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Legal · 002

Terms of Service

Last updated: [DATE] Effective: [DATE]

Draft for legal review. Reviewed and finalized by a licensed attorney before publication.

1. Welcome

These Terms of Service (the "Terms") govern your use of Sourced, a social platform operated by [LEGAL ENTITY NAME] ("we", "us", "Sourced"). By creating an account or using Sourced, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy and Community Guidelines, which are incorporated by reference.

If you do not agree, do not use Sourced.

2. What Sourced is

Sourced is a two-tier social platform:

  • A social tier for connecting with friends and family. Posts here are visible to your accepted friends, not the public.
  • A content tier for public posts on substantive topics. Content-tier posts must include at least one source citation. Content-tier posts may be eligible for ad revenue distribution and creator-paid promotion.

The defining rule of Sourced is that posts asserting factual claims about the world (the content tier) require sources. By participating, you agree to follow this rule.

3. Eligibility

You must be at least 13 years old to use Sourced. If you are under the age of majority where you live (typically 18), you must have permission from a parent or legal guardian to use Sourced and to agree to these Terms.

You may not use Sourced if you are barred from receiving services under applicable law, including but not limited to US sanctions law.

4. Your account

You are responsible for maintaining the security of your account credentials. You agree:

  • Not to share your password.
  • To notify us promptly at [SECURITY EMAIL] if you believe your account has been compromised.
  • That you are responsible for all activity on your account, except activity resulting from a compromise you reported promptly.

We may suspend or terminate your account if we believe in good faith that you have violated these Terms or our Community Guidelines. See Section 12 for our enforcement and appeal process.

5. Your content

5.1 Ownership

You retain ownership of the content you publish on Sourced. We do not claim copyright in your posts, comments, photos, or videos.

5.2 License you grant to Sourced

To operate the platform, you grant Sourced a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to host, store, reproduce, modify (only as needed to display on different devices), publicly perform, and publicly display your content. This license is limited to operating Sourced and exists only for as long as your content remains on the platform. When you delete your content, the license ends, except that:

  • Reasonable backup copies may persist for the period described in our Privacy Policy.
  • Aggregated, anonymized records may persist (e.g., that some user once posted a citation to a particular URL is part of our domain reputation system).
  • Content quoted in comments by other users remains, attributed to your username, even after you delete the original.

We do not use your content for advertising, AI training (beyond the moderation pipeline described in our Privacy Policy), or any commercial purpose unrelated to operating Sourced.

5.3 Your responsibilities for what you post

You represent that:

  • You have the right to publish what you post (you wrote it, or you have permission to share it, or it is in the public domain, or your use is fair use).
  • Your posts do not violate the Community Guidelines.
  • For content-tier posts: the sources you cite genuinely exist and substantially support the claims you make.
  • You are not impersonating another person or organization.

5.4 Sources and accuracy

The source requirement on content-tier posts is a structural rule, not a guarantee of truth. A post being well-sourced does not mean Sourced endorses it or has verified its accuracy. Readers are responsible for evaluating sources for themselves. Sourced may flag, hide, or remove posts whose cited sources do not support the claims made or that violate the Community Guidelines, but absence of moderator action does not imply approval.

5.5 Comments

Any logged-in user can comment on any post they can see. As an author of a post, you cannot hide, delete, or edit comments left by other users on your post. This is a deliberate platform commitment, not an oversight. Your remedies are:

  • Reporting a comment that violates Community Guidelines, for moderator review.
  • Blocking the user, which prevents them from leaving future comments or reactions on your posts.

Removing existing comments is reserved to platform moderators acting on Community Guidelines violations.

6. Reactions, blocks, and friend connections

You may react to posts, friend other users (subject to their acceptance), and block users. Blocking is preventative — it stops a user from interacting with you going forward — and is not retrospective (does not remove their existing comments or reactions). Mass-blocking that appears designed to suppress legitimate criticism or harass other users may be reviewed by moderators and rate-limited.

7. Monetization

7.1 Ad revenue distribution

Sourced may display ads on the public discover feed. Ad revenue, after deducting platform operating costs, is distributed:

  • 80% to authors of content-tier posts, prorated by ad impressions delivered alongside their posts.
  • 20% to Sourced.

The math is computed daily by our payout function and the inputs (revenue, costs) are made publicly available on the Transparency page. Costs are defined as documented on that page.

You may participate in ad revenue distribution only if you:

  • Have at least one approved content-tier post.
  • Have set up a Stripe Connect account and completed Stripe's identity verification (KYC) and tax forms.
  • Are eligible to receive payments under applicable law and US sanctions law.

7.2 Promotions (creator-paid)

You may pay to promote your own approved content-tier posts, increasing their visibility on the discover feed for a defined time window. Promotions:

  • Apply only to your own posts.
  • Apply only to content-tier, public, moderation-approved posts. Promotion does not bypass moderation.
  • Are clearly labeled "Sponsored" wherever they appear.
  • Are subject to additional review for accuracy of claims (the source-support standard is applied more strictly).

Promotion fees flow into the same revenue pool as ad revenue and are subject to the 80/20 distribution.

