TOS

Terms of Service: Posted April 16, 2020

These Terms of Service (“Terms” or “TOS”) are a contract between you and Giving Forward, Inc. They govern your use of Giving Forward’s various sites (websites), services, mobile apps, browser plugins, products, and content (“Services”). Giving Forward describes any or all the sites or services provided.

By using any one of the Giving Forward services, you agree to these Terms. If you don’t agree to any of the Terms, you can’t use those sites or services.

We can change these Terms at any time. Please check back regularly to review these Terms. If you don’t agree to them, you should delete your account and no longer use the services, because your continued use of the site and content is subject to the current Terms.

Disclaimer on Content:

The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of Giving Forward. Any content provided by our contributors or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual. If you believe that content being provided as part of our Services is in violation of our community guidelines portion of our TOS, or if you believe that content is in violation of your trademark, both instances are handled by our DMCA team. Please see details on our DMCA policy here.

Content rights & responsibilities

You own the rights to the content you create and post on Giving Forward or any of its sites or services.

By posting content to Giving Forward, you give us a nonexclusive license to publish it on Giving Forward Services, including anything reasonably related to publishing it (like storing, displaying, reformatting, and distributing it). In consideration for Giving Forward granting you access to and use of the Services, you agree that Giving Forward may enable advertising on the Services, including in connection with the display of your content or other information. We may also use your content to promote Giving Forward, including its products and content. We will never sell your content to third parties without your explicit permission.

You’re responsible for the content you post. This means you assume all risks related to it, including someone else’s reliance on its accuracy, or claims relating to intellectual property or other legal rights.

You’re welcome to post content on Giving Forward that you’ve published elsewhere, given that you have the rights you need to do so. By posting content to Giving Forward, you represent that doing so doesn’t conflict with any other agreement you’ve made or infringe on the right of others.

By posting content you didn’t create to Giving Forward, you are representing that you have the right to do so. For example, you are posting a work that’s in the public domain, used under license (including a free license, such as Creative Commons), or a fair use.

We can remove any content you post for any reason.

If you would like us to delete any of your posts, or your account, please contact us at webmaster@givingforward.org.

Our content and services

We reserve all rights in Giving Forward’s look and feel across all of the provision of our Services. You may not copy or adapt any portion of our code or visual design elements (including logos) without express written permission from Giving Forward unless otherwise permitted by law.

You may not do, or try to do, the following: (1) access or tamper with non-public areas of the Services, our computer systems, or the systems of our technical providers; (2) access or search the Services by any means other than the currently available, published interfaces (e.g., APIs) that we provide; (3) forge any TCP/IP packet header or any part of the header information in any email or posting, or in any way use the Services to send altered, deceptive, or false source-identifying information; or (4) interfere with, or disrupt, the access of any user, host, or network, including sending a virus, overloading, flooding, spamming, mail-bombing the Services, or by scripting the creation of content or accounts in such a manner as to interfere with or create an undue burden on the Services.

Crawling the Services is allowed if done in accordance with the provisions of our robots.txt file, but scraping the Services is prohibited.

We may change, terminate, or restrict access to any aspect of the service, at any time, without notice.

No children

Giving Forward’s publishing features and Services are only for people 13 years old and over. By using Giving Forward, you affirm that you are over 13. If we learn someone under 13 is using Giving Forward to post content, we’ll terminate their account.

Incorporated rules and policies

By using the Services, you agree to let Giving Forward collect and use information as detailed in our Privacy Policy. If you’re outside the United States, you consent to letting Giving Forward transfer, store, and process your information (including your personal information and content) in and out of the United States.

By using Giving Forward, you agree to follow these Rules and Policies. If you don’t, we may remove content, or suspend or delete your account.

Miscellaneous

Disclaimer of warranty. Giving Forward provides the Services to you as is. You use them at your own risk and discretion. That means they don’t come with any warranty. None expressed, none implied. No implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, availability, security, title or non-infringement.

