Terms of Service

Legal review required. This document is a template prepared for the VulaSocial Africa node and must be reviewed by a qualified legal professional in the relevant jurisdiction (South Africa) before go-live. Nothing here is legal advice.

1. Acceptance

By creating an account or using this service ("VulaSocial"), you agree to these Terms of Service, the Community Rules, the Anti-Harassment Policy and the Copyright Policy. This is a Fediverse social network: your posts may be delivered to, and displayed on, other servers that federate with us.

2. Accounts & responsibilities

You must be at least 18 years old to use this service. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your password and for all activity under your account. You must provide accurate registration information.

3. Acceptable use

You may not use the service to harass, threaten, defame, or discriminate against others; to distribute spam or malware; to post unlawful content; or to infringe anyone's intellectual property. Full detail appears in the Acceptable Use & Anti-Harassment Policy.

4. Content ownership & license

You retain ownership of the content you post. You grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide licence to host, display, reproduce and otherwise process your posts in order to operate the service, including delivery to federated servers as described in our Privacy Policy. You may delete your content at any time; deletion removes it from public view subject to federation and moderation retention limits.

5. Advertising disclosure

We do not show advertising by default, and we never use it to track you across the web. If a node publishes local sponsored posts to help cover its hosting costs, members see them only after opting in from Feed settings, and can opt out again at any time. If you additionally opt in to interest tags through FriendFinder, you may see more relevant local ads; that choice is voluntary and reversible from your account settings. Ad personalisation never involves third-party trackers or the sale of your data.

6. Federation disclosure

Content you publish publicly may leave this node and be copied by other servers. Content you share only with followers or privately will not be offered to public federation.

7. Termination & suspension

We may suspend or terminate accounts that breach these Terms, with notice where practicable. You may close your account at any time.

8. Limitation of liability

The service is provided "as is". We are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, subject to applicable consumer-protection law.

9. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa, and disputes are subject to the jurisdiction of the courts of Johannesburg, South Africa.

10. Changes to these terms

We will notify you of material changes and ask for renewed acceptance where required. Continued use after a change takes effect constitutes acceptance.

Version 1.0 · Effective 17 September 2026