Hey everyone,
I’m looking for some advice here. We have an app, available on Google Play and Apple’s App Store, with an embedded Discourse community. It has been like this for several years now and the community itself is strong.
Occasionally, when you submit an app update to Google, they will review it manually and go through your entire app looking for app violations. This now happened to us, specifically about our community features and their user-generated content policy.
Initially, they rejected the app because the community (Discourse) didn’t have these features:
- Providing an in-app function that allows users to report/flag potential violating content
- Providing an in-app function that allows users to remove/block abusive users
As you can see, this isn’t about our specific community, but more about the features in Discourse itself. I responded to this by showing them a video of how to flag posts and how to mute/ignore users, then I submitted the app again.
They have now again rejected the app, and they have added this issue:
- Providing an in-app function that allows users to report/flag other users for potential violations
I don’t agree with this, as 99% of the issues in a discussion forum will come from the discussion, so flagging offending posts will handle most of it. But it’s not like I can argue against Google’s policy.
To my knowledge, there is no “button” for reporting a user in Discourse. I plan on sending them a video to show that any user can reach out to our team of moderators and report a user through a private message. I don’t know if they will accept this.
I’m also posting it here to raise a bit of awareness. Google Play has recently been on a mission to revamp their User Generated Content policy, so this might affect other Android apps that use Discourse in some way.
Full violation detail
Issue with your app
Your app contains or features User Generated Content (UGC) that isn’t compliant with the User Generated Content policy.Issue details
We found an issue in the following area(s):
- In-app experience: Please see attached screenshot com.sociosoft.sobertime-InAppExperience-321.png
Please note that user-generated content is content that users contribute to an app, and which is visible to or accessible by at least a subset of the app’s users. This includes, but is not limited to user profiles, comments, media, posts, etc.
As such, our guidelines require that apps containing UGC content, whether or not it is the app’s primary purpose, MUST have the following features/functionalities:
- A user-friendly, in-app system for reporting objectionable UGC and taking action against that UGC where appropriate. This includes:
- Providing an in-app function that allows users to report/flag other users for potential violations
- Providing an in-app function that allows users to report/flag potential violating content
- Providing an in-app function that allows users to remove/block abusive users
For more information, you can review our [e-learning course on UGC] before submission.
During our review of your app, we found objectionable content and/or potentially missing UGC features. We kindly ask that you re-check your app and make sure that ALL these functionalities are in place for your users. We also ask that you review the User Generated Content policy to ensure your app features ALL the requirements outlined in the help article.
If your app is missing one or more of the UGC features, make sure you add them to your app before resubmission.
We recommend that all required functionalities are labeled and/or designed in a way that is clear for the users to avoid confusion. You can self-resolve this issue by ensuring all required UGC features are properly implemented. If your issue has already been resolved, OR if you have updated your app on Play Console and submitted them for review, no further action is required from you and you do not need to reach out to us.
If you’ve reviewed the UGC policy and feel our decision may have been in error because all the UGC required features in your app actually exist and are reasonably identifiable to your users, please reach out to our policy support team.