Skip to content
Copyright & Safety

Account Enforcement & Appeals

Warning, restriction, closure: what each step means, what closes an account at once, and how to appeal any decision.

Last updated on October 25, 2026.

When a rule is broken we follow a ladder: a written warning, then a time-limited restriction on part of your account, then closure. A few things skip the ladder and close an account at once. Every decision is written down with its reason, you can see the record at any time, and you can appeal any decision once, within 30 days. A person who was not involved in the decision reviews the appeal and answers within 5 business days. If we got it wrong, we put it right.

This summary is for orientation only. The sections below are the operative terms.

1. What this covers

This policy is how ACADA L.L.C., a Tennessee limited liability company (ACADA, we), enforces its policies on acada.ac, and how you contest a decision. It applies to every account and every role on it: student, instructor, collaborator and affiliate. The rules themselves live in the other policies, above all the Community Guidelines, Acceptable Use Policy, Course Content Policy and the agreements for each role; this policy is what happens when one of them is broken.

2. Reports

  • Who can report. Any member, from the Report control on a message, a course, a review, a submission or a profile, and anyone at all by writing to support@acada.ac. A report of a child-safety concern uses the reason of that name.
  • What happens. A person reviews every report within 3 business days; a child-safety report, a report of a threat to a person, of someone at risk of self-harm or suicide, or of an intimate image shared without consent, or a report of a scam in progress, within 1 business day. We tell you when your report has been handled. We do not tell you what we did, which is between us and the other person.
  • Other triggers. We also act on what we see ourselves, on a valid legal notice, and on a payment provider's rules. A report is not required.
  • Reports made in bad faith. Reporting someone to harass them, or repeatedly reporting things that break no rule, goes up the ladder in section 3.

3. The ladder

For a broken rule that section 5 does not cover, the steps are these, in order:

  1. A written warning. We tell you what broke which rule, whether we removed anything, and that the next step is a restriction. It is emailed and recorded.
  2. A restriction. Part of your account stops working for 7, 30 or 90 days, chosen by the reviewer to fit the breach, or until you have fixed a specific problem such as a broken course. Section 4 lists what can be restricted. It is emailed, with the date it ends.
  3. Closure. Of the role the breach belongs to (section 7), or of the whole account (section 6).

A warning counts for 12 months. A breach more than 12 months after your last warning starts the ladder again. The ladder runs per person, not per course or per room: a second warning on a different course is still a second warning. Where a breach is serious but not in section 5, we may begin at step 2; we say so in the notice, and you can appeal that choice.

4. What a step means in practice

  • Content. A message, review, submission, file or course that breaks a rule is removed, unlisted or hidden, whichever the rule calls for, and the notice says which. Removed content is gone and cannot be restored on appeal. The exception is material removed under a copyright notice, which is hidden rather than deleted and comes back if a counter-notice succeeds, as the Copyright & DMCA policy sets out.
  • Restrictions. One or more of: enrolling in courses, messaging, following people, publishing press articles, creating and publishing courses. Everything not restricted works as before. The restriction is enforced by the platform itself, ends on its date without anyone having to remember, is lifted early if an appeal succeeds, and ends sooner if an appeal reduces it.
  • Course-level decisions. Unlisting or hiding a course, a content warning, an advice notice, an AI disclosure we place, and withdrawing a certificate are each recorded with a reason and can each be appealed. So is revoking an "Identity verified" mark under the Verification Policy.
  • Money. A decision under this policy never takes back what you have genuinely earned, except where the reason is fraud, as sections 6 and 7 say.

5. What closes an account at once

These skip the ladder. The account, or the role the breach belongs to under section 7, is closed the day we confirm it:

  • threatening a person, or publishing their private information or intimate images;
  • terrorist material, or celebrating an act of mass violence, under Prohibited Content;
  • scams, and fraud of any kind: a chargeback on a completed course, a fake referral, buying your own course, paying with stolen details;
  • publishing work that is not yours to publish, which the Copyright & DMCA policy calls theft and closes the instructor role;
  • impersonating a person, or a bought, sold or second account;
  • attacking the platform, reading data that is not yours, or selling stolen data;
  • a child-safety violation, and an account found to belong to someone under 13, which is deleted rather than closed under Age & Child Safety.

