Community and Comment Guidelines

1. The spirit of the community

GUAY.news was born as «the newspaper for people who don’t want to make their lives miserable». Comments are an extension of that idea: a place to celebrate what is good, add facts or experiences that enrich the story, say thank you, ask questions and meet other people who also believe it is worth telling what works.

We are not looking for everyone to think the same, nor for nobody to disagree. We are looking for friendly, useful and respectful conversations. You may disagree with a story or with another comment, provided you say so respectfully and contribute something.

These guidelines form part of the Terms and Conditions of Use, which you accept when you register or comment, and serve to inform you, in accordance with Article 14 of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 (the Digital Services Act, DSA), of the restrictions we apply to content, how we moderate, the automated tools we use and how you can complain.

2. Who can comment

• Registered users of the GUAY.news website or app, or people who comment by providing their name and a verified email address (we will send you a message to confirm that the address is yours before your first comment can be published).
• You must be at least 14 years old. If you are under 14, you may not register or comment. If we find that you are, we will remove your comments and, where applicable, your account.
• One person, one identity. Creating several accounts to evade a sanction, simulate support or multiply opinions is not allowed.
• The name you display may be your real name or a pseudonym, provided it does not impersonate another person or organisation and is not offensive or promotional.

The data we process when you comment (name, email address, comment text and IP address, which is anonymised after 180 days) are explained in the Privacy Policy.

3. What we moderate and why

We moderate for two different reasons, and we want you to be able to tell them apart:

• Illegal content: anything the law prohibits or that infringes other people’s rights. We always remove this, and in some cases we must report it to the authorities.
• Content incompatible with our editorial line: content that may be perfectly lawful but does not fit a good-news newspaper. As an editorial decision, GUAY.news excludes politics, war, crime and incidents, violence, negative economic news, religion, sex and gossip, and that exclusion also applies to comments. Nor do we allow gratuitous negativity: comments whose sole purpose is to discourage, ridicule, mock or «sour» the conversation without contributing anything.

Removing a comment for editorial reasons does not mean we consider it illegal or that we are censoring an idea: it means this is not the right place for it. There are many other places on the internet to debate politics or problems; this one is, deliberately, a space for something else.

4. Prohibited content

4.1. Illegal content or content infringing rights

• Hate speech and discrimination: incitement to hatred, hostility, discrimination or violence against people or groups on grounds of origin, ethnicity, nationality, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, illness, age or any other personal or social circumstance.
• Threats against anyone, and the glorification or justification of crimes or terrorism.
• Harassment and insults: personal attacks, humiliation, repeated harassment of another user or of the people featured in the stories.
• Defamation and other infringements of the honour, privacy or image rights of third parties (Spanish Organic Law 1/1982).
• Other people’s personal data: publishing addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, identity documents, health data, photographs or other private information about another person without their consent.
• Infringement of intellectual or industrial property: copying full texts from other outlets or authors, links to illegal downloads, misuse of trade marks.
• Advertising and spam: commercial messages, promotional or affiliate links, customer solicitation, repeated or automated messages, chain letters and pyramid schemes.
• Impersonation of individuals, companies, institutions or the GUAY.news newsroom itself.
• Health misinformation that may endanger other people’s health: promoting unproven treatments as substitutes for medical care, discouraging authorised treatments or vaccines without scientific basis, recommending doses or self-medication.
• Sexual content, whether explicit or suggestive, and, without exception, any content that sexualises minors.
• Violence: violent or graphic content, or content inciting self-harm or harm to others or to animals.
• Fraud and scams: attempts to deceive other users, impersonation for financial gain (phishing), fake offers.
• Malicious code or links to sites containing it.

4.2. Content outside our editorial line

• Comments about politics or political parties, or that turn a story into a political debate.
• Comments about wars, crime or violence, or that bring those topics into stories that do not deal with them.
• Gratuitous negativity, mockery, hurtful sarcasm or messages whose only aim is to discourage.
• Religious or ideological proselytising.
• Gossip about people’s private lives.
• Comments unrelated to the story (off-topic), written entirely in capital letters or illegible.

5. How we moderate: AI first, people always

5.1. Automated pre-publication moderation

All comments go through an automated moderation system based on artificial intelligence before they are published. This system analyses the text and may:

• approve it, if it detects no problem, in which case it is published;
• hold it for review by a person, if in doubt; or
• block it, if it clearly detects insults, political content, spam, gratuitous negativity or other content prohibited by these guidelines.

To analyse the text of comments we only use AI providers established in the EU/EEA or offering adequate safeguards under the General Data Protection Regulation, under a data processing agreement and without being able to use your comments to train their models. Details are set out in the Privacy Policy.

5.2. Human review

Members of the GUAY.news team review held comments, periodically supervise the automated system’s decisions and deal with notices and complaints. AI helps us handle volume, but it does not have the final say: you can ask for a person to review any block.

5.3. How to request human review

When one of your comments is blocked or held, you will see a notice stating the reason. From that notice, or by writing to info@guay.news stating the story, the approximate date and the text of the comment, you can ask for a person to review it. We will review it without undue delay and let you know the outcome. If we conclude that the block was wrong, we will publish the comment.

5.4. Limits of the system

No moderation system is perfect. AI may block a harmless comment (for example, because of irony or a word with a double meaning) or let an unsuitable one through. That is why human review, the option to request review and the reporting form exist.

6. Reactions

Next to each story you can react with «It makes me happy», «It inspires me», «It makes me smile» or «I’m sharing it». Reactions are anonymous and do not require registration: we do not link your reaction to your identity.

Precisely because they are anonymous, we ask that they be used in good faith. Manipulating the counts on a large scale or by automated means (scripts, bots, repeated reloading) is not allowed. We may apply technical limits, discard reactions we detect as artificial and block the technical source of the abuse. These measures do not affect people reacting normally.

