Terms of Use

About these terms

These terms apply to the Hoplo website at gohoplo.com and the chat at gohoplo.com/chat (together, "Hoplo" or "the service"; "we", "us").

Before your first chat you tick a box confirming that you are 18 or older and that you agree to the rules of the chat. These terms and our Privacy Policy apply whenever you use the service. If you do not agree with them, do not use the service.

These terms are written in English. Pages in other languages may summarise them, but if there is any difference, this English text applies.

Who may use Hoplo

Hoplo is for adults only. You must be at least 18 years old, and older if the law where you live sets a higher age for this kind of service. We do not verify age documents: we rely on your confirmation, on reports from other users and on automatic checks described below. If we have reason to believe that a user is under 18, we may block their access.

You may not use Hoplo if the law where you are forbids it, or if we have banned you before and the ban is still in force. We may restrict access from some countries or networks. Connections through the Tor network are not accepted. VPN and proxy connections are allowed, but they may be asked to solve more checks and are moderated more strictly.

The service may contain adult content between consenting adults. Do not use it where seeing such content could be unlawful or unwanted, for example at work or in the presence of minors.

How the service works

Hoplo connects you with a random person for a one-on-one video chat or, if you choose, a text-only chat. You can filter partners by country and by the gender they stated; a match happens only when each of you fits the other's filters. Pressing "Next" ends the chat and looks for someone else. We do not promise that a partner will be available, or that a partner is who they claim to be.

Your partner sees the flag of the country we detect for you, not your gender or name. Video and audio go directly between the two browsers whenever possible, or through our relay server when a direct connection is not possible or when we route all video through it. We do not record video or audio on our servers. Text messages pass through our servers so that we can filter spam and handle reports; they are logged for a short time as described in the Privacy Policy.

The service is free and works without registration. Some features may be limited, changed or switched off at any time, including for some users or countries.

Your account

An account is optional. You sign in with a one-time link sent to your e-mail address; there is no password. An account keeps your settings (your gender, default filters and language) across devices and lets you appeal a ban.

Use only an e-mail address that belongs to you, keep access to it secure and do not share your account. An account does not lift or bypass a ban: a ban on your browser applies to the account, and a ban on the account applies to every browser you sign in from.

You can delete your account at any time from the account menu; we confirm the request with a link sent to your e-mail address. What is deleted and what is kept is described in the Privacy Policy.

Rules of conduct

You are responsible for what you show, say and send in the chat. When using Hoplo you must not:

• show, send or describe anything involving minors in a sexual or abusive way, or let a person under 18 appear on your camera;
• show, send or link to anything that is illegal where you or your partner are, including content that promotes terrorism or violence, or sexual content of anyone who has not agreed to it;
• harass, insult, threaten, blackmail or stalk other users, or attack them for their race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability or similar grounds;
• show sexual content or nudity to someone who has not agreed to see it, or keep doing so after a partner objects;
• record, screenshot, stream or share another user's video, voice or messages without their clear consent (see the next section);
• send spam or promote products or services, run bots, play pre-recorded or looped video instead of a live camera, or pretend to be another person;
• state a gender that is not yours to get around other users' filters: if reports and automatic estimates repeatedly contradict your stated gender, it is marked as disputed, you are not matched with people who filter by gender for 24 hours, and repeated disputes can lead to a ban;
• try to identify, locate or collect personal data about other users, or use what you learn in a chat to harm them;
• try to get around a ban, a block or our limits, for example by changing devices, addresses or accounts;
• interfere with the service: attack, overload, scrape or reverse-engineer it, or abuse the report function.

Recording and sharing other people

Everyone in a chat expects it to stay between the two people in it. Recording another user, or sharing their image, voice or messages, without their clear consent is forbidden. Sharing intimate images of a person without consent is also a crime in many countries.

We cannot technically stop a partner from recording their screen. Do not show anything you would not want to be recorded, and report anyone who says they are recording you or threatens to publish a recording.

