RULES AND POLICIES

You’re responsible for your use of the Services and any content you provide, including compliance with applicable laws. Content on the Services may be protected by others’ intellectual property rights. Please don’t copy, upload, download, or share content unless you have the right to do so.

Your use of the Services must comply with our Rules.

You may need to register for an account to access some or all of our Services. Help us keep your account protected. Safeguard your password to the account, and keep your account information current. We recommend that you do not share your password with others.

If you’re accepting these Terms and using the Services on behalf of someone else (such as another person or entity), you represent that you’re authorized to do so, and in that case the words “you” or “your” in these Terms include that other person or entity.

To use our Services, you must be at least 13 years old.

If you use the Services to access, collect, or use personal information about other Mestios users (“Personal Information”), you agree to do so in compliance with applicable laws. You further agree not to sell any Personal Information, where the term “sell” has the meaning given to it under applicable laws.

For Personal Information you provide to us (e.g. as a Article or Publication), you represent and warrant that you have lawfully collected the Personal Information and that you or a third party has provided all required notices and collected all required consents before collecting the Personal Information. You further represent and warrant that Mestios’ use of such Personal Information in accordance with the purposes for which you provided us the Personal Information will not violate, misappropriate or infringe any rights of another (including intellectual property rights or privacy rights) and will not cause us to violate any applicable laws.

Mestios may review your conduct and content for compliance with these Terms and our Rules, and reserves the right to remove any violating content.

Mestios reserves the right to delete or disable content alleged to be infringing the intellectual property rights of others, and to terminate accounts of repeat infringers. We respond to notices of alleged copyright infringement if they comply with the law; please report such notices using our Intellectual Property Policy.

You retain your rights to any content you submit, post or display on or through the Services.

Unless otherwise agreed in writing, by submitting, posting, or displaying content on or through the Services, you grant Mestios a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, fully paid, and sublicensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, publicly perform and display your content and any name, username or likeness provided in connection with your content in all media formats and distribution methods now known or later developed on the Services.

Mestios needs this license because you own your content and Mestios therefore can’t display it across its various surfaces (i.e., web) without your permission.

This type of license also is needed to distribute your content across our Services. For example, you post an article on Mestios. It is reproduced as on website and distributed to multiple places within Mestios, such as the homepage or Articles page. A modification might be that we show a snippet of your work (and not the full post) in a preview, with attribution to you. A derivative work might be a list of top authors or quotes on Mestios that uses portions of your content, again with full attribution. This license applies to our Services only, and does not grant us any permissions outside of our Services.

So long as you comply with these Terms, Mestios gives you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, and non-assignable license to access and use our Services.

The Services are protected by copyright, trademark, and other US, UK and other laws. These Terms don’t grant you any right, title or interest in the Services, other users’ content on the Services, or Mestios trademarks, logos or other brand features.

Separate and apart from the content you submit, post or display on our Services, we welcome feedback, including any comments, ideas and suggestions you have about our Services. We may use this feedback for any purpose, in our sole discretion, without any obligation to you. We may treat feedback as nonconfidential.

We may stop providing the Services or any of its features within our sole discretion. We also retain the right to create limits on use and storage and may remove or limit content distribution on the Services.

Users of the Services may be permitted to upload, post or otherwise make available content through the Services including, without limitation, any text, photographs, user videos, sound recordings and the musical works embodied therein, including videos that incorporate locally stored sound recordings from your personal music library and ambient noise (“User Content”). Users of the Services may also extract all or any portion of User Content created by another user to produce additional User Content, including collaborative User Content with other users, that combine and intersperse User Content generated by more than one user. The information and materials in the User Content, including User Content that includes Mestios name or logo, have not been verified or approved by us. The views expressed by other users on the Services (including through use of the virtual gifts) do not represent our views or values.

Any User Content will be considered non-confidential and non-proprietary. You must not post any User Content on or through the Services or transmit to us any User Content that you consider to be confidential or proprietary. When you submit User Content through the Services, you agree and represent that you own that User Content, or you have received all necessary permissions, clearances from, or are authorised by, the owner of any part of the content to submit it to the Services, to transmit it from the Services to other third party platforms, and/or adopt any third party content.

If you only own the rights in and to a sound recording, but not to the underlying musical works embodied in such sound recordings, then you must not post such sound recordings to the Services unless you have all permissions, clearances from, or are authorised by, the owner of any part of the content to submit it to the Services.

