Legal

Moderation Policy

How MARANOTE LTD (the operator of LanceRank) decides whether to restrict, hide, demote, or remove content — and how you can challenge a decision.

Effective 27 May 2026 · Aligned with EU Digital Services Act Regulation (EU) 2022/2065

1. Scope and definitions

This policy covers every category of content we host or surface on lancerank.com:

Reviews — direct invited reviews and mirrored platform reviews
Offline projects — vouched (client-confirmed) and pending
Profile content — bio, location, skills, headline, links
Claim flow content — name, email, identity proofs
Reports submitted via lancerank.com/report

Private support correspondence and scraped public platform data are governed by our Privacy Policy rather than this moderation policy.

2. Prohibited content

Content that, in our reasonable judgment, falls into any of the categories below may be restricted. The list below mirrors §4 and §5 of our Terms of Service:

Fake, fabricated, or compensated reviews
Impersonation of another freelancer, client, or third party
Defamation — statements presented as fact that are demonstrably false and damaging
Doxxing or sharing of personal data without consent
Copyright or trademark infringement
Spam, malware, phishing, or scams
Hate speech, harassment, or sexual content
Content illegal under EU or relevant Member-State law
Manipulation of the LanceRank Score (vote rings, reciprocal vouching, etc.)

3. How we detect violations

User reports (DSA Art. 16): anyone, with or without an account, can flag content via lancerank.com/report. Reports are acknowledged by email with a tracking number; decisions are normally made within 5 working days.

Trusted-flagger channel (DSA Art. 22): reports from rights-holders, certified bodies, and law-enforcement contacts at [email protected] receive priority handling.

Automated fraud-detection signals: our internal anti-fraud system (codename "Sentinel") looks for named patterns — IP overlap between reviewer and freelancer, reciprocal vouches, velocity spikes, name-match anomalies, cooldown violations. These signals never restrict content on their own; they surface candidate items for a human moderator to review.

Verification gates: the claim flow, identity verification, and review-screenshot mirror check filter out malformed or suspect submissions before they appear publicly.

4. Actions we may take

When we decide to act, the action is recorded in an internal audit log and (where it restricts a recipient's content) a Statement of Reasons is sent to the affected user.

No action — report dismissed; content stays
Demote — search/ranking visibility lowered without removal
Edit required — republish gated on the author fixing the issue
Reject — review excluded from Score, hidden from profile
Hide profile — public profile returns 404 and is omitted from search
Delete — irreversible removal, processed via a cron with cooldown

5. How decisions are made

Every restriction is decided by a human moderator who reviews the evidence, including any automated fraud-detection signals that flagged the item. Automated tools never finalise a moderation action on their own.

Consistency is enforced by per-category playbooks, quick-pick rejection reasons mapped to ToS sections / GDPR articles / DSA articles, and an immutable audit log on every action.

Where the LanceRank Score is recalculated as a consequence of a moderation action (e.g. a fake review is removed), the recalculation is documented in the profile's score-history trail.

6. Your redress options

Every Statement of Reasons we send describes how to challenge the decision. You have three independent paths:

Internal complaint (DSA Art. 20) — free, handled by a different moderator, decided within 7 working days, available for 6 months after the original action.
Out-of-court ADR (DSA Art. 21) — via the Cyprus Out-of-Court Adjudication Body for Consumer Disputes (ADR Cyprus) or a certified body in your EU Member State.
Judicial review — your local courts, in addition to or instead of the above.

Single contact for moderation matters: [email protected] (DSA Art. 11–12 single point of contact, English).

Version 1.0 · Last updated 27 May 2026