each one was.

What is said in the room

We do not record conversations and nobody listens from outside: whoever is listening is in the room, and you see them. Federal and state wiretap laws forbid recording or listening to a conversation you are not part of, and in many states recording needs the consent of everyone in it. That is why no program of ours ever enters a room or a call, and why recording other people is a breach of these rules.

Transcription, only if all of you accept. A room is turned into text only if every person inside accepts it, each time, and as soon as one does not, or someone who has not accepted comes in, it stops. Each phone turns into text only its owner's voice, inside the phone: the audio does not leave it, and from a computer your voice is not transcribed. While it lasts, the screen says so. Only those of you who were in that room can read it, for 30 days, and every reading is recorded. We keep who said what and in what order, never at what time or how long each person spoke.

Captions are something else: if you ask for them, your phone turns what it hears into text, for you, inside the phone, and nothing is kept or leaves it.

The room chat is deleted when the room closes, except for what "What we do with your data" says about keeping it for a while without anyone reading it. If someone reports, what the reported person wrote is kept as well.

The panic button. It is always at the top, in every room and every call, and you hold it down for a few seconds. It takes you out at once, you and nobody else, and alerts a Charla Club person, who reviews what you tell us. In the Android app, while you talk your phone keeps the last 60 seconds of what you hear, never your own microphone, overwriting itself; if you press the button, they freeze, and they only leave the phone if you report. They are deleted after 30 days. In the United States and Puerto Rico every person in a voice room or a call has consented to this at sign-up, so that everyone who may be heard in those seconds has agreed to it beforehand, as the recording laws of many states require. Whoever presses the panic button can no longer be contacted by the person they point to.

"Your people"

You get to "Your people" always with a yes from both. There are several paths:

• At the end of a room you can privately mark whom you would talk to again. Nobody sees a mark that is not mutual. If you mark each other, each of you appears in the other's "Your people".
• A request. You can ask someone to be "your people" if you have been in a room together in the last 30 days or share a hangout, if their email is in your contacts and they have an account, and, with the plan, if you find them with the search. Your request reaches them and they decide: if they accept, you are "your people"; if they say no, you are not told and they are not asked again. If you both ask each other, you are "your people" straight away. With a block in between, the request does not arrive, and you are not told that either.
• An invitation to a room. If the invitation says that accepting it will make you "your people", you are when you accept. It says so before you accept.
• "Invite a friend". If you accept the link someone else sends you, you become "your people". The page explains it beforehand, and opening the link does nothing by itself.
• After a hangout. Each of you can say whom you want to stay in touch with; if it is mutual, you are "your people", and if not, nobody knows you said it.

With "your people" you can write to each other and call each other, and it is a conversation between the two of you, with nobody else. If you both turn on the camera, you see each other; each decides their own.

With the plan, "Shall we talk today?" can also suggest someone new. If you both say yes, you can write to each other only in the 10 minutes before the time and, at the time, call each other by voice only. Afterwards, each says whether they want to stay in touch; if you do not both say so, the conversation closes, without anyone knowing who said what.

The search. In [Add], in "Your people", you can search for a person with an account by their first name, in your country or across the whole app, and ask them to be "your people" or invite them to a room or a hangout. It is a search, not a list: you have to type a name, results come in batches and with a cap. If you do not want to be found that way, turn off "let people find me" in "Your profile". Using the search to insist with someone who already said no, or to locate someone who has blocked you, is a breach.

In private, between two adults who have chosen each other, sexual content is not forbidden. What was not asked for is still harassment.

If someone from "Your people" makes you uncomfortable, remove that person from "Your people": they can no longer write to you, call you or end up in a room with you, and they are not told. And you can report them from your conversation: they are not told who did it, and a person reviews it.

Following people who run rooms

You can follow a person who runs rooms or hangouts: what they organize shows up in "From people you follow" and, if you set the bell, we notify your phone when they propose something new. You follow what a person runs and publishes, never where they go. The person followed sees only how many people follow them, never who, and nobody else sees that number. You can stop people following you by turning off "let people follow me"; when you do, whoever followed you stops. A block, in either direction, cuts the follow without telling anyone.

Your profile

Your profile holds your photo, your first name, your city, whatever you want to say about yourself, your interests, what you are looking for (from a closed list: practicing hobbies, socializing, making friends, professional contacts), the hangouts you have been to and the groups you belong to. Only people with an account see it, from a list or a room in which you already appear; it has no public address and does not show up in any outside search engine. You choose which parts are shown. With a block in between, your profile does not exist for that person. There is no free text in the profile for looking for a partner, and nobody is filtered or searched for by what they are looking for.

Hangouts

A hangout is a get-together in person, remote by video call or both, created and organized by a member of the community. Charla Club hosts it, it does not organize it: it does not choose the place, bring the people together or supervise it. Whoever creates it is responsible for what they organize, just as whoever goes is responsible for going.

