Trust & Safety

Prioritizing
Trust & Safety 

Scribd, Inc. is on a mission to become the world’s living collection of information and inspiration. We believe that access to information expands us as individuals and elevates us as a society.

We do that with Everand – an ever-expanding library of stories, bestsellers, and original voices. Through Scribd – a user-generated document library of community-provided knowledge, and with Slideshare – a learning library of expertise and education in slide form. Three different products that all strive to spark human curiosity.

We consider source documents vital to critical thinking and a healthy public discourse. Great stories have the power to enrich, comfort, inform, inspire, and evolve us. Expertise demands to be valued, showcased, and shared.

We believe the written & spoken word is fundamental to everything we can accomplish as a species, and our broad collection (250M+ and counting across platforms) has the ability to create connections. In order to do this the right way, we hold ourselves accountable to the following principles. 

Safety

We leverage a mix of human and automated methods to review and best ensure the content you see on our platforms complies with our Community Rules, the goal of which is to provide a safe space for our users to exchange and consume information.  When we become aware of a piece of content that potentially violates our Rules we take appropriate actions – investigating and removing the content if needed.

Human-forward methods we employ include our user reporting features, while automated ones include the use of AI to scan documents and extract potential violations. We also use proprietary technology we’ve developed such as BookID, an automated copyright protection system designed to protect intellectual property. 

Balance

We want your content experience with us to be just as thoughtful as it is expansive, so we strive to find the right balance between free expression and keeping our community safe. That's why we’ve created clear and fair guidelines and experiences, focused on preventing harm in various forms – whether that be through illegal content, exploitation, sharing of personal information, misrepresentation, piracy, or harassment, and more. Our north star is to deliver knowledge, information, and inspiration to people all over the world, and we want an environment where different voices can be heard without putting user safety or rights at risk, encouraging a free flow of ideas while still respecting legal and ethical standards.

Access

More than ever, we live in an often divided world. We are surrounded by varying beliefs on just about everything. Our library will not be the decider of who is right or wrong, whose beliefs are more sound, what does or does not deserve air time. We understand that in today’s world of editorializations, hot takes, misinformation, censorship, book bans, and more, this may feel rare and at times provoke discourse or even discomfort. But we believe this is at the core of the institution of the library itself and what’s made it stand the test of time. A library doesn’t discriminate, it doesn’t sugarcoat – it offers the materials the world has produced, for the world to consume. It is up to you to decide what to do with what you’ve gained from it.

Nearly a billion people visit our platforms each year and millions of customers have found immense value in subscribing to our products – whether it’s learning from a document, relaxing with a new book, sharing their research or inevitably growing along the way. This is possible because of our communities’ willingness to share, connect and hold space for each other.

Access may be at the center of what we offer, but creating opportunity for connection — arguably one of the most important and special parts of being human – is at our heart.