These Terms of Service are written and valid for our Mastodon servers Todon.eu and Todon.nl. They are also valid for Todon Tools, despite that maybe not everything in the text below makes sense for those services. This English version prevails over any translation.

If you want to use one of our services and can't agree with the conditions below, you can still use them, but hosted somewhere else. We only use open-source software that can be self-hosted, so there is always an alternative. If you for example want to use Mastodon somewhere else, just pick another server on the official Mastodon website or on the more comprehensive FediDB website. Or you can deploy your own Mastodon server, where you can make your own rules.

• Read carefully what we expect from your account request before signing up.
• During registration you have to pick a username. This username can't be changed later, so make sure it is the right one. If you are in doubt if your username is suitable, read our rules below first.
• When you already have a todon.eu/.nl account you can use our Todon Tools (TodonTube, Todon Events, etc) using the same email address. You don't need to use the same username.
• After you sign up, you have to verify your email address. Check your spam folder if you didn't receive a verification email.
• We have to adhere to Dutch (only Mastodon), German (only Todon Tools) and European law. Leading for us however is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and our own ethics.
• You are personally fully responsible and accountable for what you publish on Todon.eu, Todon.nl or any other *.Todon.* service. Without any exception, whether you use a pseudonym/alias or not. In other words: we from *.Todon.* and the Mastodon Project in general are completely not responsible and accountable for what you publish, in any form whatsoever.
• Don't forget to add alt-text to your images. It's not mandatory on our servers, but we consider it a form of solidarity to do so. Of course this can be a long descriptive text, but also a few words can be enough. We understand that there can be valid reasons for not captioning your images. It's you who decides if your reasons are valid or not, but if you are in doubt, please use alt-text.
• We understand that sometimes posts have an ironic, sarcastic or humorous context. We try to take that into account when moderating your content, but remember that irony, sarcasm and humor won't always exonerate you.
• We accept all languages, although English, Dutch, German, Spanish and French are most popular on this server. Our moderators currently only moderate in English and Dutch, but with the help of machine translation you can explain your reports or other issues in your native language if you prefer (except when there is no machine translator available for that language).
• Because we now have enough bots, we only accept bots if they really add something special to *.Todon.* and if they post unlisted when not official. That's why you have to ask our admin (.eu/.nl) for approval first.
• Please add 'parody' or 'unofficial' in bio's of fake accounts of (voluntary) famous people or organizations. Fake accounts of non-famous people are not allowed.
• We always keep the right to limit or completely suspend (delete) your account. We are fortunately very tolerant and therefore we will always think twice before we take these actions.
• If you misbehave yourself on one of our services, it has also consequences for the usage of other services. If you are for example suspended on one of our Mastodon servers and you also have an account on TodonTube, than your TodonTube account will also be suspended. You can use your Mastodon account for 30 days to migrate and export your data after we suspended you. On TodonTube we will ban you for 30 days first (you can't login anymore, but can download your video's), followed by a full user delete (videos will be deleted, comments will be tombstoned). On other services we will use a similar process.
• Please use the report tool if you think someone on this server or another server did not comply with our rules. Note that sometimes rules are only valid for local users (see [local]).

We do not accept (among other things),

• Racism (in all its forms):
  • Definition: Any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race [as a social construct], color, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life [incl. e.g. hate against Muslims, antisemitism, apartheid and casteism].
    (based on article 1 of the 'International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination')
    
    
• Hate against lesbians, gays, bisexuals, pansexuals and such.
  
  
• Hate against transgenders, non-binary people, intersexual people and such.
  
  
• Hate against queer people in general.
  
  
• Sexism, misogyny and hate against black women (misogynoir).
  
  
• Body-shaming.
  
  
• Ableism (incl. COVID-19 denial/downplaying and anti-vaccination).
  
  
• and other forms of discrimination not mentioned here.
  
  
• Harassment.
  
  
• Trolling.
  
  
• Hate speech.
  
  
• (sexual) Abuse of minors, adults and animals (also not virtual).
  
  
• Glorification of unnecessary violence (excluding self-defense), calls for murder, death threats and terrorism.
  
  
• Militarism.
  
  
• Nationalism:
  • Explanation: We don't accept any form of nationalism of nation states. Regional nationalism (think about regional or ethnic self-determination and independence movements) is allowed, only without feeling superior than, or discriminating against, other regions, countries or people.
    
    
• Colonialism (incl. Zionism), neocolonialism and imperialism in all its forms.
  
  
• Fascism, right-wing populism, and right-wing and religious extremism.
  
  
• Evangelisation and other forms of religious propaganda [local only].
  
  
• Extreme sects and cults.
  
