Community Guidelines and Acceptable Use

About these guidelines

These guidelines are part of our Terms of Service, the Merchant Terms and the Enterprise Terms. They apply to everything you add to BlinkFix ("content"): recipes, photos, reels, stories and other videos, reviews and ratings, chat messages, profile details, menus, product lists, promotions, documents and files shared in BlinkFix Enterprise, and anything you ask the AI assistant to create. They apply in the BlinkFix app, on blinkfix.me and in BlinkFix Enterprise.

BlinkFix is provided by BlinkFix Ltd (company no. 13505930), 27 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX, United Kingdom.

Zero tolerance

BlinkFix has zero tolerance for objectionable content and abusive users. You must not post, send, upload or sell anything that:

1. is illegal, or promotes, organises or helps with illegal activity;
2. sexualises, exploits or endangers children in any way (we report it to the authorities);
3. is sexually explicit or pornographic;
4. harasses, bullies, threatens, stalks, doxxes or intimidates anyone;
5. attacks or demeans people for their race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age or any other protected characteristic;
6. shows, praises or encourages violence, terrorism, self-harm, eating disorders or cruelty to animals;
7. promotes illegal drugs, weapons, tobacco or vaping products, or the irresponsible use of alcohol, or offers alcohol or other age-restricted products to anyone under 18;
8. is false or misleading, including fake reviews, reviews of your own establishment or a competitor's, reviews in exchange for payment or free food that do not say so, and fake orders;
9. is spam, a scam, phishing, malware, or advertising outside our advertising tools;
10. shares someone else's personal data (address, phone number, photo, ID documents) without their permission or a lawful reason;
11. infringes copyright, trade marks or other rights, for example copying recipes, menus or photos you do not own;
12. impersonates a person, a business or BlinkFix;
13. contains false or dangerous food safety or allergen information.

Content standards for specific features

• Recipes and photos. Post your own recipes and photos, or ones you have permission to use, and credit the source where you adapted someone else's recipe. Mark allergens where the form asks for them. Recipes are for inspiration; do not present health or medical claims as fact.
• Reviews and ratings. Review only orders you actually placed. Describe your own experience honestly. Do not include personal details of staff or other customers. Establishments may reply politely; they must not offer anything in return for changing or removing a review. We do not remove honest negative reviews because an establishment asks us to. Reviews are shown in date order and are not filtered by whether they are positive; we remove reviews that break these rules.
• Reels, stories and videos. A reel is one video of up to 2 minutes. A story has up to 7 parts, each a photo (shown for 5 seconds) or a video of up to 5 seconds, and one part goes live each day. A recipe step video is up to 1 minute. The BlinkFix app records and cuts your video on your phone, and only the finished parts are uploaded. Your video goes live as soon as it is uploaded; we do not check it first. Everything in these guidelines applies to videos, including the sound and any text on screen. An establishment's reel or story is an advert and is marked "Ad". Watching is always free: a click is counted, and an advertiser is charged, only when the click ends in a finished purchase. An advert must not show or promote alcohol, tobacco and vaping, cannabis, gambling or adult content without a person at BlinkFix first looking at it; an advert that does may be taken down until a person has decided.
• Chats. Chats are for ordering, friends and work. Do not send unsolicited commercial messages. In a chain's chat (Head office and BlinkFix Enterprise), keep messages to work.
• Menus, products and listings. Merchants must describe food and products accurately, including prices, allergens, alcohol content and whether an item is age-restricted. See the Merchant Terms.
• Profile names and photos. No offensive names or images, and no impersonation.
• AI-generated content. You are responsible for AI-generated content you post (for example a recipe written with the assistant) as if you wrote it yourself.

Reporting

• In the apps and on the website: open the message, recipe, review, profile, reel, story or advert video and choose Report. Pick a reason and add details if you want.
• By email: write to [email protected] with the subject "Report", a link or a screenshot, and why you think the content is illegal or breaks these guidelines.
• Illegal content (EU Digital Services Act notices). Anyone, including people without an account, can notify us of content they believe is illegal by emailing [email protected]. Please include: where the content is (a link or an exact description), why you believe it is illegal, your name and email address (not required for reports about child sexual abuse material), and a statement that you believe the report is accurate and complete. We confirm receipt and tell you our decision.
• When you report a chat, the report includes up to the last 100 messages of that conversation so our team can see the context.

