Terms of use

Last updated 2026-10-21

These terms of use are the agreement between you and Council for using Council, on councilwhat.com and in the Council app. Please read them: you'll be asked to accept them before you use Council signed in, and again whenever they change in a way that matters. If you don't accept them, please don't use Council. The house rules further down are part of these terms.

1. Who we are

Council is run by the people behind it, called "Council", "we" and "us" in these terms. "You" means the person using Council. You can reach us at support@councilwhat.com about anything in these terms.

Council is used around the world, so these terms are written with the laws of the European Union, the United States, China and Russia in mind, along with the laws of everywhere else Council is used. Section 24 says how that works.

2. Who can use Council

You must be at least 13 years old to use Council. Council asks for your date of birth, and doesn't accept one that makes you younger than 13. An account whose date of birth is under 13 can't be used, and if we learn that an account belongs to someone under 13, we may close it.

If the law where you live says you need a parent's or guardian's permission to use a service like this at your age, you need that permission before you use Council. In some countries that is everyone under 14, 15 or 16.

Some things are for people 18 and over. If you are under 18:

• you can ask your own questions and read every answer they get;
• you can't answer other people's questions;
• you can't add photos or videos;
• your anonymous inbox link is closed;
• you can't buy paid extras;
• your questions are never shown to search engines, and their preview pictures carry no words from them.

These limits lift on your 18th birthday. Your date of birth must be true. If it isn't, we may limit or close your account.

3. Your account

You can sign in with an email address and password, with a passkey, or with Google, Microsoft or Facebook where those are offered. When you use one of those companies to sign in, their own terms apply to that part.

• Keep your sign-in details to yourself. You are responsible for what happens on your account.
• One person per account, and one account is enough. Don't share, sell or hand over your account.
• Give true information, and keep your email address up to date if you use one.
• Tell us at support@councilwhat.com if you think someone else has used your account.

For your safety you are signed out after 30 minutes without using Council, and a sign-in lasts at most 30 days. If you forget your password, you can reset it by email.

When you sign up with an email address, we send a link to confirm it. If it isn't confirmed within 2 hours, the new account is deleted, along with anything in it.

Usernames are optional. A username is 3 to 20 lowercase letters, numbers or underscores, starting with a letter, and must not pretend to be someone else, use someone's real name without their agreement, or break the house rules. We may change or take back a username that does.

4. What Council is for

Council is a place to ask for honest views on decisions you're facing, to help other people with theirs, to share what's on your mind, to send and receive anonymous messages, and to read books of faith and spend a few quiet minutes with them. Use it in good faith, for yourself, and with care for the people on the other side of the screen.

5. Asking and answering

• Questions and answers can be seen by anyone using Council. Your username appears on what you post if you have one and leave it switched on; otherwise it is posted without a name. Switching it off only changes what you post afterwards.
• Every question has its own web page that anyone with the link can open. When the link is pasted somewhere, a preview picture shows the question and how many have answered.
• Search engines may list a question once it has an answer, unless you turn that off, when you ask or at any time afterwards. Turning it off asks them to drop the page; how quickly they do is up to them.
• A question in the Spiritual / Faith category can be put to one faith community, and then only its members can answer it. You can always reply to answers on your own question.
• Anyone can mark an answer Helpful, once, and take it back, with or without an account. Without one, your browser keeps a random key so the vote counts once from that device, and Council keeps only a scrambled copy of that key beside the vote, with nothing else about you. Those votes aren't linked to any account, and clearing your browser's storage forgets the key. Only the number is shown, never who voted. Signed in, you can't vote on your own answers.
• Once a question has many answers, Council may show a short summary above them (see section 10).
• Some conversations on Council were written by Council itself, to show how it works. They are examples, not posts by members.

You can switch off notifications for a question, and delete what you posted (see section 18).

6. Stories

Stories are anonymous unless you choose to put your name on one.

• You can delete a story from the device you posted it on at any time.
• An anonymous story is linked to your account for 10 minutes after you post it, so that you can edit it or delete it from your account. Then the link is erased for good: nothing in Council connects the story to you, nobody, including us, can tell it was you, and it can't be edited any more. You can still delete it from the device that holds its key.
• If you put your name on a story, your name shows on it for 3 days, and you can edit it during that time. Then your name comes off and the link is erased in the same way. The story stays up, anonymous like the rest.
• Council's automatic backups are kept for about a week, so a backup made before the link was erased still holds it until that backup is replaced.
• Other people can reply to a story, and you stay anonymous when they do. Replies you write under a story, your own included, are replies like any other.
• Stories are never shown to search engines.
• Some stories on Council were written by Council itself, to show what Stories is for. They are examples, not posts by members.
• Posting a story needs a confirmed email address when Council asks you to confirm one.

