TL;DR Storj is a values and mission driven organization. It also is a horizontal platform used by a wide variety of users for a variety of purposes. This blog post explores how our mission and values guide decisions about which types of users and content we support on our platform, what restrictions we place on the use of our platform, and what responsibilities we have to our users and the broader community.

Storj is driven by a set of values that are core to what we do.

Our mission is to “make the exponential growth of data a sustainable force for good.”

We offer a range of storage, distribution, and compute services that efficiently leverage compute, storage, and network resources around the world to deliver enterprise-grade cloud services in a manner that is exceptionally secure, performant, durable, private, and available, and to do so in a way that is sustainable both economically and environmentally.

Based on the distributed and decentralized architecture, security and privacy are paramount to our service. All data stored on Storj is encrypted with encryption keys owned by customers. Storj is not able to access customers’ data by design and customers have all the tools necessary for maximum privacy and security for their data.*

Because we are a horizontal platform, serving users across industries rather than in a particular niche market, we have a wide variety of customers using us for a broad array of purposes and types of content.

Therefore, we sometimes face questions about our customers and how they use our services, the types of content they store and distribute with us, and whether they are consistent with our values.

What Storj is used for.

Since one of our deeply held values is openness/transparency (see Appendix for more information) we want to be proactive and transparent about our policies and stance on users and content.

As a broad based, horizontal platform, Storj is used for a wide variety of purposes, about which people may have strong opinions.

• Storj is used broadly for AI.
• Storj is used broadly for scientific research and data, including for physics, genomics, cosmology, and energy research.
• Storj is used for storing health care data.
• Storj is used for energy data, including data around nuclear, oil and gas.
• Storj is used by several political campaigns to store and distribute political content.

Our system is especially good at handling and distributing video, so we have customers that use Storj for:

• a wide variety of religious programming
• a wide variety of entertainment content
• a wide variety of political content
• storing security videos
• short form, social media content
• adult content

We recognize that many people–in the Storj community and our company–have strong opinions about what customers use the Storj platform for. Some may object to the religious videos. Some may object to stem cell research. Some may feel that AI is a social ill.  Some may feel that social media is bad for children. Some may object to the political views of users. Some may object to the environmental record of oil & gas companies. Some may object to nuclear research. Some may have privacy concerns about the widespread use of security videos. Some may object to adult content.

Storj content policies

We do not know the details of the content that is processed and stored on the Storj network, unless those details are shared with us. Within our storage and distribution business, all data comes to us encrypted and remains encrypted at rest and in transit. Metadata is minimized and the rest encrypted. So, by design, to maximize customer privacy and security, we know the minimal amount about what is stored with us.

We are not a content site or a social media site, so we are not in the business of presenting/suggesting content or enabling end users to find content. Indeed, our platform was specially designed to prevent the possibility of us compromising the privacy or security of our users, or even to monetize metadata.

As a result, our approach to content, users, and uses is more akin to the “common carrier” standards employed by cloud services companies and networks, rather than to the standards of a social media, news, or content site.

1. We have a strong acceptable use policy, which includes prohibitions against illegal content. Our Usage Restrictions are fully aligned with the policies of the major cloud and infrastructure providers. Our requirements are that our network not be used for illegal purposes, to spread malware, to send spam, to send threatening or unlawful material, or otherwise to violate copyright or third-party privacy rights, etc.

2. We have an established set of procedures for addressing content that violates our policy. These procedures are designed to be fair, transparent, respectful of both the rights of our customers and the enforcement of our acceptable use policy, and protective of victims of criminal activity. When we receive a report of content that reportedly violates our policies, we follow these steps:
   1. We review and assess the legitimacy of the report, and err on the side of protecting victims.
   2. If the report appears valid, we take appropriate action, which could include content removal, account suspension, working with the customer, or other measures as outlined in our Terms of Service

This process is designed to handle a variety of situations, including false reports, mistakes, and cases where legitimate customers may have been compromised. Our goal is to maintain a safe and trusted platform while also treating our users fairly. In cases involving clear and immediate danger, such as child exploitation material, we may take swift action to remove content and report to appropriate authorities. We also may take clear and direct action against intentional actions to overwhelm, circumvent, or abuse our processes or affect our systems with or without notifying the account holder as outlined in our Terms of Service. We comply with valid legal requests to take down content from authorities in the jurisdictions in which we operate.

3. With regard to users themselves, we have anti-money laundering (AML) and know your customer (KYC) programs that help protect our platform from being used for illicit and criminal purposes, which enables us to avoid doing business with individuals and entities on the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List maintained by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) with groups identified as terrorist organizations by reputable third party organizations, or with groups identified as hate groups by reputable third-party organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center and other international human rights organizations.

Other than that, we do not believe that it is appropriate for Storj, as a common carrier, to make decisions about the morality or “goodness” of users and the ways they use the platform.

