202: Enforcing Community rules and managing difficult members

As an admin you’re responsible for safeguarding your community. Members look to your leadership when community rules are not respected. They expect you to uphold the rules consistently and to remove content and members violating those rules.

Encourage members to take action when faced with problematic content and/ or people:

• Block the contact on WhatsApp
• Message Group or community admins privately to report the issue
• Report potential violations of WhatsApp’s Terms of Service to WhatsApp

If possible, community admins should work with Group admins and members to manage and resolve issues at the Group level. If you choose to report problematic behavior or content to WhatsApp, you can report a specific message and account by long-pressing a message. Reporting a message doesn't not implicate other accounts or content of your community.

About blocking and reporting contacts

Hate speech, violence, pornography, or other unwanted or harmful messages that violate community rules should be deleted immediately to stop the content from being widely seen by members. It’s important to quickly contact and investigate the source to determine their intention.

Don’t hesitate to remove a member from a Group or community if there is a serious violation of your rules. If you remove a well known member, consider sending a short message explaining that the individual is no longer a part of the Community. Take care not to disclose any sensitive personal details related to the situation or the members involved.

Work with your admins and members to watch out for trolls and vandals. A troll sets out to create controversy and usually adopt fake identities and behave in a disruptive manner. Vandals are people who take over your Group by changing your Group picture for example. Quickly remove trolls and vandals or members disobeying community rules.

No matter what action you take, it is a good idea to restate the rules in the Announcement group, and let all community members know what you did to resolve the matter.

Your members rely on you to keep the community safe. Don't let people act inappropriately, intimidate you, or try to stop you from doing the right thing. You can block a member who contacts you after being removed or who tries to stop you removing them from a Group or community.

Once blocked, messages, calls, and status updates sent by the former member won't show up on your phone and won’t be delivered to you. Your last seen, online, status updates, and any changes made to your profile photo will no longer be visible to blocked contacts.

When you report a member, WhatsApp may ban their account if we believe that they have violated our Terms of Service. Encourage your members to carefully review the “Acceptable Use of Our Services” section in our Terms of Service to learn more about the appropriate use of WhatsApp, as well as the activities that violate our Terms of Service and could result in an account ban.

If an account is banned, the user will see the following message when trying to access WhatsApp – "Your phone number is banned from using WhatsApp. Contact Support for help." If a user thinks their account was banned by mistake, they can contact WhatsApp and a case will be opened.

In the event of an emergency, or if you are concerned a member is a danger to themselves or others, contact your local emergency services or a suicide prevention hotline immediately. If you receive or encounter content indicating that a child is being abused or exploited, contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) or the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC), and report and block the user. Never forward the abusive content to others, even in a condemning fashion, when messaging about the incident.

How to stay safe on WhatsApp