VSCO is here to help you expand creatively — with tools, community, and exposure to help you develop your vision and share it with the world.
We believe in an authentic and trusting community that is and always will be creator-first. We designed VSCO as a safe space for photographers and other creators to express themselves with quality creative tools, find inspiration, and make meaningful connections. To support this, we have also incorporated tools that help creators control their experiences on the platform.
Many of our products and features, including community-focused features like Discussions and unlimited Messages, are reserved for our paid members (see here for more information about VSCO membership). We feel more strongly than ever that this encourages the positive behaviors and interactions that we desire for our creators and our community.
In order to keep our community a positive space for you and the rest of the VSCO community, we wanted to share some best practices to help ensure your interactions with others on VSCO are as safe as possible.
1. Sharing Content
People around the world share incredible content on VSCO that drives inspiration, connection, and exposure.
It’s important to always be thoughtful about what you share online, including on VSCO. When sharing content, consider your audience and the potential impact. All content posted to VSCO should be compliant with our Community Guidelines.
Our mission is to nurture creativity to help creators make it. To support this, all content posted to your VSCO profile is public to our community.
If your content is a draft edit or something you want to share only with select clients or connections, consider posting it to a private VSCO Space or, if you are a Pro Member, using VSCO Client Spaces, so you can better control who sees your content.
Our approach to privacy and safety is specialized to the needs of our creators, and that includes giving creators control over their own content. For more information, see How to Manage Your Content on VSCO.
2. Connecting with Others
While some creators are on VSCO to create content, others may come to VSCO to be inspired, connect with others, or improve their photography skills.
Before following or accepting someone as a connection, view their VSCO profile and look for the following:
- Do they have a profile photo and shared content?
- Are they someone you have met before?
- Do you want to have them in your personal or professional community?
- Is there anything suspicious about their profile, content, or behavior?
- Does their content follow our Community Guidelines?
Operate with caution when interacting with anyone you don’t know well. Be mindful of potential scammers and people who scrape others’ content. For information on blocking and reporting, see below.
3. Engaging in Discussions
VSCO Discussions allow our paid members to interact with one another by engaging in conversations on posts in Feed. We included controls for your interactions that allow you to enable or disable Discussions on each of your posts depending on your preference, and engage in the way that feels right for you.
Before participating in Discussions, take a moment to consider your potential impact. To ensure you foster thoughtful engagement and a positive environment, keep the Discussions kind, considerate, and relevant to the conversation. Do not share any private or personal information about yourself or others.
If you experience someone engaging in harmful or inappropriate Discussions, you can delete or report the response, or block the individual via our options menu.
For more information see Keeping Discussions Safe.
4. Managing Messages
VSCO Messages allow our community to find, connect, and interact with others. VSCO creators can start unlimited conversations with other creators who follow them and up to three conversations per day with creators who don’t follow them. Paid VSCO Members can send unlimited messages to anyone on VSCO.
While we strive to promote a positive environment in Messages, not everyone operates in online communities with the best intentions. Spam, scams, and even sextortion can happen anywhere.
Someone offering you money from the start is a good indicator that it may be a scam. For example, be on the lookout for creators offering money in exchange for your work as inspiration, for you being a sugar baby, or for a modeling contract.
Do not share any private information (including financial information) or content with anyone you do not know. If something sounds too good to be true, it most likely is.
If you feel you may be interacting with a scammer, you have the option to mute messages, leave a conversation, and report and block the account via our options menu.
For more information, see Staying Safe with Messages and Messages Red Flags and How to Spot Them.
5. Blocking & Reporting
Blocking is a critical safety tool on VSCO that allows you to restrict who can see and interact with you on VSCO. A creator you block cannot follow you, message you, join a VSCO Space you’ve created, view content on your profile, or interact with your content anywhere on the platform.
If someone is violating our Community Guidelines or making you feel uncomfortable in any way, you can opt to block future interactions with them.
For more information, see Blocking on VSCO.
Each and every creator in the VSCO community can play a role in keeping our community safe. We encourage you to actively report any issues you may experience on VSCO.
If you come across harmful or inappropriate content or behavior on our platform, please report it. This helps us prevent future harms and ensure our community is as safe as possible.
For more information, see How to Report Inappropriate Content on VSCO.
To learn more, visit our Safety Center for helpful articles and resources.
We appreciate you doing your part to keep our VSCO community a safe and trusted one! Thank you for being a valued part of our community at VSCO.
Last Updated December 2024