Anonymous doesn't mean anything goes. What a story says can still identify someone, you included, so don't write anything that names or exposes another person (see section 13).

7. Anonymous messages and DMs

Your link (councilwhat.com/@yourname) lets anyone send you a message without an account or a name. You choose what it asks: one of Council's prompts, your own, or a vote.

• Messages sent to you are visible only to you. You can delete them, report them, and share them as pictures.
• Council doesn't collect who sent a message, so it can't tell you. Please don't ask us to.
• If you send a message, you are responsible for it. You see it before it goes, and Council's automatic checks apply to it as to everything else.
• Don't use anonymous messages to harass, threaten or frighten anyone. That is still breaking these terms, with or without a name on it.

Inboxes are closed for people under 18.

8. Photos, videos and audio

If you are 18 or over, you can add photos (up to 8 MB), videos (up to 25 MB) and audio, such as a voice note you record in Council (up to 15 MB), to what you post. Only post photos, videos and audio you made, or have the right to share, and never show or record anyone who hasn't agreed to it.

Council removes the details a file carries about where and on what it was made, such as a photo's location or a recording's title. It can't change what a photo shows or how a voice sounds: your voice can be recognised even when your name isn't on the post.

Anyone who can see your post can view or play your photos, videos and audio and save copies of them to their device, and Council can't take back a copy someone has already saved. Think before you post anything you might want to take back.

9. Religion Wise and Reflections

• Religion Wise is a library of books of faith, free for anyone to read, signed in or not. Every text is a public-domain or openly licensed translation, shown as it was published, with where it came from. Some texts can be read beside their original language.
• Being in the library is not an endorsement of any religion or belief, and Council is not a religious authority. Old translations carry their translators' choices and sometimes their mistakes.
• You can choose a religion, change it or remove it at any time. Choosing one is optional. It is used to pick your daily meditation and verse of the day, and you can join faith communities.
• Reflections offers a daily meditation, a quiet pause and a question to sit with. What you keep in Sitting with, and your bookmarks, highlights and notes in the library, are visible only to you.

10. Things written automatically

Some things on Council are written automatically by an AI system, not by a person, and are labelled as written automatically where they appear:

• the daily fact comparing traditions in Religion Wise;
• the Council Summary shown above a thread with many answers, made from the answers in that thread;
• the choice of which daily notification to send you, among the kinds you asked for.

To write a summary, the answers in that thread are given to the AI system. Automatic writing can be wrong or miss what matters. Read it as a starting point, never as advice, and never as the view of the people who answered.

11. Notifications and email

• Council sends notifications only if you turn them on, and only of the kinds you choose. You can turn them off in Profile or in your device's settings.
• If someone answers your question and a notification can't reach you, Council may email you instead, at a confirmed address, at most once every six hours for each question. The email shows the start of your question, never the answer.
• Council also sends the emails an account needs: confirming your address, resetting your password, and confirming that you want your account deleted.

12. What you post: yours, and what you let us do with it

What you write and upload stays yours. So that Council can work, you give Council a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free permission, for as long as it is on Council, to store it, copy it, show it and send it to people using Council and to the places these terms describe: its own web page, link previews, and search engines where you've allowed them. That includes changing its format (for example resizing a photo or drawing a preview picture), and using it to write a Council Summary.

When you delete something, this permission ends, except that:

• copies other people already saved, shared or downloaded are out of our hands;
• copies in Council's automatic backups go when those backups are replaced, within about a week;
• something removed for breaking these terms may be kept as long as the law requires or allows for dealing with it;
• counts with nothing in them that says who or what (how many questions were asked in a week, for example) may be kept.

You promise that you have the right to post what you post, and that it doesn't break the law or these terms. If you send us ideas or feedback, we may use them without owing you anything.

