Privacy is the foundation — not a shield for illegal activity.
4anonym is designed so people can participate under a random public identity without publishing a real name, phone number, contact list or precise location. We aim to collect and retain as little personal information as reasonably necessary to operate, secure and protect the service.
Anonymous to the crowd does not mean outside the law
Anonymity is intended to protect ordinary expression and privacy. It must not be used to threaten people, distribute illegal material, exploit minors, commit fraud, coordinate violence, sell prohibited goods, publish private information about another person, spread malware, or facilitate other unlawful activity.
Permanent posts, Flash Posts and disappearing messages
Regular posts are permanent by default and remain available until the author removes them or they are removed under our rules. Authors can instead publish a Flash Post that expires automatically after 24 hours or 5 days. Flash Posts are not intended for search-engine indexing.
Private messages are more ephemeral by default. A sender can choose 24 hours after viewing, View once, 5 days, or Keep. Messages set to 24 hours after viewing also have a five-day maximum lifetime if they are never opened. View-once messages are hidden after their first delivery to the recipient and are scheduled for deletion shortly afterward.
Automatic deletion may be paused for specific content when there is an active safety report, moderation review, or a lawful preservation obligation. This limited exception exists so disappearing content cannot be used to defeat abuse investigations or valid legal process.
What happens when illegal or dangerous content is detected
Content may be automatically censored, limited, held for review or removed. Accounts may lose posting or messaging privileges, receive temporary restrictions, or be permanently banned. Serious reports are prioritized for human review. Where preservation or disclosure is legally required, the platform may preserve relevant records and respond to valid legal process in accordance with applicable law.
Threats and abusive language
Posts, comments and messages pass through safety checks. Profanity may be automatically masked. Content that appears to contain credible threats, doxxing, exploitation or other high-risk material can be withheld from publication and placed in the moderation queue. Automated detection can make mistakes, so flagged material is designed to support human review rather than replace it.
What we do not want to build
We do not want an advertising profile about you. The application is not designed around contact harvesting, cross-site tracking, precise location histories or selling personal data. Aggregate counters and first-party actions such as likes, friendships and room memberships may be used to operate the feed and recommendations.
Security and abuse prevention
The service may use short-lived security signals and cryptographic hashes for rate limiting, spam prevention, account protection and ban enforcement. These controls are for security, not advertising. Raw network data should be retained only as required for normal server operation, security investigations or legal obligations.
Media privacy
Uploaded originals are stored separately. Web versions are re-encoded for performance, which also removes common EXIF and GPS metadata before they are displayed publicly.
Lawful requests and emergencies
We evaluate requests for user information for legal validity and scope. We do not promise that an account is technically impossible to investigate. Where the law requires disclosure, or where an emergency process permitted by law applies, the platform may take appropriate action.
Stay unknown to the crowd — not outside the law.
This policy must match the real production infrastructure and should be reviewed by qualified legal counsel before public launch.