7. Moderation decisions and sanctions

7.1. Possible measures

We apply measures in a graduated and proportionate way, taking into account the seriousness of the content, whether it is illegal or merely editorial, repetition and apparent intent:

Very serious breaches may directly lead to the most severe measure. Account measures are applied for just cause and without prejudice to your rights as a consumer (for example, regarding shop orders already placed), as set out in the Terms and Conditions of Use.

7.2. We explain every decision

In accordance with Article 17 of the DSA, when we remove or block one of your comments or restrict your account, we will provide you with a clear and specific statement of reasons indicating:

• the measure taken and, where applicable, its duration;
• the facts and circumstances on which it is based, including whether it follows a notice from a third party;
• whether automated means were used to detect the content or to take the decision;
• whether the content is considered illegal, with reference to the relevant law, or incompatible with these guidelines, with reference to the specific rule; and
• the redress options available to you.

We will not need to provide that explanation where we have no contact details for you or where the content is deceptive high-volume commercial content (spam).

7.3. Internal complaints

If you disagree with a decision, you can complain free of charge within six months by replying to the communication we send you or by writing to info@guay.news. Your complaint will be examined, wherever possible, by a person other than the one who took the decision, and will not be decided solely by automated means. We will inform you of our reasoned decision and, if we agree with you, we will reverse the measure without delay.

All of this is without prejudice to your right to go to the competent courts.

8. How to report illegal content

Any individual or entity, whether or not they have a GUAY.news account, may notify us of the presence of a comment or other content they consider illegal, in accordance with Article 16 of the DSA. Please use this form:

So that we can act quickly, your notice must include:

1. a sufficiently substantiated explanation of why you consider the content to be illegal;
2. the exact electronic location of the content (the URL of the story and the specific comment, or sufficient information to identify it);
3. your name and email address, except where the notice concerns offences relating to the sexual abuse or sexual exploitation of children, in which case it may be anonymous; and
4. a statement confirming that the information and allegations it contains are accurate and complete and that you are acting in good faith.

We will send you an acknowledgement of receipt, process the notice in a diligent, objective and non-arbitrary manner and inform you of our decision, stating whether automated means were used. Where a notice contains the above elements and allows the illegality to be identified without a detailed legal examination, we will be deemed to have actual knowledge of it for the purposes of our liability.

If the content you wish to report is not illegal but breaches these guidelines (for example, a political or off-topic comment), you can also use the form or the report option next to the comment. If you want to correct a GUAY.news story rather than a comment, see the Editorial and AI-Generated Content Disclaimer. If you are a media outlet, see the Intellectual Property and Sources Policy.

We may, after a warning, suspend for a reasonable period the processing of notices from anyone who repeatedly submits manifestly unfounded notices.

9. Cooperation with the authorities

We comply with orders to act against illegal content and orders to provide information issued by the competent judicial or administrative authorities, in accordance with Articles 9 and 10 of the DSA and Spanish law. If we become aware of information giving rise to a suspicion that a criminal offence involving a threat to the life or safety of persons has taken place, is taking place or is likely to take place, we will inform the competent authorities, in accordance with Article 18 of the DSA. The point of contact for the authorities of the Member States, the European Commission and the European Board for Digital Services is info@guay.news, in Spanish or English.

10. Your responsibility and ours

• Everyone is responsible for what they post. By commenting, you warrant that your comment is your own, that you have the right to publish it and that it does not breach the law or these guidelines. If a third party makes a claim concerning a comment of yours, the legal responsibility will be yours.
• Comments belong to the user, not to GUAY.news. They do not express the views of the newspaper or its team, and publishing them does not mean that we adopt them as our own or endorse their content.
• Our role with regard to comments is that of a hosting service. We do not review every comment from a legal standpoint and we are not liable for its content until we have actual knowledge of its illegality; once we do, we act diligently to remove it or disable access to it (Article 6 of the DSA). The fact that we voluntarily carry out preventive moderation does not alter that regime (Article 7 of the DSA).
• By posting a comment you grant us a free, non-exclusive, worldwide licence, for as long as the comment remains published, to display it on GUAY.news (website and app) alongside the story. The full conditions are set out in the Terms and Conditions of Use.

11. Comments and the right of reply

The right of reply under Spanish Organic Law 2/1984 is exercised against information published by the news outlet, not against readers’ opinions. It therefore does not apply to comments. If a comment affects you, contains false information about you, infringes your honour or privacy or is illegal for any other reason, you can report it using the procedure in section 8 and we will review it as a priority.

12. Tips for getting along

• Read the whole story (and, if you can, the original source) before commenting.
• Contribute: a fact, an experience, a question, a thank-you.
• If you disagree, disagree with the idea, not the person.
• Remember that behind every story there are real people, sometimes anonymous, who have done something good. Treat them as you would like to be treated.
• Do not share your own or other people’s personal data in a public comment.
• If you come across a comment that breaks these guidelines, do not reply: report it.
• On health topics, share your experience, but do not give other people medical advice.
• And above all, enjoy yourself. This is about feeling good.

13. Changes to these guidelines

We may update these guidelines to improve how the community works or to adapt them to legal changes. We will inform you of significant changes reasonably in advance through the site or the app. The version in force and its date always appear at the top of the document.

14. Contact

For any questions about these guidelines or a moderation decision, write to info@guay.news. The service is provided by WEBSITESYSEO S.L., Calle Antonio Rosón 1, 27002 Lugo (Spain), telephone 982 990 610.

This English version is provided for convenience. In the event of any discrepancy between the Spanish and English versions, the Spanish version shall prevail, unless mandatory consumer protection law provides otherwise.