You or the owner of your User Content still own the copyright in User Content sent to us, but by submitting User Content via the Services, you hereby grant us an unconditional irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free, fully transferable, perpetual worldwide licence to use, modify, adapt, reproduce, make derivative works of, publish and/or transmit, and/or distribute and to authorise other users of the Services and other third-parties to view, access, use, download, modify, adapt, reproduce, make derivative works of, publish and/or transmit your User Content in any format and on any platform, either now known or hereinafter invented.

You further grant us a royalty-free license to use your user name, image, voice, and likeness to identify you as the source of any of your User Content; provided, however, that your ability to provide an image, voice, and likeness may be subject to limitations due to age restrictions.

For the avoidance of doubt, the rights granted in the preceding paragraphs of this Section include, but are not limited to, the right to reproduce User Content, and publicly perform and communicate it to the public on a royalty-free basis. This means that you are granting us the right to use your User Content without the obligation to pay royalties to any third party.

You’re free to stop using our Services at any time. We reserve the right to suspend or terminate your access to the Services with or without notice.

In order for us to provide our Services, you agree that we may process, transfer and store information about you in the locations of Mestios servers (which may include amongst others EU and US) s, where you may not have the same rights and protections as under your home country laws.

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, you will indemnify, defend and hold harmless Mestios, and our officers, directors, agents, partners and employees (individually and collectively, the “Mestios Parties”) from and against any losses, liabilities, claims, demands, damages, expenses or costs (“Claims”) arising out of or related to your violation, misappropriation or infringement of any rights of another (including intellectual property rights or privacy rights) or your violation of the law. You agree to promptly notify Mestios Parties of any third-party Claims, cooperate with Mestios Parties in defending such Claims and pay all fees, costs and expenses associated with defending such Claims (including attorneys’ fees). You also agree that the Mestios Parties will have control of the defense or settlement, at Mestios’ sole option, of any third-party Claims.

Mestios aims to give you great Services but there are some things we can’t guarantee. Your use of our Services is at your sole risk. You understand that our Services and any content posted or shared by users on the Services are provided “as is” and “as available” without warranties of any kind, either express or implied, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non-infringement. In addition, Mestios doesn’t represent or warrant that our Services are accurate, complete, reliable, current or error-free. No advice or information obtained from Mestios or through the Services will create any warranty or representation not expressly made in this paragraph. Mestios may provide information about third-party products, services, activities or events, or we may allow third parties to make their content and information available on or through our Services (collectively, “Third-Party Content”). We do not control or endorse, and we make no representations or warranties regarding, any Third-Party Content. You access and use Third-Party Content at your own risk. Some locations don’t allow the disclaimers in this paragraph and so they might not apply to you.

We don’t exclude or limit our liability to you where it would be illegal to do so; this includes any liability for the gross negligence, fraud or intentional misconduct of Mestios or the other Mestios Parties in providing the Services. In countries where the following types of exclusions aren’t allowed, we’re responsible to you only for losses and damages that are a reasonably foreseeable result of our failure to use reasonable care and skill or our breach of our contract with you. This paragraph doesn’t affect consumer rights that can’t be waived or limited by any contract or agreement.

In countries where exclusions or limitations of liability are allowed, Mestios and Mestios Parties won’t be liable for:

(a) Any indirect, consequential, exemplary, incidental, punitive, or special damages, or any loss of use, data or profits, under any legal theory, even if Mestios or the other Mestios Parties have been advised of the possibility of such damages.

(b) Other than for the types of liability we can’t limit by law (as described in this section), we limit the total liability of Mestios and the other Mestios Parties for any claim arising out of or relating to these Terms or our Services, regardless of the form of the action, to the greater of $50.00 USD or the amount paid by you to use our Services.

We want to address your concerns without needing a formal legal case. Before filing a claim against Mestios, you agree to contact us and attempt to resolve the claim informally by sending a written notice of your claim by email at info@mestios.com. The notice must (a) include your name, residence address, email address, and telephone number; (b) describe the nature and basis of the claim; and (c) set forth the specific relief sought. Our notice to you will be sent to the email address associated with your online account and will contain the information described above. If we can’t resolve matters within thirty (30) days after any notice is sent, either party may initiate a formal proceeding.