13. What you must not do

On Council, and through anything Council offers, you must not:

• harass, bully, threaten, intimidate or stalk anyone, or encourage others to;
• attack people for their race, ethnicity, nationality, religion or belief, sex, gender, sexuality, disability, age or any other part of who they are;
• post anything sexual involving anyone under 18, ever. We report it to the authorities;
• post sexual or pornographic content, or graphic violence or gore;
• encourage or give instructions for suicide, self-harm or eating disorders;
• threaten, promote or praise violence or terrorism, or help anyone carry it out;
• share someone else's private information (their name, address, workplace, photos, messages or anything else that identifies them) without their agreement, including inside an anonymous story;
• try to find out who wrote something anonymous, or help anyone else to;
• pretend to be another person or organisation, or misrepresent who you are or your experience in a way meant to mislead;
• post spam, scams, chain messages, pyramid schemes, or advertising nobody asked for;
• post anything illegal, or help anyone break the law;
• post content that infringes anyone's copyright, trademark or other rights;
• deliberately post false information meant to cause harm;
• use fake accounts, vote rings or anything else to game Helpful votes, Boosts, search or the feed;
• get round a limit, block, ban or age restriction, or make a new account after being removed;
• use bots, scrapers or any automated way to access, copy or post to Council without our written permission;
• try to break into, probe, overload or disrupt Council, or upload viruses or other harmful code;
• collect information about other people using Council;
• misuse the report button, or report people to harass them;
• use Council to sell or advertise without our written permission;
• use anything Council shows you to harm the person it came from.

The house rules below spell out what gets something taken down.

14. Advice here is people's opinion, and Council is not an emergency service

Answers on Council come from other people sharing their own views and experience. They are not professional advice of any kind: not medical, mental health, legal, financial, religious or any other professional advice, and Council doesn't check them. When someone says they have an experience, that is their word, and Council doesn't verify it. Decisions you make are yours.

If something you write sounds like you might be in danger, Council may hold it back and show you where to get help straight away. That check is automatic and imperfect: it will sometimes hold things that are fine and miss things that aren't. Never rely on it.

Council is not a crisis service. If you or anyone else is in danger, contact your local emergency number or a crisis line now.

15. How posts are checked, and reporting

• What you post and send is checked automatically as it goes. Some of it is held back until a person has looked at it; most goes up straight away and is only looked at if it's reported.
• Use Report on any question, answer, reply, story or message that worries you. Please don't assume someone else already has.
• Every removal is recorded against one of the house rules. If something of yours was removed and you think that was a mistake, write to support@councilwhat.com and it will be looked at again by a person.
• Council may remove anything that breaks these terms or the law, and may limit, suspend or close accounts that do.

16. What's free, and what you can pay for

Asking and answering are free, and stay free. There is no subscription and no trial. On a question of your own that is still open, you can pay once for:

• a Council Boost, which keeps the question at the top of the feed: US$3 for a day, US$5 for three days. Another Boost adds to the time left;
• hearing only from people with an experience, US$3: from then on, only people who say in their Profile that it's true of them can answer, and their answers carry that tag. Answers given before you paid stay.

• Prices are shown before you pay. Payment is handled by Stripe, and Council never sees your card details. Stripe's own terms apply to the payment.
• Paid extras are only for people 18 and over.
• Paying doesn't guarantee any number of answers, or any answers at all. People describe their own experience and Council doesn't check it.
• What you pay for starts as soon as the payment is confirmed. Where the law gives you a right to cancel a digital service within a set time (14 days in the European Union, for example), you agree that it starts straight away and that the right to cancel ends once it has been fully provided. Any right the law gives you that can't be taken away still applies.
• If something you paid for didn't happen, tell us at support@councilwhat.com and we'll put it right or refund you. If a question is removed for breaking these terms, what was paid for it isn't refunded.

17. Advertising

Council may show advertising, kept apart from what people post. Showing an ad doesn't mean Council recommends what it advertises. Nothing is shown inside the books you read.

18. Your information, and deleting it

The privacy policy explains what Council collects, why, and how long it's kept. Depending on where you live, laws such as the EU's General Data Protection Regulation, US state privacy laws like California's, China's Personal Information Protection Law and Russia's law on personal data give you rights over your information: to see it, correct it, get a copy, object to how it's used, or have it deleted. Write to support@councilwhat.com to use them.

