Appeals

Appeal and Reinstatement

While the majority of interactions between individuals in the Block Protocol’s community fall within our Acceptable Use Policies and Community Guideline, violations of those policies do occur at times. When they do, Block Protocol personnel may need to take enforcement action to address the violations. However, in some cases there may be a basis to reverse a moderation action taken by Block Protocol personnel.

What are appeals and reinstatements?

Both appeals and reinstatements arise in relation to disabling of content or restrictions to access an account.

Reinstatement: The user wishes to regain access to their account or content and is willing to make any necessary changes to address the violation and must agree not to violate our terms going forward.

Appeal: The user disputes that a violation occurred and can provide additional information to show that a different decision should have been reached.

How this works

If your account or content has been hidden, disabled, or limited in any other way by the Block Protocol and you would like to request reinstatement or appeal our decision, please reach out using our contact form.

In order to prevent unnecessary processing delays, please do not send duplicate requests and be sure to contact us from the email associated with your impacted account if possible.

Block Protocol personnel will review the information provided in the form to determine whether there is sufficient information to warrant reinstatement or granting of an appeal.

• Reinstatement: Where a user can agree to abide by our Acceptable Use Policies moving forward and has made the changes necessary to address the violation(s), we may choose to reinstate their account or content depending on the circumstances and severity of the initial violation.

All legitimate reinstatement requests will be reviewed initially by Block Protocol personnel and will be answered with a decision.

• Appeal: Where a user seeks to dispute a decision, they can use the form to explain their basis for disputing the decision and to provide any additional information regarding the alleged violation that they believe should have led to a different decision. If the information provided demonstrates that a different conclusion should have been reached, we may be able to grant an appeal.

If the Block Protocol reviewer is the same person who made the initial determination and that individual believes their initial conclusion was correct (and thus would be inclined to deny the appeal), a second Block Protocol reviewer will be called upon to independently review the appeal. All legitimate appeals will be answered with a final decision.

If your content was impacted by a DMCA notice, and you’d like to make changes or dispute that notice, please contact the Block Protocol via HASH by following the HASH DMCA counter-notice guide.

Transparency

We track all appeals and reinstatements. In the future, we plan to publish aggregate data surrounding these processes annually as part of our planned transparency reporting.