Please read the following section carefully because it requires you to arbitrate certain disputes and claims with Mestios and limits the manner in which you can seek relief from us, unless you opt out of arbitration by following the instructions set forth below. No class or representative actions or arbitrations are allowed under this arbitration provision. In addition, arbitration precludes you from suing in court or having a jury trial.

(a) No Representative Actions. You and Mestios agree that any dispute arising out of or related to these Terms or our Services is personal to you and Mestios and that any dispute will be resolved solely through individual action, and will not be brought as a class arbitration, class action or any other type of representative proceeding.

(b) Arbitration of Disputes. Except for small claims disputes in which you or Mestios seeks to bring an individual action in small claims court located in the county where you reside or disputes in which you or Mestios seeks injunctive or other equitable relief for the alleged infringement or misappropriation of intellectual property, you and Mestios waive your rights to have any other dispute arising out of or related to these Terms or our Services, including claims related to privacy and data security, (collectively, “Disputes”) resolved in court. All Disputes will be resolved through confidential, binding arbitration before one arbitrator. Arbitration proceedings will be held in London, UK, in which case you may elect to hold the arbitration in your county of residence. All Disputes shall be resolved in accordance with arbitration rules of the International Chamber of Commerce. The language of arbitral proceeding shall be English.

(c) The arbitration will allow for the discovery or exchange of non-privileged information relevant to the Dispute. The arbitrator, Mestios, and you will maintain the confidentiality of any arbitration proceedings, judgments and awards, including information gathered, prepared and presented for purposes of the arbitration or related to the Dispute(s) therein. The arbitrator will have the authority to make appropriate rulings to safeguard confidentiality, unless the law provides to the contrary. The duty of confidentiality doesn’t apply to the extent that disclosure is necessary to prepare for or conduct the arbitration hearing on the merits, in connection with a court application for a preliminary remedy, or in connection with a judicial challenge to an arbitration award or its enforcement, or to the extent that disclosure is otherwise required by law or judicial decision.

(d) You and Mestios agree that for any arbitration you initiate, you will pay the filing fee. The arbitral award shall be final.

(e) Any Dispute must be filed within one year after the relevant claim arose; otherwise, the Dispute is permanently barred, which means that you and Mestios will not have the right to assert the claim.

(f) If any portion of this section is found to be unenforceable or unlawful for any reason, (1) the unenforceable or unlawful provision shall be severed from these Terms; (2) severance of the unenforceable or unlawful provision shall have no impact whatsoever on the remainder of this section or the parties’ ability to compel arbitration of any remaining claims on an individual basis pursuant to this section; and (3) to the extent that any claims must therefore proceed on a class, collective, consolidated, or representative basis, such claims must be litigated in a civil court of competent jurisdiction and not in arbitration, and the parties agree that litigation of those claims shall be stayed pending the outcome of any individual claims in arbitration. Further, if any part of this section is found to prohibit an individual claim seeking public injunctive relief, that provision will have no effect to the extent such relief is allowed to be sought out of arbitration, and the remainder of this section will be enforceable.

These Terms and any dispute that arises between you and Mestios will be governed by English law.Some countries have laws that require agreements to be governed by the local laws of the consumer’s country. This paragraph doesn’t override those laws.

We may make changes to these Terms from time to time. If we make changes, we’ll provide you with notice of them by sending an email to the email address associated with your account, offering an in-product notification, or updating the date at the top of these Terms. Unless we say otherwise in our notice, the amended Terms will be effective immediately, and your continued use of our Services after we provide such notice will confirm your acceptance of the changes. If you don’t agree to the amended Terms, you must stop using our Services.

If any provision or part of a provision of these Terms is unlawful, void or unenforceable, that provision or part of the provision is deemed severable from these Terms and does not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions.

Mestios’ failure to exercise or enforce any right or provision of these Terms will not operate as a waiver of such right or provision. These Terms, Privacy Policy, Intellectual Property Policy and the Rules reflect the entire agreement between the parties relating to the subject matter hereof and supersede all prior agreements, statements and understandings of the parties. The section titles in these Terms are for convenience only and have no legal or contractual effect. Use of the word “including” will be interpreted to mean “including without limitation.” Except as otherwise provided herein, these Terms are intended solely for the benefit of the parties and are not intended to confer third-party beneficiary rights upon any other person or entity. You agree that communications and transactions between us may be conducted electronically.

