Last updated: July 28, 2026
This Editorial Policy applies to the English-language U.S. edition of Referendum.social.
Referendum.social is an independent public polling platform focused on opinions, issues and current events relevant to people in the United States. The platform allows users to create polls, vote, discuss results and compare different points of view.
Our role is to provide the platform, maintain its quality and protect the integrity of its content. We do not tell users what position they should support, and we do not treat poll results as official or scientifically representative measurements of the entire U.S. population.
All polls on Referendum.social are created through the regular user-facing publishing system.
Registered users can create their own polls. Members of the Referendum.social team and site administrators may also create polls, particularly about current events, public policy, politics, social issues and other topics of interest to U.S. audiences. When administrators create polls, they do so through normal user accounts rather than through a separate hidden editorial publishing system.
Polls created by administrators are subject to the same general editorial and moderation principles as polls created by other users.
Polls are normally published immediately after they are submitted. They do not usually require approval before becoming publicly visible.
Because content can appear without advance review, moderation may take place after publication. A poll may be reviewed following a user report, an internal quality check or the discovery of a possible violation of our policies.
Immediate publication does not mean that all submitted content has been reviewed, approved or endorsed by Referendum.social.
Poll questions should be written in a way that allows users to express their genuine opinions without being pushed toward a preferred answer.
Polls may cover controversial, political or emotionally sensitive subjects. The fact that a subject is controversial is not, by itself, a reason to remove it. However, the wording should not deliberately mislead voters, hide essential context or present one political or social position as the official view of Referendum.social.
Where appropriate, administrators may revise a question to make it:
Referendum.social does not endorse political parties, candidates, government policies or ideological positions through the wording of its polls.
A poll may be edited after publication.
Administrators may update the poll title, question wording, answer options, description, tags, category or other related information. These changes may be made to improve clarity, neutrality, accuracy, categorization, relevance or search visibility.
For example, a narrowly phrased question asking whether users “support” a particular policy may be rewritten as a broader question asking for their opinion about that policy. Such an edit can make the page more useful and easier to understand without changing its central subject.
Edits should preserve the essential topic and meaning of the poll. They should not be used to make existing votes appear to answer an entirely different question.
Where a proposed change would substantially alter the subject of a poll or make previous results misleading, the more appropriate action may be to remove the poll or create a new one.
Answer options may also be reviewed and edited when they are unclear, duplicated, misleading, irrelevant or inconsistent with the question.
The purpose of such editing is to make the available choices understandable and reasonably balanced. It is not intended to favor a particular result.
Referendum.social cannot guarantee that every user-created poll contains every possible viewpoint. Some questions may intentionally offer a limited set of choices. Users can use the comments section to explain opinions that are not fully represented by the available answers.
Tags help users and search systems understand the subject of a poll.
Administrators may add, remove or replace tags after publication when the original tags are inaccurate, too broad, duplicated or unrelated to the poll. Polls may also be moved to a more appropriate topic or category.
These changes affect how a poll is organized and discovered. They do not change the votes already submitted.
Referendum.social may edit, restrict or remove content that violates the Terms of Service, other site policies or applicable law.
Reasons for moderation may include spam, duplicate content, automated submissions, illegal material, threats or encouragement of violence, pornographic content, publication of private personal information, harassment, deliberately deceptive wording or content created primarily to manipulate the platform.
This list is not exhaustive. Content may also be removed when keeping it online would create a serious risk to users, the platform or third parties.
Depending on the circumstances, moderators may edit the content instead of removing the entire poll. For example, an inappropriate tag may be replaced while the underlying question remains available.
Questions, answer options, descriptions and comments created by users represent the views or choices of their authors.
They do not represent the official position of Referendum.social.
The presence of a poll on the website does not mean that Referendum.social agrees with its premise, wording, political position or conclusions. The platform may host opposing views on the same issue.
Poll results show how participating users voted.
Unless a specific page explicitly states otherwise, Referendum.social polls are not scientific surveys, official election polls or statistically representative studies. Participants are not selected through probability sampling, and results are not automatically weighted to represent the full population of the United States.
Available demographic or geographic filters can help users examine responses from different groups. These filters do not make the results representative of all Americans or of any particular demographic group.
Results should therefore be described as the opinions of participating users at the time of voting.
The word “referendum” on Referendum.social refers to an online public poll or community vote.
Polls hosted on the platform are not legally binding referendums. They are not administered by federal, state or local election authorities and do not form part of an official electoral process unless a page explicitly states otherwise.
Referendum.social is independent of the U.S. Government, election authorities, political parties, candidates, political campaigns, lobbying organizations and media organizations.
No government body, political party or public official controls the questions users may ask or the results displayed by the platform.
Referendum.social may cover political figures, elections, government decisions and public controversies, but such coverage does not constitute support for or opposition to any person, organization or position.
Users who believe that a poll was edited, restricted or removed incorrectly may contact Referendum.social through the Contact Us page.
Appeals should identify the relevant poll and explain why the user believes the decision should be reconsidered. We may restore the content, make additional edits or uphold the original moderation decision after review.
Users may also report inaccurate wording, inappropriate answer options, incorrect tags or other editorial problems through the same contact process.
This Editorial Policy may be updated as Referendum.social develops new features, changes its moderation procedures or responds to legal and operational requirements.
The latest version published on this page applies to the English-language U.S. edition of the platform.