6. Closing an account

  • At once. You are signed out everywhere and cannot sign in. Every part of the account is restricted, and your profile is no longer public.
  • Your courses. A course with students closes on the terms in Purchases, Refunds & Subscriptions: 30 days' notice to students, or at once when the reason for the closure is the course's content. Students are told the day we close the account, and refunded as that policy sets out. A course nobody enrolled in is deleted.
  • Your roles. Affiliate links stop referring anyone, collaborations end, and nothing further is earned.
  • What you are owed. Everything genuinely earned as an instructor, collaborator or affiliate that has cleared its refund hold is queued for payout the same day, with no minimum, by the method you had set up; what is still in its hold is paid as it clears. If you had none, we arrange it with you. Where the reason is fraud, nothing is paid out automatically: earnings from the fraudulent sales are withheld, whatever those sales cost us is deducted from the rest, and we pay what is left by hand.
  • What you paid. Courses you bought are not refunded. Your progress, certificates and achievements stay on record until deletion.
  • Your data. It is kept for 30 days so that you can appeal, then deleted the way a closed account's data is deleted under Account & Identity. Deletion waits while an appeal is open.
  • Coming back. A closed account may not open another. One that does is closed too, and the record is linked.

7. Closing a role

Where the breach belongs to one role, we close that role and the rest of the account continues.

  • Instructor. You cannot create or publish courses. Your courses close on the terms in section 6, and genuine earnings are paid as there.
  • Affiliate. Your links refer nobody and nothing further is earned, on new or existing referrals. Cleared commissions are paid; fraudulent ones are withheld, as the Affiliate Agreement sets out.
  • Collaborator. Every collaboration ends. You keep the free access each course gave you and everything credited to you, as the Collaborator Terms set out.

8. Appeals

  • What you can appeal. Every decision in your record that was taken against you: a warning, a restriction, a course-level decision, a withdrawn certificate, a removed Identity verified mark, an affiliate block, a role closure, an account closure. A copyright strike is contested by counter-notice under the Copyright & DMCA policy, not here; the restriction or closure that follows one can be appealed like any other.
  • How. From Settings, under Account standing, next to the decision. A closed account cannot sign in, so its appeal is made at acada.ac/appeal with the reference and the email address in the closure notice. Say why the decision is wrong; facts help more than volume.
  • When. Within 30 days of the decision. One appeal per decision.
  • Who decides. A person who was not involved in the decision. The person who took it cannot decide its appeal; the platform does not let them.
  • How long. You get an answer within 5 business days of filing, by email and in your record, with the reviewer's reasons.
  • The outcomes. Upheld: the decision stands. Reduced: a restriction is shortened to the date in the answer; any other decision that deserved less is overturned, and the lesser decision is taken and recorded on its own, where it can be appealed in turn. Overturned: the decision stays on your record marked Overturned on appeal and no longer counts against you, and everything that can be restored is: a restriction is lifted, a closed account or role is reopened, a course still in its closing window comes back as it was, an unlisted or hidden course is listed and shown again, a content warning, advice notice or AI disclosure we placed is taken off, a blocked affiliate account is unblocked, a withdrawn certificate is reissued, and an Identity verified mark is restored. Each appeal decides only the decision it is about. Content that was removed cannot be brought back.
  • While you wait. The decision stays in force. Deletion of a closed account waits until the appeal is decided.
  • After. The answer is final for that decision. You can still write to support@acada.ac, and we will still read it, but there is no second review.

9. Your record

Settings, under Account standing, shows every decision we have taken about your account: what, when, why, until when, and the appeal on it if there was one. Nobody else sees it. When an account is deleted, its record stays for 3 years, no longer linked to the account, and is then deleted, as the Privacy Policy says. Our own reviewers see the same record when deciding what step comes next.

10. Timelines

  • A report is reviewed. Within 3 business days; child safety, a threat to a person, someone at risk of self-harm or suicide, an intimate image shared without consent, or a scam in progress, within 1.
  • A restriction lasts. 7, 30 or 90 days, or until a named problem is fixed.
  • A warning counts. For 12 months.
  • Courses close. 30 days after an account or instructor role closes, or at once for their content.
  • Earnings on closure. What has cleared, queued the same day with no minimum; the rest as it clears.
  • Appeal window. 30 days from the decision.
  • Appeal answered. Within 5 business days.
  • Data of a closed account. Deleted after 30 days, or after the appeal if one is open.

11. Changes to this policy

When we change this policy, we change the date shown at the top. If a change adds a rule or a consequence, we post a notice in the app at least 14 days before it takes effect.

12. Related policies