Limitation of Liability. Giving Forward won’t be liable to you for any damages that arise from your using the Services. This includes if the Services are hacked or unavailable. This includes all types of damages (indirect, incidental, consequential, special or exemplary). And it includes all kinds of legal claims, such as breach of contract, breach of warranty, tort, or any other loss.

No waiver. If Giving Forward doesn’t exercise a particular right under these Terms, that doesn’t waive it.

Severability. If any provision of these terms is found invalid by a court of competent jurisdiction, you agree that the court should try to give effect to the parties’ intentions as reflected in the provision and that other provisions of the Terms will remain in full effect.

Choice of law and jurisdiction. These Terms are governed by California law, without reference to its conflict of laws provisions. You agree that any suit arising from the Services must take place in a court located in New York County, New York State.

Entire agreement. These Terms (including any document incorporated by reference into them) are the whole agreement between Giving Forward and you concerning the Services.

RULES

Threats of violence and incitement
We do not allow content or actions that threaten, encourage, or incite violence against anyone, directly or indirectly.

Hate speech
We do not allow content that promotes violence or hatred against people based on characteristics like race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, disability, disease, age, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity political view, or affiliation with any political party or governmental organization.

We do not allow posts or accounts that glorify, celebrate, downplay, or trivialize violence, suffering, abuse, or deaths of individuals or groups. This includes the use of scientific or pseudoscientific claims to pathologize, dehumanize, or disempower others. We do not allow calls for intolerance, exclusion, or segregation based on protected characteristics, nor do we allow the glorification of groups which do any of the above.

We do not allow hateful text, images, symbols, or other content in your username, profile, or bio.

Harassment
Giving Forward and our sites/services exist to share and discuss ideas, educate, and inform. We don’t tolerate harassment, which includes:

  • Bullying, threatening, or shaming someone, or posting things likely to encourage others to do so
  • Using any features like responses, private notes, mentions, follows, story requests, or writer requests in a way intended to annoy or harass someone
  • Reviewing businesses or products in a gratuitously harmful or abusive manner

Privacy and Reputation
We do not allow the following:

  • Posting copies of private communications between private individuals without the explicit consent of all parties to the communication
  • Doxing, which includes not only dissemination of private or obscure personal information but also the aggregation of publicly available information to target, shame, blackmail, harass, intimidate, threaten, or endanger
  • Posting intimate or explicit images taken or posted without the subject’s express consent
  • Content that violates others’ privacy, including sensitive or confidential information such as credit card numbers, social security numbers, non-public phone numbers, physical addresses, email addresses, or other non-public information

Restricted categories
We do not allow posts or accounts that engage in the following restricted categories of activity:

  • Promotion of harmful conspiracies
  • Facilitation of buying or selling social media interactions, including off-platform
  • Facilitation of illegal sexual services
  • Facilitation of copyright violation

Related conduct
We do not allow posts or accounts that engage in on-platform, off-platform, or cross-platform campaigns of targeting, harassment, hate speech, violence, or disinformation. We may consider off-platform actions in assessing a Giving Forward account, and restrict access or availability to that account.

Duplicate Content
We do not allow posting duplicate content within the platform, sites or services, whether from a single account or across multiple accounts, either publicly or as an unlisted story. However, as clarified earlier you may re-post a story or content you created and have the right to which you also published elsewhere, if you have the right to do so.

