Effective on February 11, 2026  

When playing Crossplay, please keep the words you play, the messages you send to your opponent, and your username kind, respectful, and relevant to the game or otherwise appropriate. You must follow the rules outlined below. You should also refer to our community guidelines that apply to commenting and other interactions. Your actions are also subject to the prohibitions, restrictions, and obligations in The New York Times Terms of Service, including the requirement that you must be 13 years or older to play Crossplay in the USA and the UK, and 16 years or older anywhere else. In the case of any conflict between our Terms of Service and this Acceptable Use Policy, the Acceptable Use Policy will apply and control. Failure to comply with these rules may result in temporary suspension or permanent removal from Crossplay.

If your opponent violates these rules, you can report them by selecting the gear icon in an individual chat or on an opponent’s profile, select “Report,” provide relevant details and an optional attachment, and submit. You can also mute or block an individual opponent or disable chat.

The following are not permitted within or in relation to Crossplay, either in the messages that you send or through the words that you play in the game:

• Name-calling, personal attacks, slurs, harassment, threats, hate speech, bullying, abuse, malicious acts, descriptions of violence or gore, and discrimination
• Profanity (including expletives and letters followed by dashes that could translate to an expletive) and content that is sexual, salacious, obscene, or predatory, including grooming behaviors
• Sharing disinformation or misinformation
• Commercial promotions or transactions, solicitations, phishing, scams, and spam
• Links to material containing malicious content, including viruses, malware, or spyware
• Links to other sites or services, or other attempts to convey a hyperlink, QR code, or reference to another site or service
• Gambling, encouraging gambling, or otherwise creating or engaging in illegal lotteries
• Sharing or requesting payment information or other means to facilitate financial transactions
• Impersonating anyone else or otherwise misrepresenting your identity, affiliation, or status
• Infringing on others’ privacy—for example, disseminating or soliciting others’ personal information without consent
• Doxxing – for example, sharing personal information of another individual without their consent and with the intent to cause harm, harassment or distress
• Defamatory or libelous content
• Breaching a court order or stalking behaviour
• Infringing on others’ intellectual property (see Terms of Service § 13.7)
• Attempting to contact your opponent outside of Crossplay, if you don’t already know them in real life—for example, by asking for their phone number or social media handle, or sending them your phone number or social media handle
• Discussion or promotion of illegal activity
• Using customer support services improperly such as by using profane or abusive language in communications with our support personnel
• Submitting false reports about other players
• Creating a new account to evade a prior ban
• Other abusive, unlawful, or persistent conduct that we or other users deem objectionable
• Altering or hacking the game software – for example, doing anything that could disable, damage or change the functioning or appearance of Crossplay, circumvent any restriction, condition, or technological measure that controls access to Crossplay or otherwise compromise the security or operation of Crossplay or the New York Times’ systems
• You must not use the services to upload, share, or generate:
  • Pornographic content - by pornographic content for the purposes of this paragraph, we mean any pornographic content except where it consists: only of text; or only of text accompanied by identifying content which consists only of text, other identifying content which is not itself pornographic content, a GIF which is not itself pornographic content, an emoji or other symbol, or any combination of this content.
  • Content which encourages, promotes or provides instructions for suicide; deliberate self-injury; and/or an eating disorder or behaviors associated with an eating disorder. 
• You must not use the Services in any way that involves the following activities or content: 
  • terrorism; child sexual exploitation or abuse including grooming and child sexual abuse material; hate offences; harassment, stalking, making threats or abuse; controlling or coercive behavior; intimate image abuse; extreme pornography; sexual exploitation of adults; human trafficking; unlawful immigration; fraud and financial offences; proceeds of crime offences; drugs or psychoactive substance offences; firearms, knives and other weapons offences; encouraging or assisting suicide; foreign interference offences; and/or animal cruelty
• Attempting to entice or promote any of the above.

We may use automated scanning and moderation technology to monitor Crossplay users’ direct messages in order to identify any violations of this Acceptable Use Policy and our Terms of Service, to help ensure a safe and respectful experience for you and other users.

We take additional steps to prevent such content on the services. We minimise the length of time for which terrorism content, child sexual exploitation and abuse content, or other content that amounts to an offense of violation of these guidelines can be present on the Services by employing proactive moderation and review, as well as reactive moderation of complaints regarding such violations. We take action on such violations expeditiously when we are aware of them.

We do not allow (and take the steps described above to limit) the following on the Services for any eligible user regardless of age: pornographic content or content that encourages suicide, deliberate self-injury, eating disorders or behaviors associated with an eating disorder.

Appeals

If you have been permanently banned from Crossplay and you believe this was in error, you can appeal the decision by replying within 30 days to the email you received informing you that you have been permanently banned.