The safety work should be ours

Every dating app has a safety page. It's usually a list of things you should remember to do, which is a strange way to describe a service. Here's what we took on instead.

You aren't browsable

There's no gallery of you for strangers to leaf through, because nobody leafs through anybody. That means no one can search for you, collect you, save your photos for later, or come back next month to see whether you've changed your mind.

You'll know who you're meeting in time to recognise them when you meet, and not weeks beforehand.

There's nowhere to be harassed

Moonflower has no message thread. It turns out that most of what makes dating apps miserable — the pestering, the escalation, the photograph nobody asked for — needs an inbox to happen in. So there isn't one.

Anything you genuinely need to say before meeting, like running slightly late, you can say. Everything else can wait until you're standing in front of each other.

Somewhere public, and it doesn't move

First dates happen out in the open, somewhere chosen to be a fair trip for both of you. Once it's set, it's set — nobody can nudge it somewhere quieter, later, or "back to mine", because the app simply doesn't offer a way to. No awkward refusal required, and nothing to negotiate.

Turning up is checked, not trusted

If someone leaves you standing in the cold, the app knows you were there and they weren't. That protects you twice: nobody can pretend you were the one who vanished, and being stood up isn't your word against theirs.

A plan is a plan

Both of you put something down when you agree to meet. Turn up and it goes towards the date; disappear and you lose it, and some of it goes to whoever you left waiting. Cancelling is always allowed — life happens — and the earlier you do it, the less it costs. It's remarkable what a small amount of consequence does to a no-show rate.

Who you'll be matched with

• Adults only, verified. 18+, checked, no exceptions and no clever ways around it.
• Badges are earned, never bought. You see the ones that matter before you agree to meet.
• People you already know can be kept out, so the app doesn't cheerfully introduce you to a colleague, an ex, or your sister.

If something goes wrong

Write to abuse@moonflower.social. It reaches a person, not a queue that closes itself after a week, and you don't need to be a user to use it.

Tell us what happened in your own words. If you can include when and where you were meant to meet, that helps us find the rest ourselves — but write first and worry about the details after. Nothing about how much you can remember changes whether we act.

If you're in immediate danger, call 999. We're not an emergency service and we'd rather say so plainly than let a page imply otherwise.

Found a vulnerability? security.txt, or security@moonflower.social. We'd much rather hear from you than from someone else.