Human-Created Content Standard
No AI Slop. Human Creativity First.
Philotes permits AI to assist human-created work, but never to replace the human creator or generate a material part of the published performance, identity, artwork, promotion, or advertisement.
This standard establishes the approved platform policy direction, creator-attestation terms, and operational controls intended to protect human authorship across Philotes. It is deliberately stricter than the minimum legal threshold for copyrightability or advertising compliance.
This publication-readiness version is not yet contractually effective. Formal adoption, counsel review, Creator Agreement integration, effective-date approval, and the implementation controls identified below must be complete before contractual enforcement or search indexing.
Policy at a glance
- Human-created source
- Required. A human creator's original work must remain the source and expressive substance.
- Fully synthetic images or video
- Prohibited.
- Material generative replacement
- Prohibited, including generated performers, bodies, faces, voices, actions, settings, or expressive content.
- Technical AI assistance
- Allowed when it edits or processes human-created source material without inventing material expressive content.
- AI-generated advertising
- Prohibited, including synthetic endorsers, testimonials, promotional creative, and generated ad copy.
- Advance exception
- Possible only for creator content, in writing at the onset and before production or incorporation. Never retroactive.
- Creator commitment
- A signed Creator Agreement addendum plus a per-submission certification is required before enforcement.
- Suspected violation
- Reportable. A report is not a finding; evidence must be reviewed by a human decision-maker.
- Substantiated violation
- Triggers a Human-Created Content Policy Freeze and further investigation once the control is implemented and effective.
- Appeal
- Available within 14 calendar days, with independent review and a written disposition.
Where a tool performs both editing and generation, the result controls. If the output invents or replaces material expressive content, it is prohibited unless a valid advance exception applies.
Scope
The standard applies regardless of file type, duration, visibility, monetization status, or distribution channel.
The account holder remains responsible for every covered person and supplier acting on the account holder's behalf.
- Videos, livestreams, clips, still images, audio, animation, performances, voices, likenesses, and digital artwork.
- Thumbnails, cover art, profile images, avatars, banners, trailers, previews, promotional graphics, and social posts published through or for Philotes.
- Titles, descriptions, biographies, captions, scripts, summaries, metadata, and other substantive written presentation.
- Advertisements, sponsored content, endorsements, testimonials, partner creative, media kits, and off-platform campaigns commissioned, supplied, approved, or distributed by Philotes.
- Work created or supplied by a creator's employees, agents, managers, editors, contractors, studios, advertisers, agencies, and other representatives.
Definitions
- Generative AI
- An automated or machine-learning system that produces or materially transforms expressive text, images, video, audio, voices, animation, code-rendered media, or other content in response to prompts, examples, reference inputs, or learned patterns.
- Human-created content
- Content whose protectable and audience-facing expressive substance was conceived and executed by one or more human creators, even if permitted tools assisted technical editing or processing.
- Fully synthetic content
- Content whose audience-facing image, video, audio, voice, performance, or material expressive elements were generated by AI rather than captured, performed, drawn, written, animated, or otherwise authored by a human.
- Material
- More than incidental or technically necessary. An element is material if it supplies expressive substance or could change a reasonable viewer's understanding of the performer, performance, identity, action, setting, endorsement, or authorship.
- Digital replica
- A synthetic or materially manipulated representation of a real person's face, body, voice, likeness, identity, movement, or performance.
- Technical processing
- A tool-assisted operation applied to human-created source material for editing, restoration, accessibility, translation, organization, or delivery without inventing or replacing material expressive content.
- Advertising
- Any paid, sponsored, promotional, endorsement, testimonial, branded, or partner communication intended to influence awareness, reputation, engagement, or a commercial decision.
- Advance exception
- A narrow written authorization issued by Philotes at the onset of a defined creator project and before the synthetic element is produced or incorporated.
- Provenance
- Evidence concerning a work's source, authorship, contributors, tools, edits, versions, and chain of custody.
The enforceable standard
Covered material may be published only when all of the following are true:
- The human creator supplied the work's material expressive substance.
- Any AI use was limited to permitted technical processing or covered by a valid advance exception.
- No prohibited synthetic person, performance, identity, conduct, setting, endorsement, or authorship representation appears in the work.
