Meetup Group Policies: Standards for Meetup Groups.
All Meetups must fulfill three basic requirements:
Be Community Focused
Meetup groups are expected to create opportunities for members to participate in the Meetup and connect with each other. Belonging to a Meetup community means sharing a purpose, goal, interest, identity, or activity.
Meet in Real Life
Meetups occur when people meet face-to-face, in real life. Meetups must be hosted in person, by an event host or member of the group's leadership team, who supports members and interacts with the community the Meetup is building.
Be Local
Meetup is intended for building local community. Meetup should not be used primarily for scheduling online meetings, conference calls, or webinars across geographies. Instead, Meetup's features should be used to build the group's capacity and create opportunities for meaningful connections within a local community.
Group Conduct Policies
Be Safe
All organizers and members must take ownership over their safety, and must never put themselves or others in danger. We expect all organizers and members to be mindful of local laws when engaging with their Meetups.
When appropriate, Meetup encourages organizers to set guidelines for their Meetups to ensure their members are participating safely.
Honesty and Transparency: Accurately Describe Meetups
All Meetup groups and events should be accurately described in the title and description fields to allow members to make informed decisions about their participation.
Organizers must be honest in the way they conduct their Meetup activities and upfront about the nature of their group's activities, interests, membership requirements, intentions, business affiliations, and/or official organization affiliations. …
Disguising Meetup group or event intentions, setting false expectations, or purposefully omitting pertinent information is misleading and prohibited. For example, a Meetup group that hides the underlying intention to recruit members for a job, or to sell to members will be removed. Falsely inflating participation or RSVP numbers to make a Meetup appear more active or popular, is misleading and is grounds for removal and closure.
Set Reasonable Expectations
Businesses and services must ensure they disclose reasonable expectations and aspirations. Meetup cannot verify promises or assurances of health cures, mental cures, or financial gains, so these are prohibited on Meetup.
Restricted Meetup Groups
Businesses, Services, Venues, Products, and Promotion
Meetup supports businesses and organizations that want to build local communities on Meetup. Businesses and brands do not have to be focused on community building in order to use Meetup, but if they start a Meetup group, that Meetup group should be. Meetup does not support groups created for the sole purpose of soliciting or promoting a business, service, brand, product, or venue.
Meetup groups are required to disclose any affiliations with companies, businesses, brands or organizations in their Meetup title or description fields. Below is a list of specific prohibitions, restrictions, and requirements for these Meetups. …
Promoters, Ticket Sales, Deals, and Packages
Meetup groups that are primarily intended to promote or sell, rather than build member-to-member connections, are not allowed. For example, Meetups positioned primarily to promote parties, sell tickets, advertise deals or travel packages, or publicize events that are misaligned with the Meetup group, are prohibited.
We require promotions to be used only to facilitate group connections and require that groups have a shared identity or interest. For example, a crafts Meetup group that posts a craft fair to attend as a group is allowed, but a crafts group that exclusively posts sales at local crafts stores is not.
Personal or Private Services
Any offerings should be centered on activities that build community connections, rather than on one-on-one activities between a service provider and a client or member. Leveraging a Meetup primarily to redirect members to become private clients is prohibited.
For example, health coaches, fitness trainers, life coaches, and private tutors are not permitted to leverage Meetup in order to actively promote their one-on-one services.
Classes and Workshops
Classes and workshops are allowed provided they list expected costs and requirements upfront, are clear about any business, organization, or school affiliations, set proper expectations for members, and are positioned to build lasting member-to-member connections via in-person group participation.
Products
Products directly associated with a Meetup group must be relevant or directly part of the activities or interests of a community-driven Meetup. Groups with the sole purpose of facilitating the direct sale or promotion of specific products or goods are prohibited.
Venues
Meetup groups associated with a venue must have a clear community-building purpose or interest. Meeting at the same venue over-and-over does not constitute a violation, however, positioning a Meetup to promote a venue or its offerings is prohibited.
Credentialed Services
Meetup does not support activities or practices that involve regulated services that need to be provided by legally licensed professionals in fields such as medicine, psychology, mental health, law, finance, etc.
Meetup does not validate professional credentials or licenses. Any offerings should be centered on activities for the group as a whole, rather than on one-on-one activities. Leveraging a Meetup primarily to redirect members to become private clients for credentialed services is prohibited.
One-time Event Meetup Groups
A one-time event should typically be listed as a Meetup event within a Meetup group. However, a one-time event with the potential to become a Meetup group that has shared interests and the potential for future opportunities to build member-to-member connections is allowed.
Singles and Dating Meetup Groups
Singles groups relating to a specific shared identity, shared set of values, or shared activity based interests that also aim to facilitate participation and community building are supported on Meetup. Dating services do not share the common goal of facilitating local and lasting community amongst groups of people and are prohibited. …
In order to provide a quality and more personally relevant experience for our members, Meetups for singles of a certain age, or singles in a certain location, are not specific enough to qualify as Meetup groups.
Prohibited dating services and events include, but are not limited to, speed dating, dating clinics, and date coaching.
Pick-up Artist Meetups
Meetup does not support groups that involve pick-up or seduction techniques, or wingman tactics.
Sexual and Adult Interests and Identities
Meetup respects anyone's choice to build a supportive community for diverse identities or lifestyles provided it is safe, honestly-informed and consensual. This includes those with sexual or adult interests. However, Meetups that participate in, or promote prostitution, or allow for any type of exploitation, are prohibited. If Meetup groups involve sexual interests, or education, organizers must abide by additional requirements for their Meetups. …
In a Meetup group title or description, organizers must clearly describe rules of participation and informed consent, be clear and explicit about activities that will occur, and outline safety considerations. They must also always have their group visibility settings set to Private.
Sexual Content and Nudity
Pornography is not allowed on Meetup. Publicly shared photos must be appropriate for general audiences. Nude or sexual photos are not allowed in public spaces.
If nudity or sexuality is part of a Meetup's identity or lifestyle, organizers must keep the group Private in order to limit access to this content to members of that group. Meetup expects leadership teams to monitor this content.
Under 18 Participation
Meetup members and organizers must be at least 18 years of age. Therefore, Meetup groups should be targeted at, and only offer opportunities for, those who are over 18.
While Meetups are welcome to provide activities for families, any children present at a Meetup must be supervised and accompanied by an adult guardian.
Hate and Harm
Meetup groups purposed to organize or promote hateful, harmful, threatening, or bullying behavior, will be removed from the platform. …
Organizers are expected to moderate their groups and content to prevent such behaviors from occurring and such content from appearing.
