Community Guidelines

Effective Date: May 27, 2021

StoryCorps believes every voice matters. We intend to build a community where everyone feels welcome and comfortable to share their stories. Across all of StoryCorps Services, thoughtfulness and respect are the cornerstones of the community we are building. In order to help facilitate a positive environment, here are a few important reminders:

  • Consent to be recorded is imperative. All voices heard in the interviews recorded on the Sites—whether it is shared publicly on the StoryCorps Archive website or not—must be from individuals who have agreed to be recorded for a StoryCorps conversation.
  • Interviews are not fact-checked before they are published on the StoryCorps Archive website. Interview Content on the StoryCorps Archive includes both StoryCorps Signature Interviews (content recorded and facilitated by StoryCorps) and User-Content (content uploaded by users through the App, StoryCorps Connect or the Sites).
  • User-contributed content should be added with fidelity and care. Interviews, communities, and their accompanying photographs, metadata and descriptive text should strive to be factual and accurate, created in a responsible and considerate manner in accordance with our guidelines. Together, we can create an archive for future generations to access.
  • StoryCorps seeks to create a respectful space for people of all backgrounds and beliefs.We will not allow StoryCorps Services to be used to attack others based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or medical condition. We will not tolerate the use of the Services to bully or harass anyone.

Content Review

If you see, hear, or read something that violates our Community Guidelines or Terms of Use, please flag the content as objectionable immediately. After Interview Content is flagged, StoryCorps’ team reviews the Interview Content to determine if the interview privacy settings should be adjusted or if the Interview Content should be removed from the StoryCorps Archive. StoryCorps will remove any interviews, photographs, or other Interview Content that do not follow the StoryCorps Terms of Use or Community Guidelines.

In some rare instances, StoryCorps may “Lock” the Privacy/Visibility setting of that Interview Content to “Private.” “Locked to Private” or to “Lock” an interview means the Interview Content is only accessible to the account holder on the StoryCorps Archive and the account holder cannot change the Privacy/Visibility setting.

Examples of when StoryCorps will Lock the Interview Content include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Interview Content portraying an individual who is deceased or lacks legal capacity, and a family member, guardian, or legal representative raises reasonable objections to the content being available on the StoryCorps Archive.
  • Interview Content that may not be in direct violation of the Community Guidelines  but could reasonably be construed as harmful to an individual or group.

For any Interview Content that is locked to Private:

  • The interview will no longer be publicly searchable in the StoryCorps Archive; StoryCorps and participants who recorded the interview may still access the Interview Content on their StoryCorps Archive account. For StoryCorps App and StoryCorps Connect interviews, this refers to the account holder who recorded the interview. For Signature Interviews, this refers to any participant that has claimed the interview.
  • Account holders of this Interview Content  will only be able to share the interview by using the “secret link” feature in the StoryCorps Archive.
  • The Interview Content will be retained by StoryCorps and the changes to the Privacy/ Visibility setting will not impact StoryCorps’ long term preservation of the Interview Content, the inclusion of the Interview Content as part of StoryCorps’ collection in the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, or any other archival partners.
  • Even if the interview settings are Locked to Private, StoryCorps may have shared the Interview Content with third-party partners and cannot and does not make any guarantees that third parties who accessed the  Interview Content will remove or delete copies of the Interview Content.

For any questions or disputes regarding the Privacy/Visibility settings, please reach out to [email protected].

Questions or comments? We’d love to hear from you.

If you have any questions about the Community Guidelines or Terms of Use, please contact StoryCorps at [email protected].

Notices of copyright infringement claims should be sent to [email protected].