Permanence and portability are among the most exciting features of NFT technology – they make it so that owners of a digital item can use it, sell it, and reflect their verified ownership of it across the web3-enabled internet. But those same features also mean that some offensive, distasteful, and otherwise problematic NFTs will inevitably be published to blockchains. And given the decentralized nature of blockchain technology, no person or platform – including OpenSea – has the power to remove offensive content from blockchains.
Platforms have the difficult task of deciding what on the blockchains to reflect, while also creating an environment that users can trust. As leaders in this ecosystem, we’ve developed a set of content moderation policies and enforcement mechanisms that guide the kind of content that can be discovered and purchased using our services.
At a high level, our content moderation policies reflect our position that OpenSea is a blockchain explorer: we want people visiting our platform to experience the broadest possible view of the NFT ecosystem. Our goal is to make information and content on blockchains easily discoverable and accessible. To do this well means erring on the side of neutrality: with the level of intervention and enforcement scaled to the potential for real-world harm or loss. Furthermore, we try to moderate with a scalpel, not a hammer: rather than making broad generalizations and taking sweeping action, we’ve invested in detection mechanisms and systems that allow us to take a range of specific enforcement actions while keeping in mind our role as a blockchain explorer.
Within that framework, our content moderation policies broadly address four general categories of behavior that could negatively impact the people using our service: physical and emotional harm, financial harm, poor user experience, and intellectual property.
At OpenSea, we’re committed to providing a safe, trustworthy, and inclusive platform through which people can explore and own what moves them in web3. We are still early in our journey as a company and an industry, so we will continue to improve our policies to lead to the best blockchain experience possible.
OpenSea’s Inciting Violence policy prohibits content that facilitates, encourages, praises, or supports acts of violence, whether perpetrated by terrorist organizations or a person acting alone. We also prohibit content that reveals private, personally identifiable information (also known as doxxing).
OpenSea’s Inciting Hate policy prohibits praise and support for hate organizations, as well as content that advocates violence against, superiority over, or the nonexistence of a protected group. We also prohibit content that contains hateful stereotypes or slurs.
OpenSea’s Sexual Exploitation policy prohibits content created or distributed without the adult subject’s consent. This includes revenge porn, creepshots, upskirt shots, and any other behavior that distributes sexualized content without the subject’s consent.
While OpenSea is a place for people to express themselves, we don’t allow content that glorifies, encourages, praises, or supports suicide or self-injury.
For resources on suicide and self-injury, call 988 or text HOME to 741741.
OpenSea has a zero-tolerance policy on content that sexualizes minors, whether it concerns real children or representations. Sexualized content that includes real children will be reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
OpenSea is not a custodian of user funds or NFTs, but we do prohibit behaviors that could lead to the loss of user funds or NFTs, such as a drained or stolen wallet, installed malware, links to unsecured sites, or a failure to deliver what was promised (i.e. rug pull).
Some people may be prohibited from using OpenSea’s platform for the purposes of fundraising, such as government officials and political candidates in their official capacity. For those who are eligible to list or sell items for the purposes of fundraising, there may be restrictions on the types of causes or organizations where funds may be directed.
OpenSea’s Spam policy prohibits unsolicited content that is distributed for a commercial/promotional or abusive/malicious purpose. This includes airdropping multiple items to the same wallet or airdropping the same item to a large number of wallets.
OpenSea’s Copymint policy prohibits items or collections that could be easily confused with an existing, prominent item or collection. To help users distinguish between similar collections, we require multiple changes from the original work.
OpenSea’s Misleading Collection and Account policy prohibits any effort to confuse users into making a purchase, such as implying a relationship with a creator or naming the collection “v2” of a popular collection.
OpenSea prohibits user-generated checkmarks that are similar to OpenSea’s verified checkmark.
Read more on our Account Verification and Collection Badging policy.
OpenSea’s NSFW policy allows consensually created and distributed adult content. We only require that it be labeled NSFW in order to provide users with an opportunity to decide whether they want to view it.
OpenSea’s Burn Function policy requires creators to disclose any burn functionality included in the item’s smart contract. We also prohibit some conditions for activating the burn function, such as burning an NFT for being listed below the floor price.
OpenSea prohibits efforts to artificially increase sales volume or floor price, such as through coordinated sales between wallets or other manipulative activity. OpenSea removes collections with inorganic volume from the homepage and, in some instances, bans accounts engaging in the behavior.
OpenSea does not allow content that violates the intellectual property rights of others, including trademark, copyright, and the right of publicity. OpenSea relies on the rightsholder or their legal representatives to submit a valid takedown request.
For more information about our copyright enforcement, please see our Copyright Help Center article.
While OpenSea doesn’t have the ability to delete or remove content posted to underlying blockchains, we employ a few different enforcement mechanisms that help uphold our policies and community guidelines across the OpenSea platform. We do our best to tailor the type of enforcement to the type of harm we perceive:
Because we’re a blockchain explorer, we prefer to disable violative content and reserve delisting for certain limited situations, discussed below. We believe that we are more like a search engine or web browser than a social media platform, and if we want to be a trusted explorer, we can’t heavily censor or limit what's on the blockchain.
We delist content if there is a risk of real-world harm or loss or if the law requires us to do so. For example, we have a zero-tolerance policy for CSAM (child sexual abuse material), and delist that content from OpenSea as soon as possible after we’re made aware of it. Similarly, if we think content was created with the specific intent to deceive (for example, if it is a copyminted work), we take action and delist it from OpenSea.
It is the case that we will disable, but not delist, some content that people may find deeply offensive or triggering but that does not directly rise to the level of causing real-world harm or loss. If you have feedback about our content moderation decisions, please let us know by reporting content that appears to violate these policies.
