Complaints and appeals

How to tell us about illegal or harmful content on Topnote, ask us to look again at a decision, or complain about how we handle any of it. You do not need an account to complain.

What you can complain about

1. Content you think is illegal or breaks the community guidelines: a recipe, a comment, a profile, a phrase about how a recipe felt, or a suggestion written by AI.
2. A decision we made about your content or your account: something we removed, or an account we suspended. This is an appeal.
3. The automated word check stopping something it should not have.
4. How we handle any of this, if you think we are not meeting our duties under the UK Online Safety Act, including our duties to protect freedom of expression and privacy.

How to complain

• In the app: tap ••• on the recipe, comment or profile, choose Report, pick a reason and add any detail that helps. If you think the content is illegal, choose “Illegal content” (in an older version of the app, “Something else”, and say so in the detail): we review those first, within 24 hours.
• By email, with or without an account: support@topnoteshelf.app. Tell us what the content is, where it is (a screenshot or the recipe’s name and the author’s handle is enough), and why you are complaining.
• To appeal, reply to our message about the decision, send feedback from Settings in the app, or email us, within 30 days of the decision.

What happens next

• Content that may be illegal or harmful: within 24 hours. A person reviews it and decides whether it is illegal or breaks the guidelines. If it does, we take it down. Content involving the abuse of a child goes to the front of the queue and is reported to the National Crime Agency.
• Any other content: within 72 hours. A person reviews it against the guidelines.
• An appeal: decided within 7 days. A person looks at the decision again from the start. If we got it wrong, we put the content back or lift the suspension, and say so.
• The automated word check: within 7 days. A person looks at what you wrote. If the check was wrong, we tell you and adjust the word list where we can.
• How we handle safety: acknowledged within 3 working days, answered within 14 days. The person accountable for online safety at Topnote looks into it and replies with what we found and anything we are changing.

If you reported content, we tell you when a moderator has dealt with it. We do not tell you what happened to another person’s account. If we act on your content, the app shows you what was removed and which rule it broke.

We look at every complaint. Repeatedly sending reports you know to be false is itself a breach of the guidelines.

If you are not satisfied

Reply to our answer and say why. If you think we have broken our contract with you, you also have the right to bring proceedings in the courts, as the terms of service describe. Ofcom regulates online safety in the UK, and you can tell it about a problem with an online service at ofcom.org.uk/make-a-complaint.