The below are living guidelines which we'll continue to review as the Shares community grows across the world. By using Shares you agree to these guidelines and terms of use.
Community at Shares is at the heart of everything we do. That’s why we think it’s important to create a space that our members feel safe in, and where you’re encouraged to share as much or as little as you want. Whether that’s a public thread discussing what stocks you think are moon-bound or quietly building your portfolio, we want you to feel comfortable however you’re using Shares.
We started Shares to help people come together around investing, build meaningful connections and start conversations. That's why we encourage you to add your friends, peers and network to support each other's investment journey. Investing can feel scary when you’re doing it alone, so use this community to ask questions, discuss strategies and see how others are doing it.
Community guidelines are often long lists of don’t-do’s. While these are important to call out, we think it’s just as important to talk about the do-do’s. These are the things that make this community special and keep you coming back for more.
Whether you’re planning to be an active member of our community or not, here are a couple of suggestions on how to get the most out of Shares:
Add a profile picture and bio and interests to your account. Putting a face to a name helps you build a profile others want to engage with and makes it easier to find friends!
See what stocks your friends are buying and selling through your activity feed, or by chatting with them directly.
Chat with fellow investors about almost everything from how to get started to ethical investing, dividends, trading strategies and so much more. Get involved! We know you’ll find something to love.
Our guidelines apply to all parts of our product, regardless of how you’re using Shares.
Our number one priority is building trust and safety in this community, and that means ensuring these guidelines are followed by all our members. We’re here to build the kind of environment you want to be a part of, which means you might see our Moderators take action against engagement we feel goes against our guidelines.
In most cases, action might mean issuing a warning. But where necessary, we’ll take steps to remove harmful or offensive content or the accounts responsible for creating it. We know people make mistakes, but there are certain behaviours we won’t accept.
While it should be pretty obvious what’s unacceptable to share in this community, we want to call out particularly important behaviours we won’t tolerate:
Investment advice isn’t permitted on Shares, so please avoid sharing content that encourages (whether deliberately or not) others to act on whatever you’re sharing.
It’s perfectly acceptable to share some general investing tips (such as using dollar cost averaging) or information coming from credible sources, which you believe might be useful to others.
Here are a few examples of content which is acceptable ✅:
At the same time, please keep in mind that providing any direct financial advice on Shares is strictly forbidden. You shouldn't advise others what assets/products to invest in, how often to invest, what amount to invest, or what to do with a specific investment (e.g. sell/buy/hold). This also applies to the promotion of specific stocks.
Here are a few examples of content which is not allowed on Shares ❌:
This is an umbrella term that covers behaviours such as market manipulation and collusion, spreading rumours, insider trading, and price speculation. Here are a few examples of content which you shouldn't share ❌:
Don't engage in direct advertising or promoting personal and/or third party businesses. This includes promoting products, services, or any commercial activities. Let's maintain a focused and respectful environment for all community members.
Refrain from endorsing or encouraging trade replication. Sharing methods to copy trades may carry significant risks and might not be suitable for all investors. Let's prioritise responsible investing practices and provide helpful insights without promoting direct trade replication.
Any form of discrimination towards others won’t be accepted on Shares. You must respect everyone, including Shares staff and moderators.
Treat others how you want to be treated. Disagreements are fine, but abuse and harassment isn’t cool and won’t be tolerated. This might include harmful language or repetitive, unsolicited behaviour towards individuals or groups.
This is an absolute no-go. It includes direct, indirect and suggestive threats made to individuals or groups of people.
Don’t deceive others by pretending to be someone else. Whether that’s through impersonation or by misleading others about your profile or investing experience.
We appreciate that people get excited and trigger-happy, but let's make sure it’s for the right reasons. Don’t spam our community with personal referral links or promotional offers.
We won’t tolerate sharing inappropriate content whatsoever. This includes, but isn’t limited to: gore, self-harm, drug abuse, nudity, animal cruelty.
Please keep in mind that the above are just some examples of unacceptable behaviour, but this list is not exhaustive. A serious breach of these guidelines may lead to us closing your account. If you are unsure if the content you’d like to share is appropriate or not, you can always contact our Support Team and ask for advice. Our team will be excited to assist you.
Here are some of the ways you can help us create and maintain a truly great community that you and everyone else wants to be a part of.
Find people just like you, with the same questions and investing goals. Connect, bond and share your journey together.
Seen an insightful video or educational blog post related to a community? Share it! If you found it useful, chances are others will too.
Joining a community can be daunting, so welcome others into the mix and engage with their content.
Tell us what you think so we can improve your experience.
Help us create and maintain the kind of community you want to be a part of. If you see someone sharing something that goes against our guidelines, give them a polite nudge about it.
We’re all for hearing your take on something, but please keep clear of contentious subjects like politics, religion and topics with no relation to investing and which may be harmful to others.
We’ve built the first set of features on Shares to help you create the experience you want. That’s why you have the ability to report and block users and report content on your activity feed and communities. If you feel that a piece of content or engagement breaks our guidelines, we encourage you to report it. All you need to do is tap the three dots (‘...’) next to a piece of content to tell us about it.
We’ll always take the time to thoroughly review these requests and take action, but sometimes we’ll make mistakes. We’re only human after all. A lot goes into building a thriving community, so please be patient with us if we don’t nail it the first time round! We’ve just created a brand-new moderation team that should really help us.
Think of Moderators as stewards of our community. For now they directly oversee our Community to help us uphold our high standards. Our moderation and support team will manually review any content or users you’ve reported, so there’s no need to reach out to them directly. If you have any questions, you can always contact our Support Team to discuss.
Fairness and transparency are important to Shares. If we need to take action against you or a piece of content you’ve shared, we’ll never leave you in the dark. Expect to receive an email from us outlining what’s happened and why we’ve made a decision.
If you think there’s more we can do to provide a better experience for our community, we’d love to hear your thoughts.
Thanks for reading!