🌿 Abide

Child Safety

Abide has zero tolerance for child sexual abuse material (CSAM), grooming, or any sexual content involving minors.

Minimum age

You must be at least 13 years old to create an Abide account. Minors are encouraged to use the app with a parent or guardian's awareness.

Zero tolerance policy

We do not allow child sexual abuse material, grooming behavior, or sexual content involving minors on Abide, in any form. Accounts involved in this activity are removed, and we report such content and accounts to the relevant authorities, including the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), where required.

How to report immediately

If you see content or behavior that concerns you, use the flag/report control on the post, message, or profile, or contact us directly through our Contact page. If a child is in immediate danger, contact local law enforcement right away.

Kids Mode: what it actually does

Kids Mode is a restricted experience a parent or guardian turns on from the account. It is stored on the account itself (not just on one device or browser), so it follows the child across phones, tablets and computers, and cannot be removed by clearing browser data.

While Kids Mode is on:

  • Only an explicit allowlist of areas is reachable — today's verse and kids page, the Bible, reading plans, Scripture games, the prayer garden, the private journal and the account page. Everything else is blocked by default, including by typing the address directly.
  • Our servers refuse the underlying data too, not only the screens. Community and Lighthouse posts, the prayer wall, groups, messages, friend requests, other people's profiles, user-uploaded media and notifications are rejected at the database level while Kids Mode is active, so blocked content cannot be loaded another way.
  • Notifications and their previews are not shown at all.
  • Links that lead off Abide to other websites are hidden.
  • Only curated, human-reviewed Scripture and activity content is shown. Automatic translation and open-ended dictionary lookups are switched off.
  • A simple "Need help?" card lets a child tell our team something worried or upset them, without asking for personal details. Our moderators review those reports.

Leaving Kids Mode

A parent or guardian PIN is required to turn Kids Mode off or to change the age setting. The PIN is stored hashed, is checked on our servers, and repeated wrong attempts temporarily lock further tries. A child cannot exit Kids Mode on their own.

What Kids Mode is not

We do not claim Kids Mode makes Abide completely safe. It restricts what a child account can reach inside Abide; it does not filter the wider internet, the device, other apps, or the Bible text itself, which contains passages some families will want to read together. No technical control replaces a caring adult — please supervise your child's use of Abide as you would any online platform, and talk with them about telling you if anything upsets them.

Guidance for parents and guardians

Turn on Kids Mode from the account page, choose an age band, and set a PIN only you know. Talk with your child about who they're connecting with online, and encourage them to tell you if anyone makes them uncomfortable.