- The creator can produce reasonable provenance evidence when Philotes requests it.
- All required disclosures are accurate, clear, conspicuous, and attached to the relevant content.
- The creator's agreement-level and submission-level attestations are complete and truthful.
Prohibited content and conduct
Unless a valid advance exception expressly authorizes the defined use, the following are prohibited:
- Fully synthetic works: fully AI-generated images, video, audio, animation, written presentation, or other audience-facing creative material.
- Material synthetic elements: any material portion of a work generated by AI, even when combined with human-created material.
- Synthetic people or performances: generated or replaced performers, bodies, body parts, faces, voices, identities, actions, dialogue, movement, or sexual activity.
- Face swaps and voice clones: digital replicas, identity transfer, lip or motion synthesis, and simulated performances attributed to or recognizable as a real person.
- Fabricated reality: generated backgrounds, objects, events, locations, interactions, or conduct presented as having actually occurred.
- Generated creator surfaces: prompt-generated thumbnails, covers, profile images, banners, promotional graphics, biographies, descriptions, summaries, or captions that supply material expression rather than technical correction.
- Generative assembly: works assembled primarily from generative outputs, including when a human selects, arranges, or lightly edits those outputs.
- Deception or concealment: false statements about AI use; altered, stripped, forged, or withheld provenance; bypassing a disclosure; or representing a generated element as human-created.
- Retroactive authorization: producing or incorporating a synthetic element first and seeking an exception afterward.
- Circumvention: using another account, contractor, tool, export method, or format to evade the standard, a freeze, an evidence request, or an enforcement action.
Permitted AI-assisted processing
The following uses are permitted when applied to human-created source material and when the human-created work remains the source and substance:
- Cutting, trimming, sequencing, cropping, resizing, reframing, formatting, color correction, exposure adjustment, and color grading.
- Noise reduction, audio cleanup, equalization, stabilization, deinterlacing, compression, transcoding, and file optimization.
- Restoration, scratch or artifact repair, dust removal, and recovery of damaged human-created source material.
- Upscaling and limited frame interpolation that improve delivery quality without fabricating material details, expressions, gestures, contact, actions, or events.
- Background removal, rotoscoping, segmentation, masking, object isolation, and compositing assistance when no generated replacement is introduced.
- Transcription, captioning, subtitles, accessibility descriptions, translation, spelling, grammar, copyediting, and formatting assistance, subject to meaningful human review.
- Content organization, search, tagging, metadata extraction, workflow automation, quality-control checks, and technical moderation support that do not create audience-facing expressive content.
- Traditional human-authored CGI, animation, compositing, visual effects, digital art, and retouching where expressive decisions and execution remain human-controlled.
Translations, captions, accessibility descriptions, and substantive copyedits must be reviewed by a competent human before publication. The creator remains responsible for accuracy, meaning, consent, and rights.
Limits on the processing allowance
A nominally permitted tool becomes prohibited when its output:
- Invents a person, voice, performance, action, object, setting, event, or other material expressive element.
- Replaces, reshapes, or materially alters a performer's body, face, voice, identity, conduct, or consent-relevant activity.
- Creates the impression that conduct occurred when it did not, or changes the nature, sequence, participants, or meaning of recorded conduct.
- Introduces generated advertising, endorsements, claims, testimonials, or promotional creative.
- Changes substantive authorship, meaning, tone, or claims beyond faithful correction, translation, captioning, or accessibility support.
Advertising and promotional standard
Philotes does not accept, commission, distribute, or approve AI-generated advertising. This prohibition has no exception and applies to Philotes, creators, advertisers, agencies, and partners once the standard is formally adopted.
Prohibited advertising includes synthetic models, performers, spokespersons, voices, digital replicas, demonstrations, testimonials, endorsements, product experiences, backgrounds, campaign artwork, materially generated ad copy, and fictional personas that a consumer could mistake for an actual person or experience.
Technical editing, formatting, restoration, captioning, translation, accessibility work, and grammar correction may assist human-authored advertising, but may not generate its material performance, claim, creative concept, copy, endorsement, or audience-facing expression.
The Philotes rule is a private-platform standard stricter than the cited legal minimum. The cited FTC materials support truth-in-advertising, substantiation, endorsement honesty, and clear disclosure; they do not themselves impose Philotes' blanket prohibition.