  
• Marxist-Leninists (Stalinists, Maoists, etc) or other followers of extreme authoritarian (so called) communist/socialist ideologies/regimes (aka tankies).
  
  
• Capitalists, including so called 'anarcho-capitalists' (ancaps) and neoliberals.
  
  
• Anthropogenic climate change denial, downplaying the climate crisis, greenwashing and promoting deceitful climate solutions (like nuclear energy).
  
  
• (right-wing) Conspiracy 'theories', hoaxes, fake news and other forms of disinformation.
  
  
• Posting content created by AI (artificial 'intelligence'), like art, media, music or text [local only] (excl. inline Mastodon translations and climate friendly AI generated alt-text).
  
  
• and of course no spam and no commercial advertisement*. If you publish continuously a very high number of public posts (excl. replies) in a short time (e.g. more than 1 toot every minute over a longer period of time), we might consider that as spamming. We also might consider repeatedly using large amounts of hashtags or mentions spam.
  * What's commercial or not is up to our staff.

• On Todon.eu/Todon.nl, a few exceptions(*) aside, it's the responsibility of the user to determine which texts should be placed behind a content warning (CW) and which (video) images should be marked as sensitive (⚠). Advice is to see how your followers do it.
• When using a content warning or marking something as sensitive, don't forget to describe the reason why, and without triggering someone.
• (*) We have made a few exceptions for local Todon.eu/Todon.nl users. If we say that something doesn't need to be done, you can of course still do it. Please note that on other Mastodon servers these exceptions may be stricter or less severe.
  • You don't have to mark (tasteful) non-erotic nudity as sensitive, including art.
  • You must mark erotic and pornographic (video) images as sensitive (⚠). Please note that pornography is only allowed if there is no abuse (of minors, adults and animals), including commercial exploitation and misogyny (also not virtual). Allowed erotic/pornographic texts should go behind a content warning (CW).
    Warning: If you only post porn (or only follow porn accounts) than this is not the right server for you (there are many who are) and will we probably suspend you after a while.
  • You must mark bloody, violent, authoritarian, war and medical (video) images as sensitive (⚠). Text that describes these (video) images in a graphical way should go behind a content warning (CW).
  • Please mark (video) images of meat as sensitive (⚠). Vegetarians and vegans will love you for it.
  • You must mark (video) images of hard drugs, hard drugs use and excessive alcohol consumption as sensitive (⚠). Texts with the same topic should go behind a content warning (CW).
  • You don't have to mark (video) images of soft drugs (cannabis), soft drugs use and moderate alcohol consumption as sensitive.
  • Spoilers should go behind a content warning (CW).
  • Posts about or mentioning suicide, self-harm, abuse and rape should also go behind a content warning (CW).

• We like to keep TodonTube, Todon Acties and Todon Events for activist/political content only. So unlike our Mastodon servers, where the political background of the users is enough, we also like to have the content of TodonTube, Todon Acties and Todon Events in line with the radical leftist anti-authoritarian politics of *.Todon.*. Content/actions/events primarily by political parties or NGOs (except small ones) are not allowed. That said, we are not assholes. So if you publish something that doesn't fit and it's an exception, we will look the other way. 😉

• Profile pictures, avatars, headers and banners can't be marked as sensitive, and because profile pictures and avatars are displayed on public timelines, many people are forced to view them. So you understand we have to be stricter about these images, especially your profile picture or avatar.
• For profile pictures, avatars, headers and banners we don't accept,
  • erotic, pornographic, bloody, violent, militarist, imperialist, medical, racist, fascist, anti-queer/anti-LGBTQIA+, sexist/misogynist/misogynoir, ableist/fatshaming and terrorist images, and
  • nationalist images and symbols, like flags of nation-states (see nationalism under rules), although using flags out of solidarity with people who are victim of nationalist or imperialist aggression is allowed (just check if it follows the rules), and
  • images displaying hate speech, hard drugs, and (extreme) authoritarian, fascist, nazistic, extreme religious and right wing extremist symbols.
• For profile pictures and avatars we also don't accept,
  • nudity (we make an exception for tasteful art), excessive alcohol consumption, weapons and meat.
• We always reserve the right to remove your profile picture, avatar, header or banner image for other reasons (with explanation). On Mastodon our moderators can easily remove your avatar and your header image.

