2024 TRANSPARENCY REPORT
Jan 1 - Dec 31, 2024
Published February 14, 2025
At VSCO, our mission is to nurture creativity so you can make it. We designed VSCO as a unique space for photographers and other creators to express themselves with quality creative tools, find inspiration, and make meaningful connections.
We believe in an authentic and trusting community that is and always will be Creator-first. Therefore, we’re committed to being transparent about our policies and approach to content review, moderation, and our efforts to prevent harms from occurring on our platform.
This Transparency Report provides insights into our current policies, enforcement actions, content metrics, and information on legal requests we received and responded to during the reporting period of January 1 to December 31, 2024 (“Reporting Period”).
This Transparency Report also includes information required to comply with the transparency reporting requirements under the European Union’s Digital Services Act (Regulation (EU) 2022/2065) (the “DSA”), which include the following:
- Metrics related to suspensions we made due to violations of our policies,
- Orders we received from EU authorities,
- Notices we received from third parties, and
- Disputes we submitted to out of court dispute settlement bodies.
Our Policies
At VSCO, we strive to operate an inclusive platform that enables our Creators to build their professional brand and business, allows for the open exchange of creative content and inspiration, and fosters a positive, trusted community.
Our Community Guidelines, along with our Terms of Use, were designed to achieve these goals by establishing clear rules for what is and is not allowed on all of our products and services. They also apply to all content, including all forms of communication (such as text, messaging, images, videos, audio, links, and emojis) on VSCO, and to everyone on our platform (who we refer to as our “Creators”).
Our Community Guidelines are based on the following four pillars, which serve as the framework for how we promote positive experiences on VSCO while also defining what is prohibited as harmful content and conduct.
- Respect the VSCO Community - Be kind to one another. Share who you are and be respectful of the VSCO Community.
- Respect the VSCO Platform - Ensure a positive and safe experience on VSCO by creating and sharing quality content.
- Foster Genuine Connections - Connect with others in a genuine and meaningful way to positively impact the community.
- Safeguard Integrity - VSCO celebrates original expression and is a place where Creators can experiment freely and authentically.
In 2024, we updated our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy to expand on our commitment to maintaining a trusted platform. The updates we made included details about (i) opportunities for our Creators to find work through VSCO Hub, (ii) what data we may collect across our different services and how it may be used, and (iii) information related to privacy rights of our Creators in accordance with recently enacted data privacy laws.
At VSCO, we believe creativity and self-expression are essential. We also are aware that these things can be negatively impacted when operating in spaces without trust. In service of furthering these goals, we have an internal team dedicated to maintaining the safety of our Creators and the VSCO community. We also partner with leading industry experts for industry insights and ongoing improvement of our policies and enforcement efforts.
Our approach to content moderation strives to find the right balance between freedom of expression with the responsibility we have to protect VSCO’s community from harmful, abusive, and illegal content. This is done through a multi-layered approach, combining both technological automation and human review.
Prevention & Education
We believe now more than ever that education is critical to our efforts to prevent abuse. Our Safety Center is designed to empower Creators with the tools and information they need to be proactive about their safety on VSCO.
In our Safety Center and other communications to our Creators, we offer articles, guides, and resources about VSCO and staying safe online and when interacting with others in the VSCO community. By educating our community on best practices for privacy, security, and responsible behavior, we work to prevent issues before they arise.
When we take action on content or a profile due to a policy violation, we send a notice to the affected Creator outlining the specific guideline that was violated. This notification is designed to help the Creator understand our policies and learn how to align their actions with our Community Guidelines moving forward.
Detection & Reporting
Detection
VSCO invests in proactive measures to detect potentially violative, harmful content, or illegal content, including advanced tooling technologies and machine learning. We partner with organizations like Hive to incorporate their industry leading classifiers to scan content posted to our platform. We also partner with Thorn to license and implement their state-of-the-art child safety tooling to proactively detect online child sexual exploitation or abuse (OCSEA) and prevent distribution of this type of content. These technologies run on all content posted to VSCO and determine how probable it is that the content violates our policies.
If content is flagged to be potentially in violation of VSCO’s policies, which includes illegal content, it is reviewed by trained human moderators to assess and determine in accordance with our policies if the content should be removed.
Reporting
We make reporting inappropriate or illegal content or conduct easy on our platform. Reporting is available on each of our offered products and services, including Profiles, posts, Blogs, Discussions, VSCO Spaces, and Messages.
