Community guidelines
Effective November 5, 2026
A ’bout room is a crowd watching the same game or show, each on their own screen, with chat held back so nobody gets spoiled. These guidelines are how the crowd stays worth being in. They’re part of our terms of service: breaking them can get a message removed, get you removed from a room, or get your account banned.
The short version: be a fan, not a jerk.
- Trash talk, yes. Hate, no.
- Never allowed
- Spoilers
- Spam and flooding
- 18+ rooms
- Teens
- Be who you are
- How moderation works
- What you can do
- Bans and appeals
Trash talk, yes. Hate, no.
Rivalry is the point. Tell the other side their quarterback is a bum, their coach should be fired and their season is over. Boo the refs. Celebrate loudly. Rooms have two sides and we want both.
Where it stops: the people. Attacking someone for who they are, meaning their race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability or age, is hate, and it has no place here, whatever team they root for. A slur is never trash talk. Threatening anyone, on or off the screen, is never trash talk. Piling onto one person in the room, following them with insults, or trying to get others to join in is harassment, and moderators act on it.
Never allowed
Every message is checked before the room sees it, by a short word filter and by OpenAI’s moderation service, and messages of these kinds are refused on the spot:
- Hate: slurs, dehumanizing a group of people, or threatening them.
- Threats of violence against anyone, and harassment that threatens.
- Sexual content. Anything sexual involving a minor is reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, as US law requires of us, and the account is banned for good.
- Encouraging self-harm, or explaining how.
- Graphic violence, and help with a violent crime.
The filter can miss things, and a check that runs slow lets a message through while it finishes. A message that gets through and breaks these rules is still against them: report it, and a moderator removes it.
Spoilers
’bout holds every message until the viewer’s own screen has reached that moment, so chatting about what you see is always safe. Say “touchdown!” the second it happens; nobody behind you sees it until their screen shows it.
What ’bout can’t hold is what isn’t on the broadcast: a result from a push alert, a final score from another feed, a leaked outcome, or the ending of a show you watched earlier. Posting those spoils the room on purpose, and moderators remove the message and can remove you from the room. Results from other games count too; the room is about this one.
Spam and flooding
Don’t paste the same thing over and over, don’t flood the room, and don’t post ads, promotions, referral codes or links to buy anything. The room slows down anyone who sends too fast and refuses repeats, and busy rooms switch on slow mode for everyone. Getting around those limits, with more accounts or otherwise, is against these rules.
18+ rooms
Some events are marked 18+: betting talk and shows made for adults. Those rooms are for grown-ups and never appear for anyone under 18. Keep betting talk, odds and wagers to those rooms, and keep the rest of the rooms for everyone 13 and up.
Teens
People 13 to 17 are welcome in ’bout, and the rooms work a little differently around them. Teens don’t see messages flagged for harassment, violence, self-harm or illegal activity, even when adults do. Phone numbers, emails, social handles and “DM me” aren’t accepted from a teen and aren’t shown to one, so nobody can take a teen out of the room into a private conversation. There is no private messaging for anyone under 18, ever.
If you’re an adult: don’t try to get around any of that. Asking a minor for contact details, personal information or to meet is grounds for a permanent ban, and we report it. If you see it, use Report a child safety concern on the message; those reports go to the top of our queue.
Be who you are
- Don’t pretend to be ’bout staff, a moderator, a player, a coach, a broadcaster or anyone else you aren’t.
- Don’t post anyone’s private information: addresses, phone numbers, workplaces, or anything meant to identify a person who hasn’t shared it.
- One account per person. Don’t make accounts to get around a ban, a removal or the spam limits.
- Be 13 or older, and tell the truth about your age at setup.
How moderation works
- Before the room sees a message, the word filter and OpenAI’s moderation service check it. Flagged messages are refused; the sender sees “That message isn’t allowed here.” OpenAI gets only the text, never who sent it. Rivalry isn’t hate, so in a game’s room the check reads the two teams’ names as “the other team,” and ordinary trash talk passes.
- Reports go to a queue that moderators and ’bout staff work. A reported message disappears for the person who reported it right away. A child safety report goes before everything else.
- Moderators can remove a message from the whole room, remove someone from a room for 5, 15 or 60 minutes or for the rest of the event (for spoilers, spam or harassment, usually), and turn on slow mode. Someone removed from a room can still use the rest of ’bout.
- ’bout staff can ban an account for 1 day, 7 days, 30 days or permanently, always with a reason. A banned account can still sign in and delete itself, but can’t chat anywhere.
What you can do
- Report any message from its menu. Pick Report, or Report a child safety concern for an adult reaching out to a kid or a kid in danger.
- Block anyone from their message. You’ll stop seeing them everywhere in ’bout, and they aren’t told. Unblock from your account panel.
- Mute someone while you’re in a room when you just want them out of your view. It’s only on your screen, and it ends when you leave.
Bans and appeals
If your message was removed, you were removed from a room or your account was banned and you think it was a mistake, email hello@bout.chat from the address on your account and tell us which room and roughly when. A person reads every one. We’ll answer within 30 days, usually much sooner, and lift anything that was wrong.
See also the terms of service and the privacy policy. bout llc, Texas, United States.