Content standards

What's welcome

Fiction can show crime, cruelty, war, horror, grief, addiction, strong language and romance, including sexual themes that aren't explicit. A story can have villains who say and do terrible things. Set an honest age rating so listeners know what they are choosing (see Age ratings).

Never allowed

• Anything sexual involving anyone under 18, or anything that sexualises a child or a character who is, or appears to be, under 18. We remove it at once, close the account, and report it to the authorities as the law requires.
• Sexually explicit content: pornography, or material whose main purpose is sexual arousal. An 18+ rating doesn't make it allowed. Romance, and intimate scenes that are implied or fade out, are fine.
• Sexual content about real people, or intimate content about anyone without their consent.
• Hate: content whose purpose is to attack, dehumanise or promote violence against people because of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation or a similar trait. A story may portray prejudice; it may not promote it.
• Terrorism and violent extremism: praising, promoting or recruiting for it.
• Real-world harm: working instructions for making weapons or explosives, making drugs, hacking, or anything similar. A story can mention these things; it can't teach them.
• Self-harm: content that encourages, or gives instructions for, suicide, self-harm or eating disorders.
• Targeting real people: threats or harassment of a real person; sharing private information such as an address or phone number; or false statements of fact about a real person presented as true.
• Other people's work: text, characters, worlds, cover images or sounds you don't have the rights to use, including stories built on another author's characters or world without permission. Every writer promises their work is original and theirs to give, in their Writer Agreement or, for a series Carry On commissions, in their commissioned-writing agreement.
• Deception: fiction presented as real news, fake emergency alerts, scams, or content meant to mislead people about elections, health or public safety.
• Misleading listings: titles, covers, summaries or genres that misrepresent the story, or that are stuffed with unrelated search terms.
• Anything illegal, or anything that promotes the sale of illegal goods or services.

AI voices and real people

Every voice on Carry On is generated with AI, so these rules are strict:

• No voice may imitate a real, identifiable person (a celebrity, a politician, a narrator or actor, or someone you know) without that person's written permission. Don't ask for a voice to sound like a real person.
• Real public figures may appear only in clearly fictional ways that no listener could mistake for a real recording of them, and never voiced to sound like them.
• Don't use Carry On to make audio that could be passed off as a real recording of a real person or event.
• When you share or promote your episodes, don't hide that the voices are generated with AI.

Writers pick voices from the library in the Studio. There is no way to upload a recording to copy someone's voice.

Age ratings

Writers rate their own series: All ages, 13+, 16+ or 18+. Rate honestly, by the strongest content in the series, and use 18+ for graphic violence or gore, strong sexual themes or heavy drug use. The rating is shown on the series page so listeners know what they are choosing. We may ask you to change a rating that is clearly wrong, and may unpublish a series until it is fixed.

Covers and listings

Covers, titles and summaries are shown to everyone, including search engines, so they must suit any audience: no nudity, sexual imagery or graphic gore on a cover. You must have the rights to every image you use.

Reviews and public names

Listener reviews, public names and photos follow these standards too. We hide a review, or remove a name or photo, only if it reveals private or confidential information; is abusive, harassing, threatening, obscene or sexually explicit; contains someone else's personal information or likeness; is discriminatory; is clearly false or fake; or has nothing to do with the series. We never hide a review because of its rating.

Reporting a problem

Email mykaielpatterson@carry-onaudio.com with a link to the series, episode, review or profile; what you think is wrong; and how to reach you. Copyright complaints have their own steps: see copyright complaints.

Reports about the safety of a child are handled before anything else.

What we do with a report

• We look at every report and decide it against these standards, the Terms and the law.
• Depending on what we find, we may do nothing, ask the writer to fix it, change the listing, hide a review or a public name or photo, or unpublish an episode or a series. Unpublishing ends access for everyone, including listeners who paid for it (see When content is taken down).
• Under the Writer Agreement (section 7.6) we may also hold payments related to the content until the matter is settled. For a series Carry On commissions, what happens to the writer's pay follows their commissioned-writing agreement.
• For serious or repeated breaks, we may end a Writer Agreement or close an account. A commissioned-writing agreement can be ended as that agreement says.
• We tell the writer or listener what we removed and why, unless the law or someone's safety prevents it. They can reply to ask us to look again, and we will.
• To protect other people's privacy, we may not be able to tell the person who reported it what we decided.

Changes

We may update these standards as Carry On grows. The version and date at the top of this page show which version applies, and published content must follow the version in force.