Advance exceptions
An exception is discretionary, narrow, project-specific, and available only for creator content. It must be sought and obtained at the onset: before production begins and before any synthetic element is created, commissioned, or incorporated.
Required request contents
- Creator identity, project name, asset or series, intended audience, purpose, distribution channels, and proposed publication dates.
- The exact synthetic element, its creative purpose, tools and models, human creators and vendors, and proposed workflow.
- Rights, releases, consent, licensing, and identity documentation for every real person, performance, voice, likeness, work, or dataset implicated.
- The exact on-content and metadata disclosure proposed for viewers.
- A risk analysis addressing deception, identity, consent, age, sexual content, advertising, and provenance.
Conditions of approval
- Approval must be written and identify the approved creator, project, asset class, purpose, tool or model, scope, duration, disclosure, and exception ID.
- A change to scope, tool, model, vendor, purpose, identity, output, distribution, or disclosure requires new approval before work continues.
- Approval is not retroactive, transferable, renewable by implication, or precedent for another creator or project.
- Approved content must carry the required clear public disclosure and machine-readable provenance for as long as it is available.
- Philotes may revoke approval prospectively if risk, law, technology, or facts materially change; preserved evidence and records must not be destroyed.
Uses that may never be excepted
- AI-generated advertising or promotional creative.
- A digital replica of a real person without specific, informed, written consent for the defined use.
- Synthetic intimate or sexual content attributed to a real person, or non-consensual intimate imagery.
- Any depiction involving a minor or age-ambiguous person, or any synthetic alteration used to obscure or misstate age.
- Falsified consent, rights, identity, provenance, performer, or compliance evidence.
- Deceptive impersonation, undisclosed synthetic content, or any use designed to mislead the audience about authorship or reality.
Creator Agreement addendum and attestations
Before contractual enforcement, every creator must sign the versioned Human-Created Content Addendum to the Philotes Creator Agreement and make a per-submission certification for each published asset or defined batch.
- The agreement-level acceptance and per-submission certification must preserve the exact text, policy version, creator and account identifiers, asset identifiers, timestamp, acceptance method, and any exception ID.
- A materially false statement, concealment, forged record, or circumvention is an independent material breach under the adopted agreement.
I certify that this submission is human-created; that no generative AI produced or replaced any material expressive element; that any AI use was limited to permitted technical processing or a valid advance exception identified in this submission; that all required disclosures are present; and that I can provide reasonable provenance evidence on request.
Evidence and provenance
Philotes may request evidence reasonably related to the content, workflow, exception, or attestation.
No single indicator is dispositive. An AI-detector score, watermark result, missing metadata, Content Credential, or visual suspicion may inform review but may not be the sole basis for a violation finding.
Records under the adopted standard must be retained for at least seven calendar years after the relevant publication, decision, appeal, or account closure, measured from whichever event occurs last, and longer when required by a legal hold, investigation, contract, or law.
- Original camera files, source photographs, raw audio, project files, edit timelines, layer histories, export records, and prior versions.
- File metadata, checksums, capture dates, contributor and contractor attestations, tool and workflow disclosures, invoices, and production records.
- Model releases, identity and age records, rights and licenses, consent records, exception approvals, and disclosure artifacts.
- Content Credentials or other C2PA-compatible provenance, where available, together with underlying supporting records.
Reports and investigation procedure
Users and internal reviewers may report suspected AI-generated or materially synthetic content. A report is an allegation, not a finding. Bad-faith, harassing, duplicative, or knowingly false reports may violate Philotes rules.
- Not substantiated
- Available evidence does not establish a violation; restore any temporary restriction promptly and preserve the decision record.
- Provenance unverified
- A violation is not established, but evidence is insufficient to verify eligibility. The asset may remain ineligible; this is not a fraud finding.
- Substantiated
- Reliable evidence more likely than not shows prohibited content or conduct; apply the policy freeze and continue catalog-level investigation.
- Severe or urgent
- Evidence indicates non-consensual intimate imagery, minors, identity abuse, fraud, retaliation, or imminent harm; apply additional safety and legal controls.
- Preserve the reported asset, accessible versions, metadata, report, account history, and relevant logs without altering original evidence.
