Comments and privacy
The rules of the conversation under our stories, and what we keep.
Comment rules
Startup Pakistan welcomes your view — in English, Urdu or Roman Urdu. Disagree with a story, with us or with another reader as much as you like; do it without abuse.
Not allowed: insults or abuse aimed at anyone; hate against people for their religion, sect, ethnicity, nationality, caste, gender or disability; threats or calls to violence; sexual content; spam, scams and advertising; anyone's private details (a phone number, an address).
Accusing a named person of a crime or wrongdoing as a fact is held for our team to read before it can appear.
A comment with a link waits for our team. One comment every 30 seconds, about ten an hour, up to 1,000 letters; the same words twice are not taken.
How comments are checked
Every comment is read before it appears — by an automated checker (an AI model) and, whenever it is not sure, by our team. A comment that clearly breaks the rules is not published; one that is clearly fine appears within about a minute; the rest wait for a person.
Readers can report a comment. A reported comment is read again, and a comment reported by three readers is hidden until a person looks. We never edit a reader's words: a comment is published as written, or not at all.
Signing in
Comments are written by people signed in with Google, Facebook, Apple, X, LinkedIn, Microsoft or an e-mail code. We never see or keep a password.
We keep only what a comment needs: your name and your picture as the platform gives them, and the platform's own id for you so you are the same person next time. With an e-mail code we keep no e-mail address — only a one-way code made from it, so the same address signs in to the same name.
Signing in with Facebook uses a small app of Startup Pakistan's own, for comments only. It asks Facebook for your public profile — your name and picture — and nothing else; it never posts anything as you, and what it receives is used for nothing but your comments.
What we do not keep
No address of your device: the limits that stop floods are counted in memory and forgotten. No tracking cookie: the one cookie is your sign-in, sent only to the comment section's own address.
Deleting your comments and your account
Delete any comment of yours from under it. To delete everything — your name, your picture, your sign-in and every comment you wrote — sign in and press “Delete my account” in the comment section.
If you signed in with Facebook, you can also remove our app in Facebook's settings (Apps and websites): Facebook tells us, everything of yours is deleted, and you get a code to check that it was done.