Mestios doesn’t collect data in order to advertise to you. The tracking we do at Mestios is to make our product work as well as possible. This includes basic product functions and key features like personalizing what posts you see based on what we think you’ll like. So, to give you the best possible experience in using Mestios, we collect information from your interactions with our Services. Some of this information, you actively tell us (such as your email address, which we use to track your account or communicate with you). Other information, we collect based on actions you take while using Mestios, such as what pages you view (including how much of a given page and for how long) and your use of product features. This information includes records of those interactions, your Internet Protocol address, information about your device (such as device or browser type), and referral information (how you got to a particular page).

We use this information to:

• provide, test, improve, promote and personalize the Services
• fight spam and other forms of abuse
• generate aggregate, non-identifying information about how people use the Services

When you create your Mestios account, and authenticate with a third-party service (like Twitter, Facebook, Apple or Google) we may collect, store, and periodically update information associated with that third-party account, such as your lists of friends or followers. We will never publish something through one of your third-party accounts without your express permission.

Mestios won’t transfer information about you to third parties for the purpose of providing or facilitating third-party advertising to you. We won’t sell information about you to a third-party.

We may transfer your account information with third parties in some circumstances, including: (1) with your consent; (2) to a service provider or partner who meets our data protection standards; (3) with academic or non-profit researchers, with aggregation, anonymization, or pseudonymization; (4) when we have a good faith belief it is required by law, such as pursuant to a subpoena or other legal process; (5) when we have a good faith belief that doing so will help prevent imminent harm to someone.

If we are going to share your information in response to legal process, we’ll give you notice so you can challenge it (for example by seeking court intervention), unless we’re prohibited by law or believe doing so may endanger others or cause illegal conduct. We will object to legal requests for information about users of our services that we believe are improper.

Search engines may index your Mestios user profile page, public interactions (such as claps or likes), and post pages, such that people may find these pages when searching against your name on services like Google, DuckDuckGo, or Bing. Users may also share links to your content on social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter.

Mestios uses third-party vendors and hosting partners for hardware, software, networking, storage, and related technology we need to run Mestios. We maintain two types of logs: server logs and event logs. By using the Services, you authorize Mestios to transfer, store, and use your information in any other country where we operate.

Some of the content that you see displayed on Mestios is not hosted by Mestios. These “embeds” are hosted by a third-party and embedded in a Mestios page, so that it appears to be part of that page. For example: YouTube or Vimeo videos, Imgur or Giphy gifs, SoundCloud audio files, Twitter tweets, GitHub code snippets, or Scribd documents that appear within a Mestios post. These files send data to the hosted site just as if you were visiting that site directly (for example, when you load a Mestios post page with a YouTube video embedded in it, that video appears because of a pointer to files hosted by YouTube, and in turn YouTube receives data about your activity, such as your IP address and how much of the video you watch).

Mestios doesn’t control what data third parties collect in cases like this, or what they ultimately do with it. So, third-party embeds on Mestios are not covered by this Privacy Policy. They are covered by the privacy policy of the third-party service (so, when you watch a YouTube video embedded in a Mestios post, the use of data about your interactions with the video would be covered by YouTube’s privacy policy).

Some embeds may ask you for personal information, such as submitting your email address, through a form linked to from a Mestios post. We do our best to keep bad actors off of Mestios. However, if you choose to submit your information to a third party this way, we don’t know what they may do with it. As explained above, their actions are not covered by this Privacy Policy. So, please be careful when you see embedded forms on Mestios asking for your email address or any other personal information. Make sure you understand who you are submitting your information to and what they say they plan to do with it. We suggest that you do not submit your email address or other personal information to any third-party through an embedded form.

When posting on Mestios, you may not embed a form that allows submission of personal information by users. You must link offsite to a page that allows such submissions by users, and that page’s appearance must be distinct enough from Mestios to ensure it does not cause confusion among users over to whom they are submitting personal information. Failure to do so may lead Mestios to disable the post or take other action to limit or disable your account.

We use browser cookies and similar technologies to recognize you when you return to our Services. We use them in various ways, for example to log you in, remember your preferences (such as default language), evaluate email effectiveness and personalize content and other services. Without cookies, many of our Services would not work, so they are necessary to Mestios’s basic functionality.

Some third-party services that we use to provide the Service, such as Google Analytics, may place their own cookies in your browser. This Privacy Policy covers use of cookies by Mestios only and not the use of cookies by third parties.

