Community Guidelines

Last updated: 18 April 2026

Downshift is for people who love driving and riding. Cars, bikes, scooters — if you love the feeling of a good drive, this is your place.

These guidelines are short on purpose. They describe what we want Downshift to feel like, what we won’t allow, and what happens when something goes wrong. We’d rather keep things simple and enforce them consistently than write a law book that nobody reads.

The big idea: We celebrate the drive, not the speed.A beautiful backroad in the fog matters more than a number on a dashboard. Share what you love about being out on the road — the machine, the route, the weather, the people you ride with — and let others share theirs.

1. What Downshift is for

• Recording and sharing the journeys you’re proud of.
• Showing off the machine you’ve built, bought, or borrowed.
• Discovering roads, routes, and riders you’d never have found otherwise.
• Talking to other enthusiasts about the things you all love.

If your post fits one of those, you’re in the right place.

2. What isn’t welcome here

We won’t allow the following. Content that breaks these rules will be removed, and depending on how serious it is, the account may be warned, suspended, or permanently banned.

2.1 Hate and harassment

• No hate speech. That means no attacks on people based on race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, age, or any other protected characteristic.
• No targeted harassment, pile-ons, or coordinated hostility towards another user.
• No slurs, no dehumanising language, no “jokes” that hide behind being jokes.
• No threats — explicit, implied, or winking. If someone would reasonably feel threatened, don’t post it.

2.2 Sexual content and child safety

• Absolutely no sexual content involving minors, in any form, ever. This is reported to the Internet Watch Foundation and the NCA without exception and may lead to criminal prosecution.
• No sexually explicit content. Downshift is a driving app, not an adult platform.
• No “intimate images” shared without the subject’s consent (sometimes called “revenge porn”). This is illegal in the UK and will be treated as such.

2.3 Dangerous driving and riding

This one matters a lot, so we’re going to be specific.

• No content that encourages or glorifies driving that puts others in danger. Street racing, running from the police, riding in traffic at reckless speeds, filming yourself doing things that would lose you your licence — none of it.
• No speed bragging. We don’t have leaderboards, we don’t rank users by how fast they went, and we don’t want the comments section to turn into one. Your top speed isn’t part of the culture we’re building.
• No content that glorifies driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
• Track days, closed-road events, and organised motorsport are fine — say so in the description if you’re on a track and it isn’t obvious from the video.

This isn’t about being the fun police. It’s about the kind of community we want Downshift to be. If the first thought on reading a post is “someone’s going to get hurt”, it doesn’t belong here.

2.4 Illegal activity

• No content that promotes terrorism or violent extremism.
• No content encouraging the sale or use of illegal drugs, weapons, stolen vehicles, or stolen parts.
• No fraud — that includes fake listings, pretending to be someone else, and scams of any kind.
• No incitement to violence against people, groups, or property.

2.5 Other people’s stuff

• Don’t upload other people’s photos and pass them off as your own.
• Don’t post other people’s private information — addresses, phone numbers, workplaces, car parking spots, anything they haven’t chosen to share.
• Don’t record other people without their knowledge or consent where they’d expect privacy.
• Number plates of cars you don’t own shouldn’t be shared without the owner’s consent — blur them out, or leave them out of the shot.

2.6 Spam, bots, and nonsense

• Don’t post the same thing over and over.
• Don’t use Downshift to promote something unrelated to cars, bikes, or driving.
• Don’t run automated accounts. Real people only.
• Don’t buy, sell, or trade accounts, handles, or follower counts.

2.7 Platform abuse

• Don’t try to bypass a block, a suspension, or a removal by creating a new account.
• Don’t try to break or exploit the app. If you think you’ve found a security bug, email security@dshft.com — we’d love to hear from you and we will thank you properly.
• Don’t impersonate other users, other people, or Downshift itself.

3. What we do about it

Every report gets looked at by a human. We commit to reviewing every report within 24 hours.

