Acceptable Use and Moderation Policy

1. Introduction

At HeyGen, our Acceptable Use and Moderation Policy underscores our commitment to fostering trust, inclusivity, and creativity. This policy, which applies to your access to and use of our Services is designed to promote their safe, respectful, and inclusive use.

Attempts to circumvent or violate this policy will not be tolerated. Violations of this policy may result in the removal of violative content or the suspension or termination of access to our Services.

2. Avatars

Avatars created on the HeyGen Services, including the content used to create such avatars, must respect the rights of others, including individuals depicted and only be used for permissible purposes. We offer a variety of avatar creation options, including public avatars from our library, photo avatars, and custom avatars, which include both instant and studio avatars.

2.1. Ownership, Consent and Violations

Ownership: As between us and you, you own the rights to photo, or custom avatars you create. You are responsible for ensuring that your creation, use, or sharing of the avatar does not violate any laws or rights of third parties or our Terms or Acceptable Use and Moderation Policy. This includes ensuring that the avatar is only created, used, or shared, in a manner consistent with the rights you have obtained to use the Avatar, including the consent of the person depicted in the Avatar or the holder of any rights in the depiction.

Consent for Custom Avatars: In the case of creating custom avatars, you are required to obtain the explicit consent of the individual being represented (the “Actor”).  Unless explicit consent has been provided, creating avatars of other individuals is strictly prohibited. You are also responsible for ensuring that you have the consent of the Actor for your use or sharing of the avatar and any content generated based on the avatar. The Actor reserves the right to request removal of their likeness from our Services at any time. You are responsible for honoring any request by or on behalf of an Actor to remove content depicting the Actor wherever you have published such depictions. An Actor may also contact our moderation team at moderation@heygen.com to request removal of content depicting them from our Services.

2.2. Prohibited Avatars

To maintain a safe and respectful environment on our Services, the creation of certain types of avatars is strictly prohibited. This includes avatars that:

• Display illegal, defamatory, sexually explicit, pornographic, violent, threatening, abusive, inflammatory, harmful, hateful, cruel, insensitive, or deceptive imagery, including through likenesses, symbols, or insignia;
• Represent or appear in the sole discretion of HeyGen to represent individuals under the age of 18;
• Represent real individuals, including celebrities or public figures, without their explicit consent; or
• Represent or appear in the sole discretion of HeyGen to infringe copyrighted images without the consent of the copyright owner.

3. Video Content

Video content created on the Services must respect the rights of others, and only be used for permissible purposes.

3.1. Non-Permissible Content

Non-permissible content refers to any user generated content that is not allowed to be uploaded to or generated using our Services under any circumstances. This includes, but is not limited to:

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1. Violence and criminal behavior: Content that promotes violence/crime, use of ammunition, inciting violence, coordinating warfare etc. This policy helps us remove content that  harms humans, animals, property and promotes voter and/or census fraud. Heygen has a zero tolerance policy for dangerous individuals, organizations and networks of people. This includes terrorist organizations and entities that engage in malicious offline and online harm
2. Fraud and Scams: Content that promotes scams, frauds and spams. Examples of such content would be promoting Crypto scams, Ponzi or pyramid schemes, scams like romance, loan, charity, grant, debt relief  etc.  Frauds include credit card fraud, selling stolen goods or PII.  
3. Restricted goods and services: Promotion of goods and services related to commercial sex( Prostitution), Weapons/ ammunition, alcohol, online gambling, trade of endangered species, body parts and fluids, hazmat goods. 
4. Bullying and harassment: Content that promotes attacks on individuals, race, community, religion or a certain gender, derogatory or severe sexual comments, threats to release sensitive data, usage of profanity and hurtful language. 
5. Child safety/CSAM: Any content that has an underage person( less than 18 years old) shown exposed to sexual, physical and verbal abuse, solicitation, promoting child trafficking, nudity and other sexual content like arousal, witness to sexual acts, intimate converations  etc. 
6. Suicide and self harm: Content that displays or promotes suicide, self harm and eating disorder. 
7. Sexual: Content related to sexual abuse, sexual acts including masturbation, intercourse, display of  genitals and private parts. Exception to this is content related to documentary or educational videos that require to show sexually explicit content
8. Misinfo / Disinfo: False claims, challenging the facts, misstating social events like elections, health info, voter suppression, harming civic integrity and election content.
9. Hate Speech: Content that promotes mockery, animosity, harmful stereotypes, slurs, statements of inferiority, expressions of contempt and disgust, attacking and being mean. 
10. Political: Content that displays political opinions, content related to political matters, or content that promotes political parties or candidates, political campaigning or lobbying government officials, particularly content related to Global elections;
11. Intellectual property:  Content that violates copyright and Trademark infringement

