Safety-first moderation for platforms with minors
When your users are children, borderline is not good enough. The strict policy is built to act rather than allow: toxicity, sexual content, and profanity are blocked aggressively, and any attempt to gather personal information is treated as a serious violation and blocked outright, not flagged for later.
500 free requests every month · No card to start
Why moderating for minors is different
Grooming starts with small questions
"Where do you live" and "what school do you go to" sound casual. On a platform with minors they are never a borderline case, so the strict policy blocks them outright instead of flagging them for review.
"When in doubt, act" is the default
Most policies balance false positives against user friction. The strict policy is deliberately biased the other way: when a verdict is uncertain, it acts rather than allows.
You answer to parents and schools
Every verdict comes with categories and an explanation, and the moderation log keeps a searchable record of what was blocked and why. When a parent or school asks how your platform protects children, you have a concrete answer.
What a verdict looks like
The strict policy treats information gathering as a serious violation, because grooming risk is never a borderline case.
“where do you live”
Soliciting someone's home location, blocked as a grooming risk on platforms with minors.
Blocked, not flagged: on a platform with minors this never waits in a review queue.
“what school do you go to? just curious lol”
Direct solicitation of a child's school location; on a platform with minors this is treated as a grooming risk regardless of tone.
The whole integration
Send a POST with your API key, the content, and optional context. You get structured JSON back with the verdict, categories, and a reason. That is the entire integration.
$ curl https://api.moderatehq.com/v1/moderate/text \
-H "x-api-key: $MODERATEHQ_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"content": "what school do you go to? just curious lol",
"policy": "strict",
"context": {
"platform": "my-kids-app",
"channelType": "in-app chat"
}
}'What the strict policy covers
For public communities, family products, schools, and platforms with minors. Aggressively block toxicity, sexual content, graphic violence, and profanity. Treat any attempt to gather personal information as a serious violation and block it outright. Even casual questions like 'where do you live' or 'what school do you go to' must be blocked, not flagged: on a platform with minors, grooming risk is never a borderline case. When in doubt, act rather than allow.
The full catalog, including the platform safety floor enforced on every request, is on the policies page and available programmatically without a key.
Frequently asked questions
Does this make my platform safe on its own?
No single tool does, and you should distrust any that claims to. ModerateHQ gives you fast, consistent verdicts on every message. A real safety programme still needs human review for flagged content, user reporting, and clear escalation paths; this makes those humans far more effective.
How does this fit COPPA and similar obligations?
It does not make you compliant by itself, but it is built to support the work: content retention can be turned off entirely in Settings, every verdict is logged and auditable, and the strict policy is designed to block attempts to collect personal information from your users.
What if it blocks something innocent?
It sometimes will; a strict policy deliberately trades false positives for safety. Every verdict lands in your moderation log with categories and an explanation, so you can see exactly what was blocked and why, and decide how to handle it with your user.
Built to act, not to wait
Create an account, grab your API key, and send your first message with the strict policy. The free tier needs no card.
Get started free