If you have a Mestios account, you can access, modify or export your personal information, or delete your account here.

To protect information from accidental or malicious destruction, we may maintain residual copies for a brief time period (generally several weeks). But, if you delete your account, your information and content will be unrecoverable after that time. Mestios may preserve and maintain copies of your information beyond this time period when required to do so by law.

We use encryption (HTTPS/TLS) to protect data transmitted to and from our site. However, no data transmission over the Internet is 100% secure, so we can’t guarantee security. You use the Service at your own risk, and you’re responsible for taking reasonable measures to secure your account.

If we’re involved in a merger, acquisition, bankruptcy, reorganization or sale of assets such that your information would be transferred or become subject to a different privacy policy, we’ll notify you in advance so you can opt out of any such new policy by deleting your account before transfer.

Sometimes we’ll send you emails about your account, service changes or new policies. You can’t opt out of this type of “transactional” email (unless you delete your account). But, you can opt out of non-administrative emails such as digests, newsletters, and activity notifications through your account’s Settings page.

When you interact with an email sent from Mestios (such as opening an email or clicking on a particular link in an email), we may receive information about that interaction.

We won’t email you to ask for your password or other account information. If you receive such an email, please forward it to us at info@mestios.com so we can investigate.

Mestios may periodically update this Policy. We’ll notify you about significant changes to it. The most current version of the policy will always be here and we will archive former versions of the policy here.

We welcome feedback about this policy at info@mestios.com.

Description of Processing Activity

Mestios collects and stores personal information about its users to customize their reading experience and enable personalized distribution of content. It shares minimal data with its service providers.

Purposes of Processing

Provide, test, promote, and improve the Services

Gather usage statistics of services

Provide customized reading experience

Publish and distribute user-generated content

Provide access to paid content

Pay authors in Partnership Program for certain content

Fight spam, fraud, and other abuse of services

Copyright is a legal right that protects original works of authorship (e.g., music, videos, etc.). Generally, copyright protects an original expression of an idea (e.g., the specific way a video or music is expressed or created) but does not protect underlying ideas or facts.

We do not allow any content that infringes copyright. The use of copyrighted content of others without proper authorization or legally valid reason may lead to a violation of Mestios's policies.

At the same time, not all unauthorized uses of copyrighted content constitute an infringement. Exceptions to copyright infringement, such as the fair use doctrine or other applicable laws, allow use of copyrighted work under certain circumstances.

Any user content that infringes other person’s copyright may be removed. The account may be suspended or terminated for multiple copyright violations in connection with the use of the Mestios site, or other violations of the Terms of Service and Rules. We reserve the right to refuse any account holder whose account was used for improper activities from opening a new account on Mestios’s site, or otherwise hosted by Mestios.

Contacting the user directly may resolve your complaint more quickly and in a way that is more beneficial to you, the user, and our community. You may also report a copyright violation by email to complaint@mestios.com.

We may provide the account holder with your contact information, including the email address and the name of the copyright owner, and/or details of the complaint.

Before submitting a notification, please be aware that intentionally submitting a misleading or fraudulent report may lead to liability for damages.

If you receive a copyright infringement notification that you believe to be in error or believe that you are authorised to use the content, you can reach out to the copyright owner directly to request a retraction.

You may also provide us with a counter-notification by email to complaint@mestios.com.

The counter-notification process will take time to complete, please be patient. During this time, the copyright claimant may file an action seeking a court order to keep the content down in pursuant to applicable law. Please note that we will forward the entire counter-notification to the original reporter, including any contact information you provide, in accordance with our Terms of Services and Rules. The claimant may use this information to file a lawsuit against you.

If we do not receive notice that the original reporter is seeking a court order to prevent further infringement of the material at issue, we may replace or cease disabling access to the material that was removed if the material does not infringe on third-party copyright. The decision to re-post any material is at Mestios’s sole discretion.

A trademark is a word, symbol, slogan, design, or combination of any of the foregoing that identifies the source of a product or service and distinguishes it from other products or services.

Trademark laws prohibit trademark infringement, which is generally the unauthorized use of a trademark or service mark in connection with goods or services in a way that is likely to cause confusion, deception or mistake about the source, origin, sponsorship or affiliation of the associated goods and/or services.