7.3 Payouts

Payouts are processed through Stripe Connect. Minimum withdrawal: [USD AMOUNT, e.g. $20.00]. Payouts may be delayed for up to [HOLD PERIOD, e.g. 14 days] for fraud review. Stripe is responsible for KYC, tax form generation (1099-NEC for US payees earning $600+/year), and fund delivery.

7.4 Forfeiture

Payouts may be withheld or forfeited if we determine in good faith that they were earned through fraud (artificial impressions, click farms, account farming), violations of the Community Guidelines, or violations of these Terms. We will notify you of forfeiture and you may appeal. Final determinations are made by Sourced.

7.5 Taxes

You are responsible for any taxes owed on your earnings. Sourced provides records (via Stripe) sufficient for tax filing in the United States. International tax compliance is your responsibility.

7.6 No employment relationship

Receiving ad revenue distributions or promotion payments does not make you an employee, agent, partner, or joint venturer of Sourced. You are an independent creator using a platform.

8. Acceptable use

You will not, while using Sourced:

  • Violate the Community Guidelines.
  • Violate any applicable law.
  • Impersonate another person or organization.
  • Attempt to access another user's account or data without authorization.
  • Probe, scan, or test the security of the platform without prior written permission.
  • Use bots, scripts, or automated systems to interact with Sourced, except as expressly permitted (e.g., through any future official API).
  • Scrape or copy substantial portions of Sourced for republication or to train AI models.
  • Engage in click fraud, impression farming, or other schemes to artificially inflate ad earnings.
  • Use Sourced to harass, threaten, or endanger another person.
  • Upload content depicting child sexual abuse material. Such content will be reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and law enforcement.

We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these rules. For serious violations (CSAM, threats of imminent violence), we may act without notice and report to authorities.

9. Intellectual property

Sourced, the Sourced logo, and the design and software of the platform are owned by [LEGAL ENTITY] and are protected by intellectual property laws. You receive a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use the platform as the platform allows, while these Terms are in effect.

If you believe content on Sourced infringes your copyright, please send a DMCA notice to [DMCA AGENT NAME, ADDRESS, EMAIL]. We respond to valid notices and will counter-notice as required by law. Repeat infringers' accounts will be terminated.

10. Disclaimers

Sourced is provided "as is" and "as available." We do not guarantee that:

  • The platform will always be available, error-free, or secure.
  • Posts on Sourced are accurate, even when sourced.
  • Specific revenue amounts will be earned by any user.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Sourced disclaims all warranties, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement.

11. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Sourced's total liability for any claim arising from your use of the platform is limited to the greater of (a) the total amount Sourced has paid you in the 12 months preceding the claim, or (b) US$100. We are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost revenue, or lost data.

Some jurisdictions do not allow these limitations; in those jurisdictions, our liability is limited to the maximum extent permitted by law.

12. Enforcement and appeals

When we believe a post, comment, or account violates the Community Guidelines or these Terms, the available actions include: warning, temporary content hiding, content removal, posting restrictions, payout holds, account suspension, account termination, and reporting to authorities for unlawful content.

Whenever we take an action affecting your account, we will tell you what action was taken and why, except where notification would compromise an active investigation, expose another user to harm, or where law prohibits notification.

You may appeal any enforcement action through the in-app appeal process. Appeals are reviewed by a human moderator within [TIMEFRAME].

13. Termination

You may close your account at any time from your account settings. Upon closure, your personal data is handled as described in the Privacy Policy.

We may suspend or terminate your account for material violations of these Terms or the Community Guidelines, for fraud in the payout system, or as required by law. Sections of these Terms that by their nature should survive termination (intellectual property, disclaimers, limitations of liability, dispute resolution) will survive.

14. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. For material changes, we will notify you by email and via an in-app notice at least [DAYS] days before the changes take effect. Continued use of Sourced after the effective date constitutes acceptance. If you don't accept, your remedy is to close your account before the effective date.

15. Disputes

15.1 Informal resolution first

Before filing any formal dispute, please contact us at [LEGAL EMAIL] so we can try to resolve it directly. Most issues can be resolved this way.

15.2 Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of [STATE / COUNTRY], without regard to conflict-of-laws principles.

15.3 [ARBITRATION OR COURTS — to be decided with counsel]

[Lawyer to advise: arbitration clause with class-action waiver, or litigation in named courts. This is a significant decision that affects user rights and platform exposure. Both choices are common; the right one depends on your business risk profile and the jurisdictions you'll have users in.]

15.4 Time limit

Any claim arising out of or relating to Sourced must be brought within one (1) year of the event giving rise to the claim, or it is permanently barred, except where applicable law requires a longer period.

16. General terms

  • Entire agreement. These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and Community Guidelines, are the entire agreement between you and Sourced regarding the platform.
  • Severability. If any provision is held unenforceable, the rest remains in effect.
  • No waiver. Our not enforcing a provision in one case doesn't waive our right to enforce it later.
  • Assignment. You may not assign these Terms. We may assign them to a successor in connection with a business transfer.
  • No third-party beneficiaries. These Terms are between you and Sourced.

17. Contact

  • General: [SUPPORT EMAIL]
  • Legal: [LEGAL EMAIL]
  • Privacy: [PRIVACY EMAIL]
  • DMCA: [DMCA EMAIL]
  • Mailing: [LEGAL ENTITY], [ADDRESS]

Reviewed and finalized by a licensed attorney before publication.