Child Safety Standards
Effective 31 August 2026 · Eagmark · support@tyknit.net
Tyknit has zero tolerance for child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSAE). This page is our published standard, required of every app in Google Play’s Social category, and it describes what we prohibit, how Tyknit is built to keep children off the service entirely, how to report, and what we do when a report arrives.
Report child sexual abuse or exploitation
In the app, open any circle and go to Help & Safety → report a concern, or use Report on any message. Choose “Tyknit, privately” as the destination — that route goes straight to Tyknit’s safety team, and no circle officer is told the report exists, not even the officers of the circle it concerns. Selecting A child’s safety selects that route for you. You may report anonymously.
This matters because circle officers are ordinary members. If an officer is the person you are worried about — a relative running a family circle, for example — reporting to them would be the worst thing the app could do. So there is a route that does not pass through them.
By email, write to support@tyknit.net, our designated point of contact for child-safety matters. You do not need a Tyknit account to use it. You can also use the contact page and choose Child safety.
If a child is in immediate danger, contact your local emergency services first. In Kenya, Childline Kenya is free on 116.
What is absolutely prohibited
Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) in any form. Sexualisation of a minor, real or generated. Grooming, solicitation, sextortion, or any attempt to arrange contact with a child for sexual purposes. Trafficking of a minor. Sharing, requesting or linking to any of the above.
There is no context in which this is permitted on Tyknit, no warning step, and no second chance. An account involved in it is removed and reported.
Tyknit is an adults-only service
You must be 18 or older to hold a Tyknit account, as stated in our Terms of Service. Tyknit is not directed at children, is not designed for them, and we do not knowingly allow anyone under 18 to sign up.
This is enforced in the product, not only in policy. A child named in a family circle — a dependant a household is saving for — is added by an adult guardian as a record, not an account: no sign-in, no password, no chat, no vote, no ability to send or receive anything. A dependant cannot hold office and cannot be messaged. No child transmits or receives content on Tyknit.
If we learn that an account is held by someone under 18, we close it and delete the data.
Closed circles, not an open network
Tyknit has no public feed, no stranger discovery, no open direct messages and no follower graph. You cannot message someone you do not share a circle with. Membership comes only through a vouch: an existing member nominates you and stakes their own standing on it, a second member endorses, and the circle votes. Every member is accountable to people who know them by name.
This is the strongest structural protection we have. The grooming pattern that open social networks must police — an adult stranger reaching an unknown minor — has no route through Tyknit.
How we handle a report
Reports of CSAE go straight to Tyknit, not to a circle officer, and are treated as the highest priority we have. They are held in a separate store that no officer-facing part of the product can read, and they are shown to our safety stewards ahead of everything else.
When a report is substantiated we remove the content, terminate the account and any circle used to carry out the abuse, preserve the evidence as the law requires, and report to the appropriate authority — the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) where US reporting applies, and the relevant national authority elsewhere, including Kenya’s DCI Anti-Human Trafficking and Child Protection Unit. We cooperate fully with law-enforcement requests.
We do not require certainty before you report. If something worries you, send it.
Compliance and review
Tyknit complies with applicable child-safety law in the markets it serves, including Kenya’s Children Act and Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act, and with Google Play’s Child Safety Standards policy. These standards are reviewed at least annually and whenever the product changes in a way that affects them.
See also our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.