Individuals can use our reporting tools directly in our app or on the web to flag content that may violate our Community Guidelines or, in line with Article 16 of the DSA, to report content they believe to be illegal. Individuals also have the ability to create a report with our Trust & Safety Team using the chat bot located in the bottom right corner of our Help Center.
Moderation & Enforcement
Moderation
Our Community Guidelines serve as the foundation for our content moderation strategies and practices. They establish the rules for appropriate Creator conduct and shared content on VSCO to ensure our Creators have a positive and safe experience.
As part of our content moderation efforts, we employ full human review of all reports, which allows us to be thoughtful and intentional with our moderation decision-making. When content is flagged, our moderators conduct a thorough review to ensure that we also consider potentially connected or associated content that may violate our policies. This is intended to minimize the potential of future exposure of harmful content to our Creators.
We ensure that our human moderators are fully prepared to handle their responsibilities effectively. Moderators receive comprehensive training, supported by detailed internal documentation on policies and enforcement actions and regular refresher quizzes. We also conduct quality assurance (QA) reviews to ensure consistency and fairness in decision-making.
Our human moderators are responsible for the following activities:
- Reviewing reports submitted by individuals: When an individual reports a piece of content on VSCO - such as a photo, discussion, blog post, message, or space - our human moderators carefully review all information associated with the report to ensure a holistic review. If we determine that any content or conduct violates our policies we remove it or take appropriate action against the account in question and notify the reported Creator.
- Reviewing reports flagged by our detection tools: When an image is detected by our automated detection tools as a potential violation of our policies, it is reviewed by our human moderators who take appropriate actions and notify the reported Creator if necessary. Automation helps us proactively detect issues, but all final decisions are made through careful human review to achieve accuracy with fairness.
- Evaluating appeals: Notifications of action taken on content or profiles violating our policies include instructions on how to appeal our decision. All appeals are reviewed by human moderators who carefully reassess the content or profile in question to provide a decision to the impacted Creator.
Recognizing the challenges of human moderation, we prioritize the well-being of both our internal teams and those employed by third-party service providers. We offer counseling and support services to all moderators, and we ensure our third-party service providers provide additional mental health resources to their staff. To further mitigate potential stress, our moderation tools include features like blur and grayscale settings to reduce exposure to sensitive or distressing content.
Enforcement
We take a variety of actions in our moderation efforts, including deletion of content, sending warning notices, and suspending offending accounts. If we come across an instance where it appears someone is at imminent risk of harm, we escalate these matters to the proper authorities in a timely manner.
- Deletions and Warnings: When we delete content that we determine is in violation of our Community Guidelines, we send a warning notice to the Creator whose account is impacted. Repeat or continuous violations that follow an initial warning notice may result in a permanent account suspension.
- Suspensions: For repeat violations, a VSCO account may be suspended, and a suspension notice will be provided to the individual. For serious violations, a VSCO account may be immediately suspended. In these instances, we will not send any warning notices, and instead will send a suspension notice. If an account is suspended, the individual or entity will lose access to their VSCO account, including all associated content. Creation of new accounts in violation of our Community Guidelines will also result in suspensions of those new accounts.
Discovery
In 2024, VSCO received 912,553 incoming reports. The total number of reports includes 558,098 reports from our internal reporting system and 354,455 reports from our machine learning detection technology. More specifically, we received 350,981 reports from our Hive classifiers and 3,474 reports from Safer by Thorn.
Actions
Of the 912,553 reports we received in 2024, we took action on 84,392 reports, 28,478 of those reports stemming from machine learning detection technology. All reports were reviewed by human content moderators.
In 2024 we suspended 22,951 Creators, 3,622 of which were a result of content being flagged by machine learning technology.
In 2024 we deleted 30,816 pieces of content, 24,803 of which were flagged by machine learning technology.
Child Safety
OSCEA is strictly prohibited on VSCO. In 2024, we sent 349 reports to NCMEC concerning accounts violating our child safety policies, identified through proactive moderation, user reporting, and Thorn’s Safer classifier.
VSCO is an active contributor to the Technology Coalition, a group of companies dedicated to working together to end OCSEA. Through this membership, we closely collaborate with industry partners to share knowledge, advance best practices, and develop solutions to protect children from online harms.
We also partner with Thorn, utilizing their innovative technological tools to better identify, prevent, and combat the spread of child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
Law Enforcement Requests
At VSCO, we appreciate the hard work law enforcement provides our company and the communities we connect. We’re also committed to ensuring the safety, security, and privacy of our Creator community. VSCO’s disclosure of user information is governed by the Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2701, et seq., which requires that we disclose user information to law enforcement only in response to specific types of legal process.