• Delete your own posts at any time. A deletion can be undone for a few minutes, then it's gone from Council for good, and from Council's automatic backups within about a week.
• "Delete everything I've written", in the Menu, erases every question, answer and story of yours that can still be linked to you, and keeps your account.
• You can delete your account from Profile. Council emails you a link to confirm (when it can send email), and the account and everything linked to it are then erased: your posts, your messages, what you kept, your bookmarks, highlights and Helpful votes. A record that a payment was made is kept, as the law requires, without saying whose it was. Stories whose link to you has been erased (10 minutes after posting, or 3 days for one with your name on it) can't be linked to you, so they can only be deleted from the device that holds their key.
• What Council keeps on your device to let you carry on where you left off goes after 30 days, or sooner.

19. Ending your use of Council

You can stop using Council at any time, and delete your account whenever you like.

Council may suspend or close your account, or stop you using part of it, if you break these terms or the law, if you put other people or Council at risk, or if the law requires it. Where we can, we'll tell you why. If your account is closed, the permission in section 12 ends as described there, and sections 12, 14 and 20 to 25 still apply.

20. Council as it is

Council is free to use and is offered as it is and as available. We work to keep it running, accurate and secure, but we can't promise it will always be available, free of mistakes, or that nothing will ever be lost. Keep your own copy of anything that matters to you.

Council may change, add, pause or stop any feature, or Council itself. If we stop Council altogether, we'll say so in advance where we can, and refund anything paid for and not yet provided.

21. Limits on our responsibility

As far as the law allows, Council is not responsible for:

• what other people post, send or do, on Council or because of it;
• decisions you make because of anything on Council, including answers, summaries and texts;
• losses that are indirect or that nobody could have expected, such as lost profit, lost data or lost opportunities;
• anything outside our reasonable control, such as power cuts, failures of other services or the internet, or actions of governments.

As far as the law allows, Council's total responsibility to you for anything is limited to the larger of what you paid Council in the 12 months before the problem, or US$50.

Nothing in these terms limits responsibility that the law doesn't allow to be limited, such as for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or your rights as a consumer where you live.

22. If you cause a problem

As far as the law where you live allows, if you break these terms or someone's rights and Council faces a claim, costs or losses because of it, you are responsible for them.

23. Other people's rights, and copyright

If you think something on Council infringes your copyright or other rights, or is illegal, use Report or write to support@councilwhat.com. Say what it is, where it is (a link is best), why you think it's unlawful, and how to reach you. We look at every notice, act on it promptly, and close the accounts of people who repeatedly infringe others' rights.

Services Council works with (sign-in with Google, Microsoft or Facebook, payments by Stripe, and links people post) are run by others, under their own terms. Council isn't responsible for them.

24. Laws around the world

These terms are written to respect the laws of the European Union, the United States, China and Russia, and of everywhere else Council is used. You must follow the laws that apply where you are when you use Council.

• If the law where you live gives you rights these terms don't mention, or doesn't allow something these terms say, that law wins, and nothing here takes away a right that law gives you.
• If any part of these terms can't be enforced where you live, the rest still applies.
• If you have a problem with Council, please write to support@councilwhat.com first, and we'll try to sort it out. You can also go to the courts or consumer bodies where you live, where the law gives you that right.
• If we don't enforce part of these terms straight away, that doesn't mean we've given it up.

25. Changes to these terms

These terms may change as Council changes, or as the law does. When they change in a way that matters, the date at the top changes, and you'll be asked to accept the new version the next time you use Council signed in. If you don't accept it, you can sign out and stop using Council, and delete your account if you want to. If you want an earlier version, ask us.

26. Contact

Questions about these terms, notices about content, or anything else: support@councilwhat.com.

House rules

What gets a post taken down. Every removal names one of these.

• Cruelty: Attacking, mocking or demeaning a person rather than engaging with what they said.
• Hate: Contempt aimed at people for who they are: their race, nationality, sex, or background.
• Not in keeping with this community: Content that has no place in a Christian space, including mockery of faith or of people bringing it something painful.
• Harmful advice: Counsel that would put someone in danger, or that treats a crisis as something to handle alone.
• Explicit content: Sexual or graphic material. A story can name what happened without describing it.
• Spam or promotion: Advertising, link-dropping, or repeated posting that isn't part of a conversation.
• Exposing someone: Naming or identifying a real person who did not choose to be written about here.
• Doctrinal misuse: Using scripture to coerce, condemn or manipulate someone rather than to help them.
• Pretending to be someone: Claiming to be a particular person, a pastor or counsellor you aren't, or anyone speaking for Council.
• Asking for money: Soliciting money, donations or payment from anyone here, however the request is dressed up. Someone who has just written about their hardest week should not be approached for it.

Terms of use · Privacy policy