How Viewpoint moderates uploaded photos
Viewpoint’s public sharing surface lets you make a spot visible to other photographers on the Map tab. Anything that’s visible to other people goes through a small set of safety checks first. This page covers what those checks do, how to report content you’ve seen, and how to hide individual spots from your own browse.
What gets checked, and when
Every photo you publish on a public spot is scanned by an automated content classifier before it appears on anyone else’s Map tab. The classifier looks for content that wouldn’t be appropriate in a general-audience photography app — adult content, graphic violence, drug paraphernalia, and similar.
The scan happens in the background after you tap Make this spot public (or after you add a new photo to an already-public spot). Until the scan completes:
- You see your own photo immediately in your own library. The scan is about what other people see, never about what you see.
- Other Viewpoint users don’t see the spot’s photo yet. The spot’s pin appears on the map, but the photo placeholder shows until the scan clears.
- The lag is usually under a minute. If the scan is taking unusually long, check back — most clears within seconds.
If the classifier flags a photo, it’s kept out of public surfaces but stays in your library. You can replace it from the spot’s detail screen. We don’t delete your file; the rejection only affects whether it appears to other users.
Reporting content you’ve seen
If you see a public spot or photo on the Map that you think shouldn’t be there — illegal, misleading location, spam, harassment, copyrighted material — long-press the public pin and pick Report this spot. The sheet that opens asks you to pick a reason and lets you add a short note explaining what’s wrong.
What happens after you report:
- The report lands in a small queue that a human reviews. There’s no automated punishment — every action against a spot or its uploader is taken by a person.
- The uploader is not told who reported, only that a report exists once a moderator decides to act on it.
- You can only have one open report against the same spot at a time. If a moderator acts on it (in either direction — keeping it up or taking it down), you can report it again if it reappears.
- If many people independently report the same spot, it can be temporarily hidden from the public Map while we look at it. We restore it if the reports turn out to be wrong.
What happens when many users report a spot
When a public spot accumulates reports from several different people, Viewpoint temporarily takes it off the public Map while a moderator reviews. The threshold is intentionally small — it doesn’t take many independent reporters to trigger the auto-hide.
While a spot is temporarily hidden:
- The owner still sees the spot normally in their own library. The hide only affects what other people see.
- The spot disappears from the public Map for everyone else immediately, without waiting for the moderator’s decision.
- The spot is automatically restored if a moderator dismisses the reports as wrong or unfounded.
- If a moderator agrees with the reports they’ll suspend the spot (or photo, or account) through the regular moderation actions described above; the temporary hide becomes permanent in that case.
- The owner gets a push notification as soon as their spot is hidden (whether by the auto-hide or by an admin suspend). The notification just says the spot is under review — it doesn’t disclose who reported, what they reported, or how many.
The temporary hide is a circuit-breaker, not a punishment. The deliberate ambiguity of “many users” (vs. naming the exact threshold) keeps the trigger harder to game — a single bad-faith user can’t push a spot past it on their own. Repeated reports from the same person count as one.
Hiding spots from your own browse
If you’d rather not see a particular spot on your Map tab — without reporting it to anyone — long-press the public pin and pick Hide from my browse. The pin disappears from your Map tab on every device you’re signed in on; the spot itself stays visible to other Viewpoint users.
You can review and unhide what you’ve hidden from Settings → Hidden spots. Hiding is a per-user choice — it’s not a complaint, doesn’t notify the creator, and doesn’t influence what anyone else sees. It’s just your private way of saying “I’m not interested in this one.”
What we ask of you, the uploader
A short, plain-language set of rules for what you can publish:
- Only your own photos. Don’t upload work that isn’t yours.
- Real locations. Don’t deliberately publish a spot with wrong coordinates to mislead other scouts.
- No personal targeting. Don’t name or coordinate-point at private individuals or homes.
- No illegal content. Anything that’s illegal where it was taken or where Viewpoint operates isn’t allowed.
If you’re unsure about whether a photo or a spot fits, the safer bet is to keep it private.
What happens if a photo is flagged
If our scan flags a photo:
- The photo doesn’t appear on the public Map for other users.
- You see it normally in your own library, with a small badge indicating the rejection.
- You can replace the photo from the spot’s detail screen.
- We don’t share the rejection or your spot with anyone outside Viewpoint’s small operating team.
If you believe a flag was wrong, get in touch via support — we’ll review.
What happens with illegal content
Viewpoint is legally required to detect and report certain categories of illegal content (notably child sexual abuse material) to the appropriate authorities. Every upload is hashed and matched against the industry-standard databases of known illegal material. Detection runs automatically; reports are filed via the relevant legal channels (e.g. the US National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s CyberTipline for US-hosted content) per applicable law.
Accounts involved in uploading such content are suspended immediately and pending review. A suspended account can’t sign in or use the app until the review concludes; you’ll see an Account suspended message on every screen. Genuine appeals can be sent to support — we triage them as priority, but the suspension stays in effect during review.
This is non-negotiable. It applies regardless of intent — an accidental upload that matches a known-illegal hash is treated the same as a deliberate one at the gate stage. The review step is where context lands.
Related
- Sharing a spot publicly — what becomes visible when you publish, and what stays private regardless.
- Data & transparency — how Viewpoint stores + uses the data you create.
- Privacy policy — the full legal framing.