All law enforcement requests are carefully reviewed for authenticity and to ensure they comply with applicable laws. When appropriate, we provide the requested information or take action in accordance with our legal obligations. For more information on how we work with law enforcement, visit our Law Enforcement Guidelines.
In 2024 VSCO received 58 legally valid requests for information from law enforcement, and we produced data for 24 of them.
Appeals
VSCO provides a complaint system for Creators to appeal moderation decisions if they believe the action taken by us may have been incorrect. We ensure human review of all appeals to determine if a mistake was made or context provided by the Creator changes our decision.
In 2024 we received 407 appeals which were handled within a median time of 16 hours. Of the 385 profile suspension appeals, 100 were granted, and of the 22 content deletion appeals, 4 were granted. See below for the breakdown per violation type.
Intellectual Property Claims
In accordance with the The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA), VSCO prohibits the sharing of copyright protected work without consent. To protect ownership rights of all Creators, we review and verify each DMCA claim for validity and take action when required.
We also provide a reporting flow for our Creators to report violation of their trademarks and actively review and respond to these reports.
In 2024, VSCO received 192 valid DMCA claims, 26 of which merited content removal.
Article 15(1)(a) - Orders Received from EU Member States Authorities
In compliance with the DSA, VSCO has a structured process for handling law enforcement requests from EU Member States. All requests are carefully reviewed for authenticity and to ensure they comply with applicable laws. When appropriate, we provide the requested information or take action in accordance with our legal obligations.
*The orders received from EU Member State Authorities to act against illegal content were limited to preservation requests, requiring VSCO to preserve the allegedly illegal content. In several cases, VSCO received multiple orders to act against illegal content arising from an individual case.
**VSCO received two orders for one case from United States government agencies to provide information about individuals in the EU pursuant to the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty from the United States Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation respectively. These orders originated from Ireland.
Article 15(1)(b) - Notices Received
VSCO offers a notice and action mechanism for individuals or entities to notify us of the presence of potential illegal content or content that violates our terms and conditions on our platform. VSCO did not receive any notices from trusted flaggers within the Reporting Period.
All notices received by VSCO undergo human review before action is taken, and therefore VSCO did not process any notices solely by using automated means. VSCO takes action against violating content by either suspending (de-activating) the account of the Creator or by deleting the specific content.
In line with Article 23(2) of the DSA, we may temporarily pause processing notices and complaints submitted through our reporting tools if individuals or entities repeatedly submit notices or complaints that are clearly unfounded, despite prior warnings.
For this Reporting Period, we have no instances to report of manifestly unfounded notices or complaints.
Article 15(1)(c) Content Moderation at VSCO’s Own Initiative
VSCO invests in detection methods involving machine learning technologies to identify potentially violative, harmful content, or illegal content.
Specifically, we partner with organizations like Hive to incorporate their industry leading classifiers to scan content posted to our platform. We also partner with Thorn to license and implement their state-of-the-art child safety tooling to proactively detect online child sexual exploitation or abuse (OCSEA) and prevent distribution of this type of content. These technologies run on all content uploaded to VSCO and determine how probable it is that the content violates our terms and conditions or is illegal.
If content is deemed to be potentially in violation of VSCO’s policies, which includes illegal content, it is reviewed by trained human moderators to assess and determine in accordance whether the content should be removed due to violation of law or violation of VSCO’s terms and conditions. This method of detection, involving automated scanning of content coupled with human review, is VSCO’s primary method of content moderation at its own initiative.
Article 15(1)(d) Complaints Received through Internal Complaint Handling System
VSCO provides a complaint system for Creators to appeal moderation decisions if they believe the action taken by us may have been incorrect. We ensure human review of all appeals to determine if a mistake was made or context provided by the Creator changes our decision.
In 2024 we received 41 complaints from Creators in EU Member States which were handled within a median time of 16 hours. Of the 41 complaints, 3 were related to the deletion of content and 38 were related to the suspension of an account.
Article 15(e) Use of Automated Means for Content Moderation
As mentioned above, VSCO partners with organizations like Hive and Thorn that provide tools to detect illegal content or content that violates our policies on our platform.
Safer combines a hash database of over 57 million verified child sexual abuse material (CSAM) hash values with predictive AI technology to detect possible CSAM on platforms hosting user generated content.
*VSCO does not endorse or make any representations regarding claims made on any third party websites or in any third party studies.
Out-of-Court Dispute Settlement Submissions
As of December 31, 2024, we did not receive any disputes submitted to certified out-of-court settlement bodies pursuant to Article 21 of the DSA.