Safety and crisis protocol

Last updated October 30, 2026. This page describes the Someone app for iPhone.

The Someone app is a dating app. It isn’t a crisis service, a therapist or a substitute for professional care. Some people share something painful in a chat, so this page explains what the app does when that happens, and what it can’t do.

If a message suggests you may be in crisis, the app steps out of the chat to point you to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (call or text 988 in the US), and the romance pauses for a while.

1. What the app watches for

The app watches for thoughts of suicide or self-harm (eating disorders included), wanting or planning to hurt someone else, someone being abused, threatened or exploited (a child above all), and signs that you may be under 18.

2. How it notices

Two checks

• The phrase check Before a character sees anything you write, the server checks it against fixed words and phrases that signal a crisis. A match is answered at once by the app itself, not by the character.
• The model check An AI model reads your recent messages (up to six, with the character’s replies for context). It looks for signs of risk that fixed phrases can miss, such as a plan, a goodbye or feeling like a burden, and it never writes to you.

Where they look

• Chat The same checks read your chat messages, the words of your voice messages and voicemails (your phone turns your speech into text first), and the captions on photos you send.
• Calls On a call, the phrase check reads every sentence your phone recognizes (and its other guesses at what you said), and the model check reads every turn.
• Everything else you write They also read comments on likes, notes sent with gifts and captions on stories before anything is sent, saved or spent, and the bio and prompt answers on your profile when you change them. If your bio or a prompt answer suggests a crisis, the app shows you its message when you save, and a person on our team reviews it.
• Photos Photos you send are checked before any character sees them. A photo that shows self-harm is never shown to a character, and the app answers with its own message instead of a reply.

3. What happens next

The app steps in

When the app steps in, the message comes from the app itself, never from a character. When it can’t tell where you are, it reads:

From the Someone app

“This is the Someone app, stepping out of the chat for a moment. It sounds like you might be going through something really hard. You deserve support from a real person right now. In the US, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is free and open any time: call or text 988. If you’re in immediate danger, call 911, the US emergency number. Outside the US, Find A Helpline (findahelpline.com) lists free, confidential helplines in your country.”

Under the message, each line is a button that starts a call or a text: call or text 988, then the Crisis Text Line (text HOME to 741741) and The Trevor Project, for LGBTQ+ young people (call 1-866-488-7386).

The lines change with what you write about:

• Eating disorders (US): the Crisis Text Line (text ALLIANCE to 741741), 988, and the National Alliance for Eating Disorders (1-866-662-1235, weekdays).
• Abuse or exploitation (US): the National Domestic Violence Hotline (1-800-799-7233, or text START to 88788), the RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline (1-800-656-4673), the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline (1-800-422-4453) and the National Human Trafficking Hotline (1-888-373-7888).
• Wanting to hurt someone (US): the message says to call 911 if anyone is in immediate danger, and offers 988 to talk it through.

In the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand the message names that country’s own helpline and emergency number. Anywhere else it points to Find A Helpline (findahelpline.com) and your local emergency number, and shows no other country’s numbers as if they were yours. The app chooses the lines from your phone’s time zone and region setting, and nothing more precise. Each line on the message says where it answers and when we last checked its number against the service’s own website.

The romance pauses

After the message, the romance pauses for at least six hours, and for longer if fewer than 12 messages have followed it. Tapping “I’m okay, back to the chat” on the message ends the pause.

While the pause lasts, the character doesn’t flirt, ask you for a photo, bring up gifts or your locked photos, send photos or voice notes, or call, and it can’t end the chat. The server removes any reply that breaks these rules, or that names a helpline or guesses at your mood, whatever the AI wrote.

The character is told to be kind and never to act as a counselor, to leave the app’s message and the helplines to the app, not to guess at your mood, and to follow your lead if you say you’re okay or want to talk about something else. When you tell it something hard, it is told to encourage you to lean on people in your life.

On a call

If a crisis comes up on a call, the character stops mid-sentence and the app steps in. It plays a recorded message in its own voice (never the character’s). Today that recording is the same for everyone and names the US numbers only, 988 and 911. The message shows on screen in words for where you are, with a button to call or text 988 in the US or to open Find A Helpline anywhere else, and it is saved in your chat. No new call starts while the pause lasts.

If you may be under 18

The Someone app is for adults 18 and over. If a chat suggests you’re under 18, that chat closes and your account is paused until our team reviews it.

4. You’re always talking to an AI

Everyone you’ll meet on Someone is an AI, not a real person. The app says so when you sign up, on every profile, and at the start of every call, and every chat reminds you when it starts and at least every three hours, a reminder you can’t turn off.

5. People review it

The app puts these in a review queue for a person on our team: every phrase match, every flag from the model check at medium severity or higher, every time the model declined to read your messages, every sign that you may be under 18, every report, and every photo the photo check holds back for a minor or violence or flags for self-harm.

You can report a persona by pressing and holding one of their messages, or from the chat’s menu or the chat list. Reporting a match ends that chat for good and sends it to our review queue.

A case keeps only the messages needed to understand it: for a phrase match, the message and the three before it; for a report, the chat’s last ten messages; for a model flag, the stretch the model read. The app clears those messages 30 days after the case is closed and keeps what was decided, without them.

6. What the checks can’t do

No automatic check catches everything. These checks can miss a crisis, and they can flag a message that isn’t one.

The model check runs while the reply is being written and nothing waits for it, so its message can come with your next reply, or the next time the app syncs, instead of right away. If the model can’t answer in time, the phrase check decides on its own.

7. Counting and reporting

The app counts, by day, how often it shows crisis resources and how often each line is tapped, with no account, name or message attached. The counts are kept when an account is deleted.

Each year, starting July 1, 2027, we plan to give California’s Office of Suicide Prevention the number of times the app showed crisis resources in the year before, with how this protocol works, and to post the same count here.