This is a draft. It has not been reviewed by a lawyer yet and is published here so it can be. Ask us anything about it at legal@sowing.me.
Sowing.me exists so that Christian creators can be paid for their work without being punished for saying what they believe. This policy is the promise behind that, and the limits on it.
What we will never remove you for
Preaching your faith. Teaching Scripture, calling something sin, calling people to repentance, praying for someone, sharing the gospel, or holding an orthodox Christian position on marriage, sexuality, life, salvation or judgement is not a violation here, and never will be. You will not be demonetized, shadow-limited, or quietly made harder to find for it.
We say this plainly because it is the reason this platform exists. Elsewhere, "community standards" are applied in ways that treat ordinary Christian teaching as hate. We do not.
Disagreeing with us. Sowing.me is run by people with their own convictions. Your page is yours. Differences of doctrine, tradition or emphasis between creators are not our business to settle, and we will not use this policy to settle them.
What is not allowed
These are limits on conduct and harm, not on doctrine.
- Sexual content. No pornography, nudity, or sexually explicit material. Teaching about sex, marriage, purity, abuse recovery or addiction is allowed and welcome; depicting it is not.
- Content involving minors. No sexualised depiction of a minor, in any form, ever. This is reported to the authorities rather than merely removed.
- Threats and incitement. No threatening a person or group, no calling for violence against them, no celebrating it. Preaching that an action is sinful is not a threat. Saying someone should be harmed is.
- Targeted harassment. No campaigns against a particular person: doxxing, repeated abuse, coordinating others to pile on. Public disagreement, naming a teaching you consider false, and criticising a public figure's public words are all fine.
- Deception for money. No promising healings, miracles, blessings or answered prayer in exchange for payment, and no claiming an endorsement, affiliation or charitable status you do not have. Ask for support honestly; say what it is for.
- Illegal activity, including selling drugs, weapons, stolen goods or someone else's work.
- Other people's work. Post what is yours, or what you have permission to use. See Copyright below.
- Impersonation. Do not present yourself as another creator, church, ministry or organisation.
- Platform abuse. No malware, no attempts to break, overload or probe the platform, no payment fraud, no stolen cards, no laundering money through subscriptions or gifts.
Giving, tithes and honesty about money
Creators may receive tips, gifts and tithes here. Two things follow from that:
- Say what you are. If you are a church or a registered charity, and a gift is tax-deductible, say so and say where the receipt comes from. Sowing.me does not issue tax receipts and a payment here is not automatically a charitable donation.
- Do not sell what is not yours to sell. Salvation, healing, forgiveness and God's favour are not products. Support pays for a creator's work and time.
How this is enforced
- We act on reports and on what we find ourselves. A human decides; nothing here is automated.
- The usual outcome is the narrowest one that fixes the problem: a single post hidden rather than a page suspended. A page is suspended when the problem is the page.
- A suspended page stops being publicly visible. Its content is not deleted, and neither is the creator's ledger: what they earned remains theirs and payable.
- You will be told what rule you broke and which content it was. "Violated our community standards" is not an explanation, and we will not hide behind one.
- You can reply. Appeals go to the address below and are read by a person. If we got it wrong, we say so and put it back.
- Content involving minors, and credible threats, are the exception to the graduated approach: those accounts are removed immediately.
Copyright
If you believe something here infringes your copyright, write to the address below with enough detail to find it: the work, the URL, and your contact details. We will review it, remove what infringes, and tell the creator what was removed and why, so they can respond.
Creators: uploading someone else's sermon, song, recording or book and charging for it is the fastest way to lose your page. Quoting, citing and teaching from a work is normal Christian practice and is not what this is about.
Reporting
Report content to [conduct@sowing.me] with a link and a sentence about the problem. We read everything sent there.
Questions about this policy: [legal@sowing.me]. We would rather answer a question first than enforce a rule afterwards.