What happens after a report

• A person on our team reviews every report within 24 hours. We do not rely on automated decisions alone, with one exception: the automatic safety check of a reported video, described next.
• Reported videos and the automatic safety check. Videos go live when they are uploaded and are not checked first. The first time a reel, story or advert video is reported, BlinkFix runs one automatic safety check on it. For this, its poster and three still pictures (no sound) are sent to Google's Gemini model, on the paid tier, which does not train on them. The pictures are not kept, only the result. If the check flags the video as unsafe (or, for an advert, as showing or promoting alcohol, tobacco and vaping, cannabis, gambling or adult content), the video is taken down at once and sent to a person, who decides whether to put it back or take it down for good. We tell the person who posted it that the automatic check took it down, what it found, and that they can ask for a review (see Appeals). If the check finds nothing, nothing changes and the report still goes to a person. If the check cannot be made, the video stays up and a person still reviews the report within 24 hours.
• If the content breaks the law or these guidelines, we remove it or restrict who can see it.
• Depending on how serious it is and whether it happened before, we warn the user, suspend the account temporarily, or close it permanently. Posting child sexual abuse material, credible threats of violence or selling to minors leads to immediate closure and, where the law requires, a report to the police or the relevant authority.
• We tell the person who posted the content what we did and why (a "statement of reasons"), unless the law or safety reasons prevent it, and we tell the person who reported it what we decided.
• If we believe someone's life or safety is at risk, we contact the authorities.
• In BlinkFix Enterprise, we also tell the organisation's admins when we act on content in their organisation. Reports about a head office are reviewed by BlinkFix, not by the organisation.

Blocking and muting

• Block. In a chat or on a profile, choose Block. The person can no longer message you or send you friend requests, and you no longer see their messages. You can unblock them later in your profile.
• Mute stops notifications from a conversation without blocking anyone.
• At work. Staff of a company-owned establishment in a chain cannot block their own head office, because the chat is how the business runs. They can mute it and report any message.

Appeals

If we removed your content, restricted your account or rejected your report and you think we got it wrong, email [email protected] within 6 months with the subject "Appeal". This includes a video that the automatic safety check took down. A different person from the one who made the first decision reviews it, and a person always decides, never the automatic check. We reply within 14 days. If you are in the EU or the European Economic Area, you may also use an out-of-court dispute settlement body certified under the Digital Services Act, and you can always go to court.

Misuse of reporting

We may stop processing reports from people who repeatedly send reports that are clearly unfounded, after a warning.

Acceptable use of the service

As well as the content rules, you must not:

• create fake accounts, multiple accounts to get round a ban, or accounts for someone else without permission;
• place fake orders, commit chargeback fraud, or abuse refunds, promotions, referral offers or the Student plan;
• scrape, crawl or copy BlinkFix data in bulk, overload the service, or get round rate limits, security or access controls;
• reverse engineer the apps, except where the law allows it;
• use the public API or webhooks except with your own keys, within the documented limits and for your own business;
• use BlinkFix to send spam or to collect other users' personal data;
• test for security weaknesses without telling us. If you find a problem, email [email protected] and give us reasonable time to fix it before telling anyone else. We will not take action against good-faith research that follows this rule.

Recipe creator earnings

If you publish recipes, reels or stories, you can earn from them. When someone buys groceries from a shop through your recipe, reel or story, and the shop advertises, you earn 20% of what the shop paid BlinkFix for the clicks that shopping made (20p for every £1). Your share is pending for 14 days after the order is finished; then it is available in your BlinkFix Wallet, and once it is available BlinkFix does not take it back. Earnings are not guaranteed and depend on what shops spend on advertising. Buying through your own recipe earns nothing, and clicking your own links, fake orders or any other attempt to game earnings is not allowed: we cancel those earnings while they are pending and may act on the account as described above. The Terms of Service (section 8.5) and the Creator Royalty Terms give the full rules.

Contact

[email protected] · BlinkFix Ltd, 27 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX, United Kingdom. Our single point of contact for authorities and for users under the EU Digital Services Act is the same address; we answer in English or Polish.