Anti-Spam & Authentic Engagement Policy

Effective 13 May 2026 · Last updated 21 May 2026

Circus prohibits spam, bot accounts, and any form of coordinated inauthentic behavior. Real communities require real people.

1. Prohibition on inauthentic behavior

Circus requires that all accounts and engagement on the platform be genuine. The following forms of inauthentic behavior are prohibited:

Operating a bot account — any account that posts, follows, likes, or otherwise interacts with the platform through automated means without genuine human direction
Purchasing or artificially inflating followers, subscribers, likes, views, or any other engagement metric
Coordinated inauthentic behavior — operating multiple accounts, or coordinating with others, to artificially influence how content or communities appear to other users
Using third-party services, software, or networks to automate engagement on Circus
Creating fake accounts to make a community, topic, or creator appear more popular than it is

2. Spam

Spam on Circus is defined as any unsolicited, repetitive, or low-quality content designed to consume platform resources, manipulate discovery, or harass users. Spam includes:

Sending unsolicited bulk messages or DMs to users who have not opted in to contact from you
Repetitive posting of the same content across multiple communities or repeatedly within a single community
Link spam — posting URLs with no genuine content value for the purpose of driving off-platform traffic or generating clicks
Comment spam — flooding posts or conversations with off-topic or automated responses
Creating posts primarily designed to game discoverability or artificially boost a community’s apparent activity

3. Account manipulation

The following account behaviors violate this policy:

Creating multiple accounts to evade an account suspension or ban — once an account is suspended, creating a new account to circumvent that action is prohibited and will result in permanent removal
Mass-following and unfollowing — rapidly following large numbers of accounts to gain follows in return, then unfollowing them
Follow churn — systematically following and unfollowing accounts in patterns designed to exploit follow-back behavior
Using one account to artificially boost the metrics of another account you control

4. Enforcement

Circus uses automated detection systems to identify suspected spam and inauthentic behavior. Automated signals are reviewed by the safety team before action is taken on accounts with strong community histories.

Enforcement consequences scale with severity:

First confirmed spam violation: content removal and a formal warning
First confirmed bot or coordinated inauthentic behavior violation: immediate account suspension pending review
Confirmed evasion (creating new account after suspension): permanent removal of all associated accounts
Severe or large-scale inauthentic behavior: permanent ban without prior warning

Circus reserves the right to act on signals it identifies as inauthentic even where the specific mechanism isn’t explicitly covered in this policy, if the conduct undermines the integrity of the platform.

5. Reporting spam

To report spam or suspected inauthentic behavior:

Use the in-app report function on any post, account, or community and select ‘Spam or bot’ as the reason
Email safety@circus.app with ‘Spam report’ in the subject and a description of the behavior, including links to the relevant content where possible

Verified reports help us improve our detection systems. We review every report.