Community Guidelines – OkCupid

We expect everyone on OkCupid to treat each other respectfully, with kindness and compassion. We do not tolerate hateful, hurtful, or harassing content on OkCupid. We consider unwanted sexual content and messages to be sexual harassment. We don't like jerks, so please don't be a jerk.

Here's the thing. We want you to think about this one rule: treat online interactions as you would even if they were offline. This also applies when interacting with our lovely Billing, Moderation, and Support teams!

When sending messages, consider what you would say to someone who you just met at a club or coffee shop.
When uploading photos, consider if the same pose or outfit would be appropriate in public.
When creating a profile, consider if you'd feel comfortable having a family member or friend read it.

OkCupid is not a magical place where people want to hear about your sexual fantasies out of the blue, or where you can be mean to someone with no repercussions. Treat OKCupid as a place where you can talk to other humans about things that matter to you both, and remember that the best way to make a meaningful connection with someone is to treat them well. If you have questions about consent and what it looks like check out our Consent Guide.

Below are our community guidelines and moderation standards. If you see anyone who violates these guidelines, please report them to us right away.

In this article:

Harassment
Sexual Harassment/ Explicit Sexual Content
Hate
Violent or Graphic Content
Profile names and profile text
Unique and bona fide profile
Fake accounts
Couples/ joint accounts
Solicitation
Contact information
Illegal behavior
Minors/ under 18
Photo rules
Offsite behavior
Reporting

Harassment

If you wouldn’t say it to someone you just met in person, you shouldn’t be saying it online. Messages should be respectful, appropriate, honest, and kind. We don't tolerate "negging" (insulting statements disguised as "flirting") or other rude behavior. This expectation also includes interactions with OkCupid staff. People found to be sending harassing messages will be banned.

Additionally, profile content itself should also be respectful and kind. Profile essays which are found to be overly combative or hateful may be removed or may even result in your profile being banned.

Sexual Harassment/ Explicit Sexual Content

Exposing other people to your sexual fantasies without their consent is rude and inappropriate, and it's not what most people on OkCupid are looking for. If your profile is reported to us as sexually explicit or offensive, it will be banned. This includes kink/ fetish profiles, profiles describing which sex acts they are looking for, etc.

We also do not allow unwanted sexually explicit messages to other users you meet on OkCupid. This includes descriptions of sexual acts/ kinks/ fetishes, sexualized comments about people's photos, etc. Even if someone says they are open to hookups on their profile, it does NOT mean they want sexually explicit messages.

Finally, we do not allow sexually explicit photos or nudity.

We consider this to be sexual harassment and will ban any offenders that are reported to us.

Hate

There is no room for hate in a place where you’re looking for love. Since our founding we have proudly stood rooted in inclusivity.

Any content (including in profiles and messages) that promotes or condones racism, bigotry, violence, hate, dehumanization, or harm against individuals or groups based on things like race, ethnicity, disability, age, nationality, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religion, appearance, or occupation/association with a group is strictly forbidden and may result in you being permanently banned. This includes but is not limited to:

Symbols of hate groups in photos, racist or offensive memes, etc.
Hateful slurs, offensive statements, coded language, dog whistles, or references to being a member of a hate group
Giving approval (even tacit) or statements of support towards a hate group or their ideals
It also includes your reports to OkCupid staff: if you flag a profile for no other reason than being trans, for example, it may result in your own profile being banned.

Violent or Graphic Content

We do not allow any content in photos, profiles, or messages that is threatening, incites violence, contains graphic or gratuitous violence or gore, or is disturbing or otherwise inappropriate for a dating site. This does also include depictions of self harm which can in turn be harmful for others to see. This content will be removed and may also get you banned.

Profile names and profile text

We consider your profile's display name and your profile text to be similar to a first message or first impression to other members of the site: we expect both to be respectful and appropriate. If your profile text or name could be seen as offensive, hateful, obscene, or clearly trolling, we will take moderation action, up to and including banning your profile.

Your listed name should be the name you like to go by. It can be your first name, your initials, or a nickname- all are fine. It does not have to be the full name on your birth certificate! We do not check listed names against any kind of ID, and we trust people to enter names they'd like to go by themselves. That said, we will still moderate based on names if they include offensive or obscene language, or make a profile appear to be fake (i.e. using a celebrity name instead of your own).

Unique and bona fide profile

You must create only one unique profile. In addition, your use of OkCupid must be for bona fide relationship-seeking purposes (for example, you may not use OkCupid solely to compile a report of compatible singles in your area, to find people to join a club or group activity, or to write a school research paper).

Additionally, deleting and re-creating your account to get around other member's Passes or Blocks of you is not acceptable. If we see excessive and suspicious account deletion activity we may ban your profile.

Fake Accounts

We do not tolerate any kind of fake accounts on OkCupid. Your profile must be really you, and must be for relationship seeking purposes.

Creating a fake account will get your main account as well as the fake account(s) banned.

