Option B Community Guidelines

Being part of a community can give us strength that we sometimes can’t find on our own. Option B Facebook groups are peer-to-peer virtual groups around loss and hardship where people can share their personal experiences and give and receive support.

We welcome posts that share:

• Personal stories
• Questions
• Resources that you’ve found helpful
• Moments of meaning in life after loss

It is important that conversations around the sensitive topics discussed in Option B groups are productive and respectful. We ask all members to follow our Community Guidelines:

• Share openly and honestly
• React with empathy
• Be respectful of opposing views
• Foster meaningful and genuine interactions
• Maintain a supportive environment
• Abstain from inappropriate, vulgar, or abusive language

We do not allow the following:

• Bullying or harassment of any kind
• Content that promotes prejudice, violence, or hatred against people based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, political beliefs, disability, disease, age, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or gender expression
• Threats or encouragements of violence against anyone, either seriously or humorously
• Asking for or sharing medical or legal advice
• Soliciting money or anything of monetary value, in any form, including through crowdfunding campaigns or direct, personal solicitation. This includes group postings or personal messages to members, which will be considered spam.
• Questioning other people’s experiences
• Negatively calling out another group member by name or calling them out without their consent
• Content that violates the privacy of others, by revealing any information about them that they would not want to make public
• Content that promotes goods, services, or may be perceived as promoting personal projects
• Content that could be interpreted as coaching or imposing your own experience on others
• Content that violates the copyrights and trademarks of others. If you’re unsure, please do not post
• Promotion or encouragement of self-injury or suicide. This does not mean that you cannot post about issues related to self-injury and suicide. If you do post about self-injury or suicide, please note that our team will share resources in the comments section.
• Inappropriate content, as determined by our moderators

While Option B encourages the sharing of all stories, we ask that all stories be shared in a text format within our groups. Personally recorded or live videos, of any kind, are not allowed as our goal is to make sure that our community members are not confronted or triggered with content that they don’t first agree to read on their own accord. Videos may be solicited for Option B’s social channels with community members’ full consent.

Share the mic: We want to hear all of your stories and helpful tips for others in the group - but please be mindful of creating space for everyone to share and be seen. This specifically looks like limiting your posts to no more than 3 per day. The reason for this is we have seen that when one person posts multiple times on a single day, particularly memes, it dominates the feed and pushes other members’ content further down on the page. We highly encourage you to continue engaging with each other’s posts. Thank you for helping us to keep our group balanced for all.

We strive to be fair, but we reserve the right to suspend accounts or remove posts, without notice and for any reason, to protect our community. Our small team of admins moderates the groups daily, and will respond to flagged posts and comments within a 24 hour period. If you see anyone violating our Community Guidelines or behaving in a way that makes you uncomfortable, please report the post using Facebook’s reporting tool.

Option B Facebook groups are closed; only members can see posts to the group. However, non-members can see who is in the group and request to join. For more details, read Facebook’s group privacy settings. To learn more about maintaining your own privacy on Facebook, read the Technology Safety Guide from Facebook and the National Network to End Domestic Violence.

Option B Facebook groups are intended for peer-to-peer support and are not moderated by licensed professionals. The other groups highlighted on optionb.org are independent; they are not run by OptionB.Org.

For expert support, visit one of the organizations listed here. If you or someone you know is in crisis and needs immediate help, please reach out to Crisis Text Line by texting OPTION to 741741, call National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255, or to find a hotline outside of the U.S., contact Befrienders at www.befrienders.org.

Users are also subject to both the Facebook Terms of Service and Privacy Policy and the OptionB.Org Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.