A deeper dive on political speech and adult content.

Two of the most controversial topics today with cloud content are political speech (including hate speech) and adult content. These are worth a closer look at how this content is handled.

Political speech

We believe that it is consistent with our values and our mission to have our site used to host a wide variety of political content representing diverse political views. As we are not a content site, a news site, or a user-generated content distribution site, we are not in the business of content moderation. As a common carrier, it is not our role to prevent content that–while legal–may be objectionable to some, or to monitor for dis- or mis-information.

Of course, we understand that there is a difference between normal civil discourse and hate speech. Where to draw the line can be difficult and may vary across different cultural and legal contexts.

With regard to hate speech or speech that incites violence, our Terms of Service explicitly exclude organizations that recognized international third party authorities have designated as criminal, hate, or terrorist organizations. Beyond that, we make no judgment as to legal, but potentially objectionable, content.

Adult content

As noted above, the Storj platform is very good for storing and distributing large content files, including video files. It is used widely for video purposes, including for religious videos, security videos, mainstream entertainment, video post-production, and adult content. Our GPU services are also used for generative AI purposes.

We recognize that many object to adult content and have strong views about the societal impact of the industry. Adult content is estimated to represent about thirty percent of all content of current internet traffic. Mainstream providers of storage, networking, and bandwidth equipment or services (including almost all cloud services companies) often derive substantial revenue from adult content.

Beyond objections to legal adult content, we are aware that adult content platforms can be misused to distribute illegal content that exploits minors or content that is prepared without the explicit consent of the subjects.

Posting such illegal content is an explicit violation of our acceptable use policies, and our procedures (as stated above) have us address such content promptly. We act quickly when we receive notification of illegal or non-consensual content, taking steps to confirm that the report itself is not baseless or an attempt to harass others.  Our policies and procedures also enable us to suspend customers for repeated violations.

In addition to the general terms of service, we impose the following requirements on contracted customers in the adult industry prior to using our service. All such customers must legally represent and, as requested, provide documentation/evidence to establish that:

1. They have active programs to detect illegal, underage, and non-consensual content; to prevent such material from appearing on their platform, and to remove such content from their platform;
2. If they accept user-generated content, that they have strong programs in place to identify the users submitting content and to verify both the age and consent of individuals appearing in any user-submitted content;
3. They have policies requiring content providers to attest to age and consent of individuals appearing in their materials and be able to produce such evidence upon request;
4. They have a robust process to comply with jurisdiction-specific restrictions on adult content;
5. They enter into agreements with their users/providers of content (including click-wrap sign ups) that clearly, explicitly, and prominently prohibit depictions of minors, or non-consensual or other illegal conduct;
6. That, to the extent permissible, they  inform us of any identified control deficiencies and any litigation or government action relating to illicit activity as well steps taken to remediate the deficiencies and address the activity;
7. They promptly respond to complaints and provide evidence to show that they fully and effectively address complaints related to illegal, underage, and non-consensual content;
8. They have active programs to monitor and prevent the use of their platform by underage viewers.

Storj continues to live its values.

We hope that this synopsis provides a clear description of our policies. It is not intended in any way to replace the Terms of Service that govern use of the network but is meant to highlight our thinking and approach to content, use, and reports of abuse of our network. We recognize that there are individuals who might favor either more permissive or more restrictive policies, but believe that we have created policies consistent with our values, mission, strategy, business model, and role.

Storj will continue to endeavor for our core values to be Sustainable, Trailblazing, Open, Respectful, and Joyful in everything we do. And as this article does, we will continue to scrutinize ourselves to ensure we are making decisions that are in line with those values.

Got questions or comments? We encourage you to bring the discussion to the Storj forum.

Appendix

Openness and Transparency are core Storj Values. For the community/public, we do this by:

• Having quarterly town halls in which we discuss the business
• Keeping source code open and available (https://github.com/storj/)
• Having a public roadmap (https://github.com/storj/roadmap)
• Maintaining a public forum (forum.storj.io) and public blog (blog.storj.io)
• Publishing addresses and producing quarterly token reports (www.storj.io/category/token-report)
• Making live statistics on the state of the network available via API (https://stats.storjshare.io/)
• Enabling members of the community to put together their own reports based on that API. (https://storjstats.info/ and http://storjnet.info/)
• Publishing data on our DEI and Environmental Initiatives

*The vast majority of storage customers (over 90%) manage their own encryption keys, and we have no ability (even if we wanted to) to decrypt their data. Some customers have requested that we manage their encryption keys for them. In such cases, we have legal and technical safeguards in place to prevent Storj from decrypting data except in cases where the customer specifically requests or there is a lawful order to do so. Please note that the above discussion related to encryption applies to our storage products. This does not apply to our GPU and CPU compute products through Valdi.