- Conduct an initial human review for scope, credibility, urgency, and safety. Apply a temporary asset-level hold when reasonably necessary to prevent continuing harm or evidence loss.
- Give the creator notice of the allegation and a reasonable opportunity to provide originals, workflow records, rights, consent, attestations, and any exception approval, unless delayed notice is necessary for safety, evidence preservation, or law.
- Review the totality of the evidence. Automated indicators may inform but may not decide the case.
- Require a second authorized reviewer to confirm any profile freeze. The investigator and confirming reviewer must record evidence, reasoning, conflicts, policy version, and decision.
- Issue written notice stating the finding, affected assets, policy provisions, immediate controls, evidence considered, response deadline, and appeal instructions.
Human-Created Content Policy Freeze
A substantiated finding triggers a distinct, appeal-capable account state. It is not the same as an ordinary suspension that revokes all sessions.
- Remove the creator profile and catalog from discovery, recommendation, promotion, advertising, and new commercial placements.
- Restrict affected content and pause publishing, uploads, scheduling, profile edits, promotional tools, and new monetization activity.
- Preserve the account, content, originals, versions, messages, decisions, payments data, and audit records; do not delete evidence.
- Maintain limited secure access needed to view notice, submit evidence, download permitted records, and file or track an appeal.
- Review the creator's remaining catalog, recent submissions, exceptions, contractors, and attestations for related risk.
Appeals and restoration
A creator may appeal within 14 calendar days after the written decision. The appeal must identify the challenged finding or sanction, requested outcome, grounds, and supporting evidence.
An authorized reviewer who did not make or confirm the original finding must decide the appeal and issue a written disposition: upheld, overturned, partially granted, or remanded, with reasons and any required next steps.
When a decision is overturned, Philotes must promptly restore eligible access, profile visibility, and content, and correct internal status and decision records.
- Mistaken identity, account, asset, or contributor attribution.
- A permitted technical-processing use was incorrectly treated as generative replacement.
- A valid advance exception or required disclosure was overlooked or misapplied.
- Material new provenance, rights, consent, or workflow evidence was not reasonably available earlier.
- A material process error, conflict, inconsistent treatment, or disproportionate outcome affected the decision.
Governance, training, and version control
- Philotes must assign a policy owner and named operational owners for exceptions, investigations, appeals, product controls, legal review, and recordkeeping before adoption.
- The policy owner must review the standard at least annually and when material law, technology, industry practice, or platform functionality changes.
- Material changes require a new version, effective date, change summary, creator notice, and renewed acceptance when creator obligations or consequences change.
- Moderators, investigators, appeals reviewers, advertising staff, creator relations, and relevant vendors must receive role-specific training before handling covered work.
- Philotes must audit exception rates, detection errors, reversals, processing times, disparate outcomes, repeat violations, and provenance failures without turning detector outputs into automatic adjudication.
- Published guidance must remain consistent with the controlling contract and internal standard. If they conflict, Philotes must correct the conflict promptly and apply the interpretation most protective of fair notice, subject to safety and law.
Implementation status
These controls are required before this standard is publicly launched or contractually enforced. They remain release blockers until the relevant accountable owners approve evidence of implementation.
- Taxonomy
- Classify fully or materially generated content as prohibited, with a separate permitted-processing path.
- Account state
- Implement POLICY_FREEZE as a distinct lifecycle state that preserves limited notice, evidence, and appeal access.
- Exception registry
- Create versioned, immutable exception records with scope, linked assets, tools, disclosures, approvers, dates, and audit history.
- Attestations
- Record agreement-level acceptance and per-submission certification with exact text, version, identities, timestamps, method, and audit event.
- Reporting and investigation
- Add the dedicated report reason, evidence preservation, human findings, second-review confirmation, written notices, and catalog review.
- Appeals
- Ensure a frozen creator can use the existing appeal route without restoring ordinary privileges, and record restoration actions.
- Decision controls
- Prohibit enforcement based solely on automated indicators and require maker-checker approval for profile freezes.
- Retention
- Apply the seven-calendar-year minimum and legal holds to all standard-related records.
- Advertising workflow
- Block AI-generated advertising at intake, contracting, creative review, and publication.