At the same time, the use of another’s trademark for purposes of accurately referencing, lawfully commenting, criticizing, parodying, or reviewing the trademark owner’s products or services, or for purposes of comparing them to other products or services, where the mark is not used to designate the user’s own goods or services or those of a third party, is generally not considered a violation of our policies. Likewise, it is generally permissible to make a fan page about a brand, even without the brand’s permission, provided that you do not claim to speak for or be associated with the brand or otherwise violate the brand’s intellectual property rights.

Any content that violate another’s trademark rights may be taken down. Repeat violations of trademark rights in connection with the use of the Mestios site, or other violations of the Terms of Service and Rules may result in the suspension or termination of the user account. We reserve the right to refuse any account holder whose account was used for improper activities from opening a new account on Mestios’s site or otherwise hosted by Mestios.

Contacting the user directly may resolve your complaint more quickly and in a way that is more beneficial to you, the user, and our community. You may also report trademark infringement in an email to complating@mestios.com.

We may provide the account holder with your contact information, including the email address and the name of the trademark owner, and/or details of the complaint, in accordance with our Terms of Services and Privacy Policy.

Before submitting a notification, please be aware that intentionally submitting a misleading or fraudulent report may lead to liability for damages under laws as may be applicable in some countries.

If you receive a trademark infringement notification that you believe to be in error or believe that you are authorized to use the content, you can reach out to the trademark owner directly to request a retraction.

You may also provide us with a counter-notification by email to complaint@mestios.com.

As a Mestios user, you are responsible for the content you post. If you have questions about copyright law or trademark law, such as questions about whether your content or your use of another person’s name or brand infringes or otherwise violates another person’s rights, you may want to contact an attorney. If you are unsure whether the material you plan to report to us is infringing or otherwise violating another person’s right, you may also want to first seek legal advice before reporting such content to us.

If you submit a report or infringement notification to us, we may contact you if we have additional questions about your report or notification. Please note that Mestios is not in a position to adjudicate disputes between third parties, and may not be able to remove the content or suspend the account you reported. As an alternative, you may want to contact the person who posted the content or owns the account to try to resolve your issue directly.

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

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, or gender identity.

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.

Mestios exists to share and discuss ideas. We don’t tolerate harassment, which includes:

• Bullying, threatening, or shaming someone, or posting things likely to encourage others to do so
• Using Mestios Services in a way intended to annoy or harass someone
• Reviewing businesses or products in a gratuitously harmful or abusive manner

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 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.

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

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

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 Mestios account, and restrict access or availability to that account.

We do not allow posting duplicate content, whether from a single account or across multiple accounts, either publicly or as an unlisted story.

We do not allow spam on Mestios. All spam will be immediately removed from Mestios, 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.

Mestios depends on various user behaviors to determine what content to feature and make the site work well for everyone. So, we don’t allow artificial behaviors that skew this system and as a result degrade or distort other users’ experiences. This includes:

• Buying, selling, or trading in accounts or account interactions;
• Using services, apps, or arrangements that offer you more interactions on your Mestios account or content;
• Registering accounts, posting content, or interacting with users or content automatically, systematically, or programmatically.

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 Terms of Service, Copyright and DMCA Policy, and Trademark Policy.

We do not allow deceptive conduct on Mestios. 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 Mestios 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.

• Third-party advertising and sponsorships are not allowed. You may not advertise or promote third-party products, services, or brands through Mestios posts. 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.
• You must disclose affiliate links or payment for a post. 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 allowed in posts. But, you must disclose somewhere in the post that it includes affiliate links. 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.
• Multi-level marketing content is not allowed.

In ongoing compliance with the European GDPR, we are restricting the behavior of certain embedded content:

• Embeds that directly collect data through form fields are not allowed. This includes embeds that facilitate the submission of email addresses and other personally identifying information through forms and the submission of credit card information. If you want to collect information from your readers, you will need to link out from your post on Mestios to a form hosted elsewhere that makes it clear to a user that they are no longer in the Mestios network

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.

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

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 find a post or account on Mestios that violates these rules, please flag it. You can send us an email to complaint@mestios.com.

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.

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.

If you believe your content or account has been restricted or disabled in error, or believe there is relevant context we were not aware of in reaching our determination, you can write to us at complaint@mestios.com. We will consider all good faith efforts to appeal.

If Mestios 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.

We also may change these rules at any time.