Depending on what was reported, one of the following happens:

We don’t have a strict “three strikes” system. Every decision is a human judgement call — we look at how serious it was, whether there’s a pattern, and what feels right for the community. If something you did was wrong, we’ll explain why.

3.1 Priority illegal content

A small set of content gets acted on immediately, without warning, and with no exceptions:

• Child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
• Content promoting terrorism or proscribed organisations.
• Credible, specific threats of violence.
• Intimate images shared without consent.

In these cases, the content is removed straight away and the account is usually banned. Where required by law, we refer the content and the account to the relevant authority — for CSAM that’s the Internet Watch Foundation and the NCA’s CEOP team; for terrorism content it’s the Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit.

4. How to report something

4.1 From inside the app

• Tap the … menu on a profile, a journey, or a comment.
• Pick Report.
• Choose a reason and add a note if it helps us understand the context.
• Tap submit. You’ll see a small confirmation. We won’t tell you the outcome — partly to protect the reporter, partly to protect the reported person if it turns out the report wasn’t accurate.

You can also blockany user from the same menu. Blocking is instant, symmetrical, and doesn’t notify the other person. When you block someone, you both disappear from each other’s app — no journeys, no profile, no search results, no mentions.

4.2 By email

• Email support@dshft.comwith what you’re reporting and why.
• We read every email and respond within 24 hours.
• If you’re not a Downshift user, this is how you get in touch with us — you don’t need an account to ask us to take something down.

4.3 What about emergencies?

If someone is in immediate danger, call 999in the UK. We can act on content and we can preserve evidence, but we can’t replace an emergency service. If you’re worried about yourself or someone you know around self-harm, Samaritans are there 24/7 — 116 123 (free) or jo@samaritans.org.

5. Appeals

We’re going to get some decisions wrong. When that happens, we want to hear about it.

If we took action against your content or your account, you can appeal within 30 days:

1. Email support@dshft.comwith the subject “Moderation appeal”.
2. Include your handle, what was removed or what action was taken, and why you think the decision was wrong.
3. Someone who was not involved in the original decision will review it.
4. We’ll respond within 14 days.

If your account has been suspended, the suspension screen in the app has a “Contact support” button that pre-fills everything — you don’t need to remember the email address.

Appeals aren’t just a box-ticking exercise. If we got something wrong, we’ll say so, reverse the decision, and restore the content if it’s still within the 30-day restore window.

6. A note on children and young people

Downshift is for users aged 16 and over.

If you’re 16–17, there are a few extra things to know:

• Your journeys are never shown to others with your house or starting point attached — we automatically blur a randomised distance (between 150 and 300 metres) from the start and end of every route for everyone, including you. You can’t turn it off, and neither can anyone else.
• We don’t collect any product analytics on users under 18. Not for marketing, not for “understanding our audience”, not at all.
• Please read this document and our privacy policy (dshft.com/privacy) with a parent or trusted adult if you can. A lot of this stuff is worth talking about.

If you’re a parent or guardian and you have concerns about a young person using Downshift, you can reach us at privacy@dshft.com. We’d rather have the conversation.

7. How these guidelines might change

We’ll update these guidelines from time to time — to clarify things, to respond to feedback, or to reflect changes in the law.

• Small changes(clearer wording, fixing a typo): we’ll just update the page.
• Bigger changes(new rules, changes to enforcement): we’ll give you 30 days’ notice in the app and / or by email before they take effect.

The page at dshft.com/community-guidelines is the authoritative version. The “Last updated” date at the top of this document tells you when it last changed.

8. How to get in touch

• For reports or moderation questions: support@dshft.com
• For privacy and data questions: privacy@dshft.com
• For security bugs: security@dshft.com
• For everything else: hello@dshft.com

We read everything. We respond within 24 hours to reports, and usually within a few days to everything else.

Thanks for being part of Downshift. Now go find a good road.

This policy was last reviewed on 18 April 2026.