At SkillsPlay, ensuring the online safety of our users is a responsibility we take incredibly seriously. To protect our community and our shared values, we constantly work to keep our platform safe and free from inappropriate content.

In this content safety guide, we’ll give you insight into how we work with platform safety at SkillsPlay, including how we moderate content. For details about our platform content policies and acceptable use, please see our Editorial Guidelines, Terms and Conditions and Acceptable Use Policy.

Content on SkillsPlay

Much of the content on the SkillsPlay platform is user-generated content, created and uploaded by our community of users. In addition to this user-generated content, the SkillsPlay team and our verified partners also provide content on the platform.

These are BrightGames that our users have created and made available to the public through the SkillsPlay platform and App. There are also private BrightGames on the platform that are not available for the public.

SkillsPlay is dedicated to protecting the integrity of our platform as a safe environment offering educators tools to inspire.

How do we regulate content?

Our Editorial Guidelines, Terms and Conditions, and Acceptable Use Policy regulates content and use of  the BrightGame platform. All users shall be familiar with these rules and comply with our standards for appropriate content.

Our Editorial Guidelines are designed to maintain the safety of the BrightGame platform and ensure that it does not contain content that is harmful or illegal. The Editorial Guidelines apply to all contributors to the SkillsPlay platform, including our verified users on SkillsPlay Academy.

The Editorial Guidelines are based on SkillsPlay’s values. Contributors to the BrightGame platform and App shall respect our values and must not publish content that:

• Contains or encourages violence or criminal behavior
• May threaten the safety of our users or that may encourage unsafe or harmful behavior
• Is illegal, discriminating, clearly inappropriate, or objectionable
• Threatens the integrity and authenticity of our platform, including our SkillsPlays, our users, and commercial content.

For more details, please see the full version of our Editorial Guidelines.

Our Terms and Conditions and the Acceptable Use Policy outline what is seen as acceptable use of the content on the BrightGame platform and App. These are binding to all users of SkillsPlay and dictate how our users may use and interact with the platform. This includes that users cannot publish or promote content that:

• Is illegal, threatening, defamatory, harassing, degrading, intimidating, fraudulent, deceptive, invasive, racist, or contains any type of suggestive, inappropriate, or explicit language
• Infringes on any trademark, patent, trade secret, copyright, or other proprietary right of any party
• Contains unauthorised or unsolicited advertising
• Impersonates any person or entity, including any SkillsPlay employees or representatives.

The content regulations also apply to the nicknames that users provide to participate in a SkillsPlay. Users shall not use nicknames that are inappropriate or offensive or that breach our rules for acceptable content. The host of a BrightGame may disable the opportunity for participants to create nicknames by activating our nickname generator. We recommend that this is done if SkillsPlay is used in an environment where nicknames can be used to cause harm, for example with a vulnerable audience.

User responsibility

Our users are solely responsible for the content they publish on SkillsPlay. SkillsPlay does not endorse the correctness of the content that is provided by our users or any opinion that might be contained in such content. The use of content from our platform happens on the user’s own responsibility. We encourage our users to always review BrighGames found on our platform before they are played.

For more details, please visit our Terms and Acceptable Use Policy.

How do we make sure that the content on BrightGame platform is safe?

SkillsPlay reserves the right to review, monitor, edit, or remove user content at our sole discretion. We may remove or disable access to any user content that breaches our policies, values, or standards, and we also have the right to suspend or disqualify users who don’t respect our rules.

We have implemented several safety and moderation efforts to help us keep content safe, such as:

1. Moderation

SkillsPlay has a growing team of trained moderators whose bespoke role is to filter out inappropriate content. We also use automated filter software to block or quarantine content that contains “triggers.” This software operates on the basis of a comprehensive set of keywords that are often used with ill intent. We continuously work to improve this list to reflect the ever-expanding nuances of language.

2. Flagging

As we will never be able to control all of our content, we rely on our community to help us keep the platform safe. We encourage users to report illegal or inappropriate content. Any adult account holder can flag individual public BrightGames for review, should they deem the BrightGame to include illegal or inappropriate content. Content flagged by our users will be reviewed and assessed by our moderator team.

This is how you flag inappropriate content:

Step 1: Click the feedback button on the Game detail page.

Step 2: Select ‘Flag for moderation’ on the form dropdown and add all detail requested.

Step 3: The BrightGame is suspended and placed in our moderation system.  Our moderation team will evaluate the BrightGame and it will either be quarantined, made permanently private, or whitelisted.

You can recognise that a BrightGame is under moderation by moderation badge displayed on top of the page:

Once a BrightGame is whitelisted, it cannot be flagged again unless the creator makes changes to the BrightGame. If changed, the flagging opportunity is reopened.

3. Customer service response

If any user finds content that they believe is inappropriate and in breach of our terms and conditions and acceptable use policy and either auto moderation or manual flagging is not available, please reach out to our customer service team, who monitor feedback 24/7/365, via our Customer Support contact form.

4. Nickname generator

Using the nickname generator is a safe way to avoid inappropriate nicknames. With the nickname generator, a friendly nickname is suggested to the player instead of them creating their own nickname. 

If you don’t want to use the nickname generator, anyone hosting a BrightGame can kick out participants when they use an inappropriate nickname. In the BrightGame lobby, just hover over the nickname so it’s crossed out and click to remove the name. 

Verified users

On the BrightGame platform and App, you can find content from BrightGame verified users, including content partners.

When our users apply to become a verified user on BrightGame, their profile and content is evaluated by the SkillsPlay moderation team. This includes checking alignment with SkillsPlay’s Terms and Conditions, Acceptable Use Policy, and Editorial Guidelines. We also assess the overall accuracy and quality of the profile. When a user is verified as a BrightGame verified user, their content is marked with a Verified badge.

In addition to this, the verified user gets access to a unique, verified profile where other users can discover high-quality content that the verified user has created. Users may also connect with the verified user via the community features. NB: Community features are not available to young users due to children’s privacy regulations.

The verification of users makes it easier to discover high-quality content on the BrightGame platform. However, it is not a guarantee that inappropriate content and irregularities may not appear. Therefore, verified content follows the same rules and guidelines as any other user-generated content on the BrightGame platform and can be moderated and flagged following the same processes.

If a verified user publishes content that breaches our policies or guidelines, their status as a verified user can be revoked and they can be excluded from the BrightGame platform in the same way as any other user. This applies to all verified users, no matter what user type they are, ranging from student, social user, teacher, business user, or content partner.

Questions regarding content safety

If you have any questions regarding content moderation on SkillsPlay, please reach out to us via the Customer Support contact form.

For more information about safety and trust, or to explore our term of use for the BrightGame platform, please go to our Trust centre.