• What is shown. The title, the day, the time, the city, the place, the photo of the venue, who organizes and who is going, with their name and their face, can be seen by anyone who sees the hangout, also without an account. In "Your account" you can set that your face at hangouts is shown only to people with an account. Comments are seen by whoever sees the hangout; the hangout chat and the organizer's notices, only by those going and those organizing.
• Who decides who goes. Whoever organizes can require approving each "I'm going", ask up to five questions when you sign up, open a waiting list, remove someone or send them back to the list, add by hand someone from "their people" (who gets a notice and can remove themselves), take attendance with each person's entry code and mark who has paid in cash. Someone removed from a hangout is not allowed to sign up for that hangout again.
• Money. Whoever organizes can set a price that is paid there and, with the organizer plan, show their payment handle (Venmo, Zelle, PayPal or similar) to those going. That payment is between them: Charla Club does not take part in it or answer for it. If one day we switch on paying for hangouts through the platform, we will say so in a new version of the terms before charging anything.
• Outside links. Whoever organizes can add the link to their outside group (on WhatsApp, Telegram or another service) and, for a remote hangout, the video call link (Zoom, Meet, Jitsi or another), visible only to those going. That happens on an outside service, with its own rules and its own privacy: there is no panic button or Charla Club moderation there, and in an outside group the others see your number or your username. Charla Club does not host it, record it or answer for what happens there.
• Venue and album photos. They are of the place and of the get-together, never of a specific person without their permission. A program on our server that only looks for explicit content checks them, and anything doubtful goes to a person. A photo someone does not want to appear in is taken down by telling the organizer or us.
• Afterwards. Whoever went can write a public review under their first name, which the organizer can reply to in public. A review is an opinion about the hangout; insulting a specific person in it is a breach, as anywhere else.
• The place. Better a public one. If you go to a hangout, you go on your own account: Charla Club does not check the place or the people, and what happens there is up to those who go. If something goes wrong, report the hangout from the three dots on its page, or write to us; in an emergency, call 911.

Whoever organizes hangouts earns, over time, the "Organizes often" badge: it cannot be bought, and it does not look at the plan.

Groups

A group is people who gather around a topic, with its hangouts, its discussions and its albums, and it is created and run by a member of the community: its organizer, with whatever roles they hand out. Charla Club hosts it, it does not run it. The organizer and their leadership team decide who joins (with joining questions if they wish), who leaves, who can open discussions and what is published; they can remove and ban a member, delete a discussion or a comment and transfer the group. Those decisions are theirs, within these rules; if you think someone in the group has crossed a line, you can report the group, a discussion, a comment or a photo, and a Charla Club person reviews it.

• What is shown. A group's page (its name, its description, its city, its cover, its upcoming hangouts and how many members it has) can be seen by anyone, also without an account. In a public group, its discussions too. The list of members, with their name, their city and their face, is seen only by the other members. Which groups you belong to is shown on your profile, unless you turn it off.
• Your joining answers and your introduction are read by the group's leadership and, the introduction, by the other members.
• Messages between members are private conversations between two people, like those in "Your people", and there is never a third person. Writing to the group's leadership is free; writing to another member may be a plan feature.
• Group notices are written by the leadership to everyone, to the leadership or to the people of a hangout; nobody replies to them. You can mute the group and stop receiving its notices.
• A group without an organizer goes first to its leadership and then to any of its members, and if nobody takes it, it closes. Closing a group deletes it with everything that hangs from it.

If something makes you uncomfortable

Tell the host or the organizer, use the panic button, report from the three dots or write to us at admin@charlaclub.com. We always read it, and we never say who told us anything: not to the person you tell us about, not to the room, not to the group. To report illegal content, also without an account, there is the point of contact.

If someone crosses the line

We look at what the person did and whether they repeated it, not at what we think they meant.

• Depending on what happened: a written warning, a 7-day suspension for a minor breach or a 30-day suspension for a serious one. The most serious things do not go through a warning first.
• A ban without an end date is decided only by a person, after reviewing it.
• Every decision is explained in writing, with the rule in front of you and what you can do, and you read it in the app, under "About your account". You have 14 days to ask for a review, from that same screen or by writing to admin@charlaclub.com, and we answer in writing within 72 hours at most. You can also go to court.
• A report, and the panic button too, does not pause any account by itself: a Charla Club person reviews it, and only that person can pause the account while they decide. The person is told what they cannot do and how to ask for a review, and the pause is always lifted by a person.
• A suspension or a ban cancels the rooms and hangouts that person was running and removes them from the groups they ran; those who were going are told that the person running it no longer can, not that there was a sanction.
• Knowingly reporting something that is not a breach, over and over, is a breach too.
• Someone who repeatedly publishes material that infringes other people's copyright loses their account, as the terms explain.

If someone looks underage

They can be reported with the reason "Looks underage", and a Charla Club person reviews it. If that person sees it that way, they are removed from the room and their account is suspended until they prove they are 18, by showing their ID document in person without any copy being made. If they prove it, they are back. If not, the account is deleted, and nothing linked to a minor's email remains.

One more thing

A room is conversation between equals, not professional help. If you are going through a very bad time, call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (free, 24 hours, in English and Spanish), or text HOME to 741741 to reach the Crisis Text Line. If someone at home hurts you, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233; after a sexual assault, RAINN is 1-800-656-4673. In Puerto Rico you can also call Línea PAS, 1-800-981-0023, 24 hours. In an emergency, call 911.