Reports and moderation

Every chat has a Report button and a Block button. A report ends the chat and sends us the reason and, in a video chat, one frame of your partner's video as your browser received it; our server adds the last messages of the text chat from the conversation itself. That person is then not matched with you again. A block only stops that person from being matched with you again. Your partner is not told that you reported or blocked them. Abusing reports, for example reporting people without reason, lowers the weight of your reports and can lead to measures against you.

Because moderators are not online all the time, some decisions can be taken automatically. Reports from several different users within a time window can block a user. Messages are filtered for spam, links and banned words. During a video chat, your partner's browser periodically analyses your video with machine-learning models to estimate age and gender and to detect when there is no live person (no face, a frozen or looped picture). When these checks or reports raise a suspicion, a frame of your video may be sent to our server to be checked again by our own model, and our server also estimates the age of every video chat user from time to time from a single frame. Automatic checks alert our moderators and may lead to measures against you. These are estimates that can be wrong; we treat them as signals, not facts.

Our administrators may also request a single frame of the video you are showing to your partner while you are in a video chat, to check for violations of these terms or of the law. Neither you nor your partner is notified of such a request. Moderators review automatic decisions afterwards and may confirm, cancel or change them.

Bans and other measures

If you break these terms we may warn you, limit your access, or ban you from the chat, with or without notice. A ban applies to your browser, your device, your account if you have one, and for a limited time your internet address; in cases of mass abuse, a network may be banned too. We may also apply a hidden restriction, mainly to spam and bot accounts, under which they can only be matched with other restricted users. A hidden restriction is not shown to you and cannot be appealed.

Currently, bans grow with repeated violations within 30 days: 15 minutes for the first, 24 hours for the second, 7 days for the third, and a permanent ban from the fourth. An automatic ban never lasts longer than 3 days; a longer ban is decided by a moderator. A ban on an internet address lasts at most 30 days, because addresses pass to other people. We may change these periods at any time; a change does not affect bans already given.

Different rules apply to the most serious cases. If we suspect that a user is under 18, access may be blocked with no end date until a moderator reviews the case. Confirmed sexual content involving minors, or threats of violence, lead to a permanent ban, and we keep the evidence and report it to the authorities where the law requires.

When you are banned, the chat shows the reason and when the ban ends. Trying to get around a ban, for example from a new browser, device or address, may extend the ban to them.

We may suspend or end your access to the service at any time if you break these terms, if the law requires it, or to protect other users or the service.

Appeals

If you believe a ban is a mistake, you can appeal it from the ban screen. To appeal, sign in or create an account with your e-mail address; the ban applies to that account until it is lifted. You can send one appeal per ban. A moderator reviews it and may lift the ban, shorten it or reject the appeal; you see the answer on the ban screen and receive it by e-mail.

For any other question about a moderation decision, write to the address below.

[email protected]

Reporting illegal content

You do not need to be in a chat, or to be a Hoplo user, to tell us about illegal content or conduct on the service. Write to the address below and include as much as you can: what happened, when (date, time and time zone), and any details that help us find the users involved. We review every notice and may act on it as described in these terms. If you are in immediate danger, contact your local emergency services first.

[email protected]

No warranty

The service is provided "as is" and "as available". We do not guarantee that it will be uninterrupted, error-free or secure, that you will find a partner, or that other users will behave lawfully or tell the truth. Our moderation reduces risks but cannot remove them, and automatic checks make mistakes. You use the service, and decide what to show and share, at your own risk.

Other users are solely responsible for what they show, say and send. We do not review video before it reaches you, and our automatic text filters can miss content.

Limitation of liability

Hoplo is free. To the extent the law allows, we bear no liability for any loss or damage of any kind arising from your use of the service or from your inability to use it, including direct, indirect, incidental or consequential loss, loss of data, profits or reputation, and anything another user does.

Nothing in these terms excludes liability that cannot be excluded by law, or your rights as a consumer under mandatory law.

Changes and contact

We may change the service and these terms. Changes take effect when they are published on this page; the "Last updated" date shows the latest version. If you keep using the service after a change, you accept the new terms.

If any part of these terms is found invalid, the rest still applies. For questions about these terms, write to the address below.

[email protected]