How we keep Friends safe

Friends is where you follow people, cheer them on and see their workouts. It only works if it feels like a good gym floor: friendly, focused and free of people who spoil it. Today we're making reporting clearer and explaining what happens after you report someone.

Report a profile in two taps

Open someone's page, tap …, then Report profile. Pick one reason: spam or a scam, bullying or harassment, hate, pretending to be someone else, an offensive name or handle, someone under 13, fake lifts or cheating, or something else. If you pick Something else, you can add a short note for our team. Posts and comments have their own list, and fake lifts can be reported on a post too.

Reports are private. Nobody is told who reported them, and you can block or mute the person straight away from the same menu while we take a look.

What our team does

A person on our team reads every report about a profile. Depending on what they find, they can:

• Warn the lifter. They see a short note in Friends saying why, and that their profile may be suspended next time.
• Suspend the profile for a day, three days, a week or a month. Nobody sees their profile, posts or comments until it ends, and they can't post, comment or follow.
• Ban the profile from Friends. A ban follows their email address, so starting a new account doesn't get around it.
• Reset an offensive name or handle, or take someone off leaderboards when their lifts don't add up.
• Dismiss reports that turn out to be fine, so a post hidden by reports shows again.

Anyone who is warned, suspended or banned is told why, and can tell us if they think we got it wrong through Send feedback in Settings.

Your training is never part of it

Moderation only touches Friends. Even a banned lifter keeps every workout, setting and record they've logged, on Android, on iPhone and in the web app. We moderate the community, not your training.

Tip: Teen athletes on school teams already get extra protection: their profiles can't be public and aren't suggested to strangers. Reports involving anyone under 18 are marked for our team so they get extra care.

How we write and check our articles: editorial standards.