Also, your profile details such as age, height, location, etc. must be accurate. We restrict searching and showing profiles based on mutual fit for details like age, location, gender, and orientation for a reason: so that you can find a person who is looking for someone just like you. Changing these details to appear in searches that you would not otherwise is not allowed and will result in your profile being banned.

Couples/ Joint accounts

We do not allow joint accounts or couples accounts. If you want to use OkCupid with your partner for non-monogamous dating, that's cool! However, you'll want to link accounts with your partner instead of having one joint account.

If you are in a relationship and are dating outside of that relationship without your partner's consent and/or without disclosing your relationship status, that is a violation of our community guidelines and will get your profile banned.

Solicitation

Using OkCupid for commercial solicitation or exchange of money is prohibited. Do not share your own financial information (PayPal, Onlyfans, Venmo, Amazon wishlist, etc.) for the purpose of receiving money or goods from other members. Do not attempt to get other member's financial or other private information.

Do not send messages or create accounts for the purpose of driving members to a business or external site. This includes recruiting people for a hobby, political group, or charity if it's not for dating purposes. Adding a link to an external site that redirects to a pay-site is not a clever way of skirting our solicitation rules, we will spot it.

We also do not allow references to sugar daddy/baby dating, asking for gifts to date, wanting to be $poiled, etc, or phrases like "Send me $5 and see what happens" on OkCupid. This all falls under solicitation of money/goods and is not allowed.

Likewise, we also do not allow seeking, offering, or accepting money for sex, sugar baby relationships, or similar transactional activities and relationships.

Doing any of these will get you banned.

Contact information

We do not allow anyone to post private information for public display, including their own private information, but especially other people's. Violations of other people's privacy will result in a ban.

It's always good to be cautious when exchanging contact info. A sign of a scammer, fake account, or someone up to no good is when they are in a hurry to give you their offsite contact info too quickly. This could be because they want to get you away from OkCupid so they can continue talking with you even after we ban them, or they are sharing someone else's contact info to get revenge on them.

Don’t give your phone number out too quickly. If a user is discovered to be a scammer or has other bad reports against them you may see the profile disappear quickly-- they may have been banned. If a user vanishes and re-appears under another name, that is a very very bad sign. We ban people for good reasons. If you have given them your phone number or email address too quickly then you won’t see if we have banned them.

If something seems strange about the way someone is exchanging contact info, or if they are displaying a phone number or email address prominently on their profile or photos, please report.

Illegal behavior

It should go without saying, but discussion or promotion of anything illegal is not allowed and will result in getting you banned. This includes drug dealing, fraud, threats, or anything else that is against the law. We do not tolerate any kind of discussion about underage sex.

Minors/ under 18

You must be 18 to use OkCupid. We do not allow minors to use OkCupid. If you suspect a profile of being made by someone who is under 18, please report them to us.

If you knowingly engage in conversation with someone who has revealed themselves to be under 18, we will also ban your profile.

Photos

A more detailed list of photo rules can be found here, but here is a summary:

Photos should include your face (profile photo album), or be pictures you've taken (elsewhere).
We do not allow any photos with nudity or explicitly sexual content.
We also do not allow any hateful imagery (white power/ nazi images, racist meme photos, etc). This will get you banned. Any photos of anything overly violent, offensive, illegal, disturbing, or otherwise inappropriate for a dating site will be removed and may also get you banned.
Photos with contact information on them (including phone number, email address, kik, Facebook address, etc) will be removed. Repeated violation of this rule or other suspicious behavior may result in the profile being blocked as well.
Photos of you as a kid, or of your kids but without you in the photo as well will be removed.
Finally, we will remove any image where the copyright holder has asked to have it removed, or where we strongly suspect the user is not the copyright holder (e.g., stock photos).
For multiple offenses or extreme cases, profiles may also be banned and removed.

If a photo is removed you will be emailed and told that this has happened and warned that repeated offenses might get you banned. This warning isn't a fake one, and we will ban your account for multiple infractions.

Offsite behavior

We do ban for harmful offsite behavior. Please report any instances of offsite abuse, sexual/physical assault, harassment, stalking, theft, human trafficking, or anything else that makes you feel unsafe. We take reports of harmful offsite behavior very seriously. All reports are discreet and confidential.

In these cases, if you decide to contact local law enforcement, we are happy to cooperate with them as needed.

Reporting

Please help us by reporting anything or anyone that does not follow our community guidelines.

You can report a profile by clicking the three dots icon to bring up a report button. More detailed instructions are here.

A note on malicious reporting:
In some cases we will ban an account if we've found it to be creating malicious reports against other users. This includes users who report trans or nonbinary users for no reason other than their gender or orientation, and users who submit baseless or retaliatory reports against others who are not interested in them.

A final note:
While our Community Guidelines cover most instances of moderator action, it is not an exhaustive list, and we do retain the right to ban anyone from OkCupid if we believe you have violated the Community Guidelines, Terms of Use, misused our Services, or behaved in a way that OkCupid regards as inappropriate or unlawful, on or off our Services.