FAQs

If you think someone acted inappropriately, it’s worth reporting. You can read our code of conduct here. Even if a person’s behavior doesn’t seem to violate our code of conduct, it might be a good idea to discuss it with the creator. It also might be relevant for a different report.

You can always go to the police. If you think that the law is the best way to make your report, you should do that as soon as possible.

If you file a report about a credentialed creator, we can investigate the claim and require the creator to follow our mediation process.

Confidentiality is very important to us. We use data security to ensure that reports remain confidential and secure. You can also discuss sensitive issues with our victim advocates who can better explain the legal constraints around confidentiality.

Because our process is restorative, we work with creators directly. When there are claims of misconduct, we cannot always promise the identity of reporters can always be kept confidential.

Not everything inappropriate is illegal. There are many ways a creator can damage community members and destroy communities, and plenty of them are legal or not something the police can enforce. Our goal is to build a system for misbehavior that would fall through the cracks of the regular justice system.

Every report is different, but it is our policy to have a victim advocate reach out to you within 48 hours. They will be in constant communication with you for the entire process. While some reports can be investigated more quickly than others, it is important for our investigation team to work carefully. When investigating, we take the time we need to make sure everything we find is accurate.

No, there is no time limit to filing a report. There is no time limit for accountability for one’s actions.

There is no way to know how a creator will react. However, any kind of retaliation would violate our code of conduct and they would no longer be credentialed by CAN. Also, making a report can help a creator avoid the same misbehavior in the future. We think reporting is a good thing you can do for a creator who has acted inappropriately.

Not always. You can always change your report, but there are unacceptable costs to letting someone completely take back their report. Our investigation team will determine when to stop investigations on a case by case basis, but you are never required to participate in the mediation process.

Yes. While you yourself might not be the victim, it’s important that everyone takes responsibility for what they witness. CAN’s ability to respond to second hand reports is limited, but it is still important that we have as much information as possible when it comes to inappropriate behavior.

Disagreements about our findings in an investigation are discussed during the mediation part of the process, but it’s possible that some participants will not be satisfied with the decisions we make as an organization. We can only guarantee that we will act according to our stated principles and policies in order to achieve our goals of protecting community members.

Restorative justice is about repairing harms and meeting the needs of community members. We think this is better than retributive approaches, which focus on finding who is to blame and punishing them. This page explains in more detail why we use a restorative justice approach to accountability, protecting community members, and preservering communities.

It is very common for people who’ve been hurt to downplay their pain by comparing it to pain others feel. This is totally understandable, but your pain is important no matter what else happened to other people. Most importantly, reporting your experience can help prevent harm to others.

This means a creator has finished the training process and is in their three month provisional period. During this time, they will promote information about our system to their community and encourage audience members to report any concerns. Creators with no ongoing investigations at the end of their three month provisional period will be fully credentialed.

We believe in taking all reports seriously while recognizing that some might try to use our system for malicious reasons, such as by calling for the mass reporting of a creator they dislike. Our reporting team will conduct initial examinations of every report before providing them to our advocates team, who will reach out to the reporter to gather more information and confirm the authenticity of the report. Then, our investigation team will gather additional information to write an internal findings report to allow our ethics and mediation teams to assess and act on the details of that investigation. Each step of this process will be completed according to CAN policies which we have developed based on expert knowledge of the best practices in each of these domains.

Reports made by individuals are not made public. Instead, we maintain a Creator Status Database where it will list their credentialing status and any ongoing investigations related to that creator.

For a creator to become credentialed they need to complete two one-hour training sessions to understand the CAN approach and receive anti-harassment training based on our code of conduct. Once they complete the trainings they then sign our creator agreement and begin their three months as provisionally credentialed creators before receiving full credentialed status. Check out our credentialing page for more information!

Anyone who creates entertaining or educational material through any medium. If you have questions about whether you qualify as a content creator, please feel free to reach out!

Creators will be contacted when we begin an investigation into a report. You will receive an email and then an advocate will reach out to help you through the process.