Account integrity: We reserved the right to remove the users from our platform who severely and repeatedly violate HeyGen’s community guidelines, coordinate as a network of accounts/ individuals, misstated their personal info to gain access to HeyGen, impersonation, using unauthorized use of other actor accounts, misuse or abuse HeyGen credits and display any offline behavior that violates our policies. Offline harm described but not limited to: Misuse of the content generated on HeyGen platform, promoting hate speech or misinfo/ disinfo about HeyGen platform.

3.2. Conditional Content

Conditional content refers to types of content that are generally allowed to be uploaded to or generated using our Services, but with certain restrictions. This type of content can be sensitive and may involve themes or subjects that could potentially cause discomfort, disagreement, or distress. Such content can be created using custom avatars only. HeyGen in its sole discretion may determine whether content is Conditional or Non-Permissible content. Conditional content includes:

1. Informational and educational content: We understand the importance of education that may include display of nudity, genitals or sex and any content that is purely developed form an educational and informational standpoint will be conditionally allowed on Heygen platform. But any content discussing this topic should be strictly educational, respectful, and not explicit or inappropriate. It should also be clearly labeled at the outset of the video as mature content, and not targeted at minors.
2. Religious content: HeyGen respects all religions and belief systems, but any content discussing religion should be respectful and not promote division, discrimination, or hate.

4. Video Content

At HeyGen, we utilize a two-pronged approach to content moderation to promote the upload and creation of content permitted under the terms described above.

4.1. Automated Review

We use automated moderation tools, powered by machine learning algorithms, to scan and flag content uploaded to or generated using our Services that is potentially non-permissible.

4.2. Email Reports

If you believe that content uploaded to or created using our Services contains non-permissible content, please email us at moderation@heygen.com with: a link to or copy of the content; a brief description of the reason you believe the content is not permissible under this policy; and contact information to reach you regarding your communication.

4.3. Manual Review

Any content, including content flagged through the processes described above may also be reviewed by human moderators.

4.4. Decision and Enforcement

If content is found to breach our policies, HeyGen may, in its sole discretion, taking into account the severity of the violation: remove the content or prevent the generation of the content on our Services; notify the user about the decision; temporarily or permanently suspend the user’s access to our Services; report the content to legal authorities; or such other actions as HeyGen determines may be appropriate under the circumstances.

4.5. Appeals Process

Users can appeal moderation decisions they believe to be unfair by emailing us at moderation@heygen.com and providing: a description of the content that was deemed to violate this policy; a description of the reason that you believe this decision was in error; contact information regarding your appeal. HeyGen will review and respond to appeals in its sole discretion. The submission of an appeal does not guarantee that you will receive a response. Where possible, appeals will be reviewed by a moderator that was not involved in the original decision.

5. Updates and Changes to the Acceptable Use and Moderation Policy

HeyGen may revise these guidelines from time to time, including, but not limited to, modifications in response to: technical advancements, societal changes, legal requirements, or user feedback.

When changes are implemented, they come into effect immediately upon being posted on this page, and your continued use of our Services constitutes acceptance of this policy, including any modifications. If we make material modifications to this policy we will make reasonable efforts to communicate the changes to you, such as via email or notifications on the Services.

Users are encouraged to review this section periodically for any updates.

6. Contact

We value your feedback on our content moderation processes and policies. Please feel free to share your thoughts and suggestions by emailing us at moderation@heygen.com.