Community & privacy
How we keep you safe.
The River Within is built for people who have been hurt. Every design choice starts with one question: does this protect the people using it? Here’s a plain-language walk through what that looks like in practice.
Every new member is personally approved
Before anyone can post in the community, Letty reviews their account. This is not automated — it is a human being reading every new application and deciding whether to open the door. If something does not feel right, the account stays closed. This is the first and most important layer of protection.
Approved members can read at any time; posting only opens once Letty says yes.
There is no private messaging
This is a deliberate choice. Private messages are one of the most common ways harmful actors move someone from a safe space to an unsafe one. By removing direct messaging entirely, we remove that path. Every conversation here is in a shared, visible space — which means the whole community benefits from being watched over, together.
There is no inbox, no DM, and no way to contact another member privately through this site.
Real names are not allowed — by design
When you join, you choose a nickname: a word, a phrase, anything that feels like you but is not your real name. Our system actively checks for real-name patterns and gently blocks them. If it looks like a first name and a last name, or like the name in your email address, you will be asked to choose something else.
Your email address (used only to send your sign-in link) is never shown to anyone — not to other members, not on your profile, not anywhere on the site. Your username (the private login handle) is also never displayed publicly.
No one in the community knows who you are. That is the point.
A quiet AI guardian screens every message
Before any post, reply, or piece of profile text can appear publicly, it passes through a sovereign AI safety check. This is a small, specialised model that runs on our own hardware — it never sends your words to Google, OpenAI, or any other company. It is looking for harassment, crisis signals, personal information that could identify someone, and content that does not belong in a safe space.
If it is uncertain about anything, the post is held for Letty to review rather than published automatically. It will never incorrectly publish something harmful because it guessed wrong — uncertainty always means “hold for a human.”
If the AI guardian detects that someone may be in crisis, the post is flagged with care — not rejected, not punished. The person is seen.
The AI never reads your private email, your username, or your IP address in plain text.
Identifying details are automatically flagged
Our system scans every piece of text for personal information: phone numbers, email addresses, national ID numbers, bank card numbers. Any post that contains these patterns is held for review rather than published. We do not automatically delete them — that would risk silently altering a survivor’s own words — but we make sure a human reviews it first.
Your personal information is never stored in a way that could identify you to other members.
Patterns of harmful behaviour are watched for
A single post is checked when it is written. But sometimes harm comes through patterns — someone who slowly targets the same person again and again, or a group that converges on one member. Our system watches for these patterns over time and flags them for Letty’s attention before they escalate. No automatic bans — Letty is always the decision-maker.
You can also report or block anyone with a single tap, at any time.
Your data stays on our own hardware — not Big Tech
The community database lives on a server we control, not on AWS, Google Cloud, or any third-party platform. Your words are not used to train AI models. No advertising network has access to anything you share here. There are no tracking pixels, no analytics companies, and no third-party cookies.
We count visits with our own simple counter. That is the only “analytics” we run, and the number stays on our server.
Your words are yours — you can take them back
At any time, for any reason, you can delete all your posts or close your account entirely. When you close your account, your email address is erased, your display name is reset to the anonymous default, and your posts are removed from all public views. You do not need to explain or ask permission.
Deleting your account is permanent and cannot be undone. Take your time.
These safeguards are designed, built, and maintained by Argus Dynamics — a small company whose mission is creating verifiable truth from noisy environments. The same engineering discipline that goes into their professional systems goes into keeping this community safe.
If you ever experience something in this community that does not feel right, please reach out to Letty directly. You can also use the “report” button on any post. You are never alone here.