Bento is a place for honest food content from real people about real places. These guidelines say what belongs here and what does not. They apply to everything you post or send on Bento: reels, photos, captions, comments, profiles, messages and restaurant listings. They form part of our Terms of Service.
1. What belongs on Bento
- Food, drink and dining you actually experienced, at the restaurant it is tagged to.
- Your honest opinion, good or bad, told as your own.
- Content you made yourself, or have the right to use, including any music.
- People who agreed to be filmed. Ask before you point a camera at strangers, and never film children who are not yours without their guardian's consent.
2. What is not allowed
- Fake experiences. Tagging a restaurant you did not visit, using someone else's footage as your own, or staging a scene to mislead.
- Bought or traded reviews. Posting, offering or requesting positive content in exchange for money, food, discounts or anything else, unless it is a labelled Bento campaign (section 3). Bento itself never pays for reviews.
- Harassment and hate. Attacks on people, including restaurant staff, based on who they are; threats; bullying; doxxing.
- Dangerous or illegal content. Anything promoting violence, self-harm, illegal drugs, or the sale of alcohol or tobacco to minors. Content showing alcohol must not be targeted at or glamorise consumption by people under the legal drinking age in Karnataka.
- Sexual content and nudity. None. This is a food app.
- Spam and manipulation. Repetitive posting, engagement bait, follow-for-follow schemes, fake accounts, bots, or any attempt to game the feed, check-ins, inventory or rewards.
- Infringement. Music, video, images or trademarks you do not have rights to.
- Private information. Other people's phone numbers, addresses, bills or faces without consent.
- Misinformation about food safety that could put someone in danger, including false allergen claims.
- Off-platform steering designed to move a transaction off Bento to avoid verification.
3. Sponsored and campaign content
If a restaurant paid you, fed you for free, or gave you anything in return for a post, say so. Campaign content created through Bento is labelled automatically. Any other material connection must be disclosed in the caption in a way people will actually notice, as the Advertising Standards Council of India's Guidelines for Influencer Advertising require. Undisclosed sponsorship is removed and repeat offenders lose creator status.
4. Rules for restaurants
- Offers must be real, honoured as written, and priced honestly. A frozen perk must be redeemable on the terms it was claimed under.
- Menu photos and videos must show your food as it is served.
- Do not ask diners for positive content in exchange for anything outside a labelled Bento campaign. Do not penalise a diner for honest negative content.
- Staff accounts may not redeem perks for themselves or falsify verification.
5. How moderation works
- Every upload passes automated checks for nudity, violence and obvious spam before it can appear in Discover. Flagged content is held for a human to review.
- Appearing in Discover is never guaranteed; the feed ranks on quality, relevance, distance and freshness, not on follower count.
- Reports from users are reviewed by people. We aim to act on a report within 24 hours, and within 36 hours of a valid legal order as the Intermediary Guidelines require. Content depicting a person in a sexual or nude context is removed within 24 hours of a complaint by that person.
- Actions we may take, depending on severity and history: reduce distribution, add a label, remove the content, remove a perk or listing, withdraw creator status, forfeit fraudulent rewards, suspend or permanently close the account. Illegal content is reported to the authorities where the law requires.
6. Reporting, blocking and appeals
- Report any post, comment, profile or restaurant from the three-dot menu on it. Tell us which rule you think was broken.
- Block any user from their profile. They will not be able to see your content or contact you, and you will not see theirs.
- Mute a user to hide their content without them knowing.
- Appeal a moderation decision from the notification you received, or by writing to grievance@createbento.in within 30 days. A different reviewer looks at it and replies with reasons.
Anything you cannot resolve in the app goes to our Grievance Officer, The Proprietor, Bento Ventures, at grievance@createbento.in. Complaints are acknowledged within 24 hours and resolved within 15 days. Copyright owners can send takedown notices to legal@createbento.in.
7. Changes
We update these guidelines as the community grows. Material changes are announced in the app. The version in force is always the one on this page.