Sonder: Child Safety Standards

Zero tolerance

Sonder prohibits any content or behavior that sexualizes, exploits or endangers children. This includes child sexual abuse material, sexual content involving minors, grooming, sextortion, trafficking, and any attempt to contact or meet a minor. Content like this is removed, and we report it to the authorities as described below.

Who can use Sonder

Sonder is for people 13 and older, so teenagers use it alongside adults. Before using it, everyone must confirm they are 13 or older and agree to Sonder’s rules, which forbid this content and any attempt to meet up or get in touch. Where the law has Google Play share a user’s age range, Sonder checks it and doesn’t run for anyone under 13.

How Sonder is built to prevent abuse

• Text only. Fragments are short text notes (180 characters at most). Sonder can't send images, videos, audio or files, so it can't be used to share abuse imagery.
• No messaging and no profiles. There are no chats, replies, followers or accounts. Nobody can find, message or follow a specific person, and nobody knows who wrote what.
• No way to arrange contact. Every fragment is checked on the phone, both when it's written and when it arrives. Fragments asking strangers to meet or get in touch, or containing phone numbers, emails, links or usernames, are refused. So are sexual content and terms associated with child sexual abuse and exploitation.
• Delayed and anonymous. Fragments arrive from nearby phones and are revealed hours later, without exact times or places, so they can't be used to locate or follow anyone.

Reporting

• In the app: every fragment has a menu with Report, which removes it from the phone permanently, and Block this person, which hides everything from that phone. After reporting, Email us opens an email to us with the reported fragment, so we can act on it. Contact us in Settings also reaches us.
• By email, from anyone: hello@tentrickpony.com.
• If a child is in immediate danger, contact local emergency services first.

What we do with reports

• We review child safety reports first, on the day we receive them.
• We take the reported fragment down in the next update of Sonder, so every phone refuses it and removes copies it already has, and we add its wording to the filters.
• We report child sexual abuse material and child sexual exploitation to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) through its CyberTipline, and to other national or regional authorities as the law requires, and we cooperate with law enforcement requests.
• Sonder has no accounts and no servers, and keeps no record of who wrote a fragment, so we can't identify or locate a writer ourselves. We pass on everything we have (the reported text and when it was reported), and we encourage anyone with information to contact the police directly.

Compliance

Ten Trick Pony Studios complies with applicable child safety laws, including reporting child sexual abuse material to NCMEC and other relevant authorities.

Contact

Our child safety point of contact can speak to Sonder's prevention practices and how we enforce these standards: hello@tentrickpony.com.