These terms are an agreement between you and the operator of Waku (“we”, “us”) about your use of Waku (the “Service”). By using the Service, you agree to them. If you don’t agree, don’t use the Service.
1. Age
You must be 18 or older to use the Service. By using it you confirm that you are. If we believe someone doesn’t meet this requirement, we remove their account and everything tied to it immediately, and we may report it to the authorities.
2. What Waku is for
Waku is for meeting new people, anonymous conversation, and watching and listening to things together. It is not a marketplace, an advertising channel, or a way to meet in person. There is no buying or selling of anything on Waku, ever.
3. Strictly not allowed
Breaking any of these gets you removed, without warning:
- Anything that sexualizes children, in any form, including roleplay, drawings or descriptions, and anything that describes a character as a child or in school in a sexual way. We report this to the authorities.
- Selling or buying anything. Including content, photos, videos, subscriptions, accounts, meetups, services, or anything else, whether for money, crypto, gifts or favors.
- Advertising or promotion. No links, handles, usernames for other platforms, phone numbers, referral codes, or promoting any account, page, product, service, channel, group or website.
- Anything illegal. Including drugs, weapons, stolen data, fraud, piracy, and arranging or offering anything that’s illegal where you or the other person are.
- Sharing intimate images of anyone without their consent, threatening to share them (blackmail), or asking anyone for money or favors in exchange for not sharing something.
- Non-consent. Content that promotes or depicts non-consensual acts.
- Real people. Sexual content about real, identifiable people (including celebrities) without their consent, deepfakes, and sharing anyone’s private information (“doxxing”).
- Explicit content where it isn’t allowed. Waku is safe for work by default. Some optional settings allow mature topics; even there, incest, bestiality and everything else on this list are never allowed.
- Harassment and hate. Threats, stalking, continuing to message someone who has said no, and attacks on people for who they are.
- Impersonation, scams and spam. Pretending to be someone else, fake profiles, bots, automation, and mass messaging.
- Breaking or abusing the Service. Getting around limits, bans or the bot check, scraping, or interfering with how it works.
4. Respect, always
A private chat only opens when a yes is accepted, and anyone can leave any chat at any time. Respect limits, stop when someone wants to stop, and never send anything explicit to someone who hasn’t asked for it.
5. Your account and how long it lasts
You don’t give us your email or phone number. Your profile is temporary: if you’re inactive for the period you choose (24 hours, 7 days or 30 days), your account, matches and chats are deleted, and they can’t be recovered. You can delete everything sooner at any time in Settings. Keep your device secure: anyone who uses it can use your account.
6. Your content
You keep ownership of what you write and send. You’re responsible for it, and you confirm you have the right to share it. You give us a limited license to store, transmit and display your content only as needed to run the Service (for example, showing your board posts to others). Private chats are stored on the devices of the people in them; a message or file for someone who’s offline waits on our servers until it’s delivered, for at most a day.
7. Moderation and enforcement
We use automatic filters (for links, contact details, selling, and banned topics), automated safety checks on public content (board posts, profiles and notes), and user reports to enforce these terms. Automated checks can hide content for review, but a person reviews it before we remove an account or report anyone to the authorities. We never ban or report anyone based on an automated score alone. Private chats are not scanned; we only see what someone reports. We may remove content, limit features, or remove accounts that break them, and we may preserve and share information with law enforcement where the law requires it, or where someone’s safety is at risk. You can report or block anyone from a chat or a board post; see Safety.
8. Law enforcement
We want Waku to be anonymous, never lawless. We cooperate with law enforcement in these ways:
- Child safety: we report child sexual exploitation to the relevant authorities (such as NCMEC’s CyberTipline in the US, or the local equivalent), and preserve the related information.
- Valid legal requests: we respond to subpoenas, court orders and warrants that are valid under the applicable law. We review each one and push back on requests that are overbroad or improper.
- Emergencies: if we believe in good faith that someone faces an imminent risk of death or serious harm, we may share information with authorities without waiting for legal process.
- Preservation: on a valid request, we preserve what we hold about an account for a limited time while legal process is obtained.
- Notice: where the law allows, and it wouldn’t endanger anyone, we tell the affected user before disclosing their information.
Because of how the Service is built, we hold very little: private chats are stored on users’ devices (our servers hold only undelivered messages and files, for at most a day), and accounts are deleted after the inactivity period each user chooses. What we may hold is described in our Privacy Policy. Requests go to hello@waku.chat.
9. Paid features
The Service is free to use. If we offer optional paid features in the future, their price and terms will be shown clearly before you pay. Paying never buys an exception to these rules.
10. Our content and brand
The Service, its design, the Waku name and mascot belong to us. Don’t copy or reuse them without permission.
11. No guarantees
The Service is provided “as is”. We don’t vet users, and we can’t guarantee who someone really is, that they’ll behave well, or that the Service will always be available or free of errors. Use your judgment, and never share anything that identifies you.
12. Limits on our liability
To the extent the law allows, we aren’t liable for indirect or consequential losses, or for what other users do or say. Nothing in these terms limits liability that can’t be limited by law.
13. Ending things
You can stop using the Service and delete your account at any time. We can suspend or end access for anyone who breaks these terms, or if we need to stop running the Service.
14. Changes
We may update these terms. If a change is significant, we’ll make it visible in the Service. Continuing to use the Service after an update means you accept it.
15. Law and disputes
These terms are governed by the laws of the country where the operator is established. Mandatory consumer protections where you live still apply.
16. Contact
Questions, reports, or legal requests: hello@waku.chat. See also our Privacy Policy.