CooChat Community Guidelines: the Short List That Matters

Every rule below exists because of something that actually happens, not because a lawyer suggested it. Short list, seriously enforced, and the formal version lives in the terms of service if you need the contractual wording.

What ends an account immediately

Nudity or sexual content on camera. This is not that kind of site, and the people you are matched with did not consent to seeing it.

Anyone under 18, in any capacity. In frame, on the account, or being solicited. Reports in this category are treated as urgent and jump every queue.

Harassment and threats. Including continuing after somebody has asked you to stop, and including anything aimed at who a person is rather than what they said.

Recording someone without their agreement. Against these rules and, in a lot of places, against the law. Anonymous video chat is honest about the fact that we cannot technically prevent it — which is exactly why it is treated as a removal when we find out.

Scams and solicitation. Asking for money, gift cards or crypto. Recruiting for anything. Advertising.

Things that get you restricted rather than removed

Automating the matching system. Scripts and bots make the pool worse for everyone and are easy to spot.

Repeatedly pushing people to move to another platform in the first minute. Occasionally innocent, frequently the opening move of something else.

Persistent low-level unpleasantness. One report can be ambiguous; a pattern of them from different people is not.

Things that are not against the rules, despite what people assume

Skipping instantly. That is the format, and video roulette is built around it.

Leaving without saying goodbye. Nobody is owed a wind-down.

Not showing your face. Text and voice modes exist precisely so you do not have to, and using them is not evasive.

Blocking somebody who did nothing dramatic. Block is an ordinary tool. Use it whenever you like — the safety guide actively encourages using it earlier than feels polite.

How enforcement decisions get made

A report arrives with the session details attached. A person reads it and checks it against the record and against whether the same account has come up before.

Then a restriction, a suspension, or removal, depending on what happened. For the first list above it is removal on the first occurrence — a warning there would just mean the same behaviour aimed at somebody else next time.

Reporting a user sets out what happens after you send one, including why we cannot tell you the outcome.

If you think a decision was wrong

Appeal it. Write to support and describe what you believe happened, not what you believe the rule says.

Decisions do get reversed. A moderator acting on a short description of a two-minute conversation is working with limited information and everybody involved knows it. The contact page has the address and what to include.

Why the rules are this short

A long list is a list nobody reads, and a rule nobody has read does not change anyone's behaviour.

Five things end an account. Three get you restricted. Everything else is judgement, applied by a person looking at the specific case rather than matched against a clause. That is deliberately less precise than a legal document and considerably more useful than one.

The formal version does exist — the terms of service is what you actually agreed to, and it is the document that governs if the two ever appear to disagree.

What good behaviour looks like here

Assume the other person is nervous. Most people are for the first ten seconds, and being the one who speaks first is a small kindness that costs you nothing.

Take no for an answer the first time. If somebody does not want to talk about something, that is the end of it rather than an opening position.

And do not treat a stranger as content. The person on the other end is having their evening, not performing in yours — which is the whole reason these community guidelines exist in the first place.

These rules apply to everyone equally

There is no tier that buys leniency. Someone who has spent money on coins is held to exactly the same standard as someone using their free matches, and the enforcement is the same in both directions.

That is worth saying because it is not universal. Plenty of platforms quietly weigh a paying account more heavily when a report comes in, and the people who suffer for it are the ones who reported.