• Always add posts and additional comments to reports describing why you are reporting a user, post or a video. Or else our moderators have to magically guess why you are reporting someone and/or something.
• Consider sending a copy of your report to a remote server (if possible). Keep in mind that remote servers have other rules or no rules at all. So what is not allowed on *.Todon.*, can be allowed on another server, and visa versa.
• Don't accuse people without proof.
• Controversial reports are discussed with more than one moderator.
• Please give our moderators time to investigate your report.
• If you are not (completely) satisfied with our moderation policies, you can always mute and block users (and servers) by yourself.
• Please don't get angry at our admin/moderators. We do this voluntarily in good faith and believe it or not, we also have a life outside the fediverse.
• Report complete servers/instances in a direct message (private mention) to @admin@todon.eu, @admin@todon.nl or using email to todon@posteo.eu.

• On Mastodon blocking can mean two things: suspending or limiting, on TodonTube* blocking means muting and on Todon Events blocking means blocking.
• We are careful to block complete servers. The reasons we block servers are mostly to guarantee the safety for our marginalized users. Other reasons can be found in our server rules. With servers that has many mutual relations with our users, we are extra careful and will publicly announce this when there are many mutual relationships. You can view our raw domain block list here.
• When on Mastodon we limit a server, it means we don't see them as a threat to our users, but we still don't want to see their replies or public posts. People will also see a warning before visiting on of their user profiles. Only when you follow one of these users, you can see all their replies and public posts.
• *On TodonTube we manually approve federation with other PeerTube servers, although technically people can still see and reply TodonTube videos, and follow channels with their e.g. Mastodon account. Therefore we try to sync the blocked domains on our Mastodon servers with those on TodonTube.
• This server will not federate with Meta's (formerly Facebook) Threads, as decided by the community.
• Only bridges between social networks with opt-in on both sides are allowed (like Bridgy Fed). Bridges with bad moderated social networks (like Twitter or Nostr) are also not allowed. Also bridges that don't allow interactions are not allowed (like dotmakeup). Beside moderation and interaction issues, we also don't want to confuse people with listing user accounts that are actually not (yet) on the fediverse.

• For privacy reasons we won't share information about individual users, also not if they are suspended or limited. So in the case of a severed relationship, we are not able to give you information about the reason why we suspended or limited that user. We are more generous to give block reasons for domains, except single user domains.

• Because Mastodon is now mature in functionality and the amount of active users, we think cross-posting is not really needed anymore. That said, we can understand that there are some good fringe reasons to continue (automatically) cross-posting from your own account. And technically, scheduling services like Buffer is also a form of cross-posting. So yes, we still allow cross-posting from that website we always knew as Twitter, but also from any other social media service. Retweets (or whatever it's called now) are not allowed on public timelines and we advise to disable this all together in the settings of your crossposter (your followers will thank you). Quoted retweets (or whatever) are allowed on public timelines. We advise also to use a keyword (or such) to block cross-posts of posts that are related to the originating social media service. It's mandatory to regularly check Todon.eu/Todon.nl for interactions.

• Everything you post is yours and stays yours. We don't own your content. You are free to release your posts and media under any kind of license. We advise you to use a Creative Commons license. You can put this in short in your bio. By default all rights are yours. Work from others is of course not your work and using that is completely your risk. So keep yourself well informed about the copyright of third party content. Usually more flexible conditions apply for embedded content and citations.

• *.Todon.*, and the Mastodon project cannot, in any way be held liable for damages and harm. *.Todon.*, the Mastodon Project, the PeerTube Project, etc. work hard to prevent fatal server and software failures, but we can never ever guarantee this. We make daily backups of the database.

• We only upgrade to stable versions (except when there is an urgent reason to deviate from this). We do this as soon as possible, normally within 24 hours after a stable release (it's our intention to inform you when it takes longer).

🪪 Although Mastodon is, because of being open-source, in general more secure than commercial social media, there are still issues to consider. The most important one is probably the fact that private mentions (direct messages) can be read by your (and the receiving) server administrator. They have to manually consult the database and search for a specific user or message, but it is technically possible. So yes, we can read your direct messages if we want. We can promise you not to do this, but you shouldn't trust anyone on the internet, so also not us. This is not Mastodon specific, because also e.g. Twitter and Meta (Instagram, Facebook) can read your direct messages. The Mastodon developers are working on a fix and until then, don't be to personal in your DM's.
Click on the link below to read more about how to use Mastodon secure, especially for anarchists and other activists.

• 🕵🏻‍♂️ Operational security best practices for Mastodon users
  
  
• 🔕 Also make sure you only get notifications about private mentions (direct messages) from users you follow. See this admin post (or this one on Todon.nl).
  
  

• Our sites, products and services are all directed to people who are at least 16 years old. If you are under the age of 16, per the requirements of the European GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) do not use this site.

• See our Privacy Policy. Where you read Mastodon, you may read Mastodon and other services we provide.
  
  

• Our terms of service can be updated by us. Check therefore regularly if you still approve above terms.