Spam
We do not allow spam on Giving Forward sites and properties. All spam will be immediately removed, without notification. While it is hard to define this content with precision or completeness, here are some representative behaviors we look for that are characteristic of spam:

  • Posting content primarily to drive traffic to, or increase the search rankings of, an external site, product, or service
  • Scraping and reposting content from other sources for the primary purpose of generating revenue or other personal gains
  • Posting duplicate content, whether from a single account or across multiple accounts
  • Stories where the content is clipped with the sole purpose of linking to the rest of the article on a different website
  • Performing a disproportionately large number of interactions, particularly by automated means. This includes bulk, indiscriminate interactions, such as following of other accounts (follow spam) clapping, highlighting, or leaving notes
  • Repeatedly using responses or other interactions as a method of promotion
  • Participating in bounty campaigns or brigades to artificially inflate rankings for posts, accounts, businesses, or products
  • Use or re-use content templates with slight modifications across multiple posts and accounts

For each of these behaviors, when we talk about “content,” we mean not only posts but also any other feature that allows you to add your own text or media. When we talk about “interactions,” we mean any feature that allows one user to interact with another, or with a post.

Copyright and trademark infringement
Respect the copyrights and trademarks of others. Unless you’re authorized to use someone else’s copyrighted work or trademark (either expressly or by legal exceptions and limitations like fair use), don’t do it. We respond to notices of alleged infringement as described in our Copyright and DMCA Policy.

Deceptive conduct
We do not allow deceptive conduct on any Giving Forward site or service. This includes:

  • Posting content or impersonating a person or organization in a way likely to deceive people. Parody and satire are fine, but make clear that is what you’re doing.
  • Using our services for phishing or fraud. Don’t use tags, links, titles, or other metadata in a misleading way. Don’t link to or embed malicious or harmful code or software in your posts
  • Don’t use deception to generate revenue or traffic
  • If you have received compensation, free goods/services or anything of value in connection with the topic of a post, you must make this clear

Ads, Promotions, and Marketing

  • Third-party advertising and sponsorships are not allowed. You may not advertise or promote third-party products, services, or brands through posts, publications, or letters. This includes images that indicate brand sponsorship in a post or letter, or as part of a publication name or logo.
  • Images functioning as third-party ads are not allowed. Inline images or embeds that link out and function as banner ads for third-party brands are not allowed.
  • Affiliate links, such as link out to Amazon with your code, or any other link out where you will receive a commission or other value, are only allowed in posts if the Giving Forward Affiliate accounts are used, in keeping with our mission. But, you must disclose somewhere in the post that it includes affiliate links so that our editors and readers are aware. If you have received payment, goods or services, or something else of value in exchange for writing a post, you must still disclose this fact in writing within your post (as per FTC Rules and Guides).

You may not:

  • Use an anonymous email address which is not linked to your project domain. (e.g., gmail, protonmail, mail.ru, etc.)
  • Advertise or participate in bounty campaigns, pump and dumps, reviewing for reward, or other forms of brigading or inauthentic activity.
  • Include shortened URLs in your posts.

Graphic content
We do not allow pornographic images or videos. We do allow erotic writing and non-graphic erotic images.

We do not allow gratuitously graphic or disturbing media, even if it’s not pornographic.

Exploitation of minors
We do not allow content promoting the sexual or violent exploitation of minors, including the sexualization of fictional minors.

Promotion and glorification of self-harm
We do not allow activities that encourage, promote or glorify acts of self-harm, such as cutting, eating disorders like anorexia or bulimia, and suicide. If you encounter users contemplating or threatening self-harm, please report it to us via the form or email address linked below.

If you break the rules
We strive to be fair, but we reserve the right to suspend accounts or remove content, without notice, for any reason, particularly to protect our services, infrastructure, users, or community. If you attempt to evade suspension by creating new accounts or posts, we will suspend your new accounts and posts.

Notice
Upon investigating or disabling content associated with your account, we will notify you, unless we believe your account is automated or operating in bad faith, or that notifying you is likely to cause, maintain or exacerbate harm to someone.

Government Takedown Requests
If Giving Forward receives a request from a government actor to restrict access to content associated with your account, we will notify you unless we are prohibited by law or believe doing so may endanger others. Where applicable, we will work to limit legally-ordered content restrictions to jurisdictions where we have a good faith belief that we are legally required to restrict the content.

We may enforce, or not enforce, these policies at our sole discretion. These policies don’t create a duty or contractual obligation for us to act.