Terms of Service

Acceptance of Terms

By accessing or using Echoes, you agree to these Terms of Service. If you do not agree, please do not use the platform. We want everyone here to feel safe and respected, and these terms help us protect that experience for you and for the entire community.

What Echoes Is (and Is Not)

Echoes is a platform for sharing short, honest emotional reflections and fostering meaningful human connection. You can publish echoes, respond to others with empathy, resonate with content that moves you, save bookmarks, exchange direct messages, participate in daily check-ins, and walk an arc — a guided run of daily private entries that begins with a letter to your future self and ends with a look back at it. Arcs also open a few quiet shared rooms: an anonymous excerpt from someone else on the same step as you, the presence of people you have already met by name, and small gestures you can send them. Echoes is available on the web and as a mobile app; these terms cover both.

Echoes is not a medical service, mental health provider, crisis hotline, or substitute for professional care. The content shared on Echoes reflects personal experiences and should not be interpreted as clinical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, please reach out to local emergency services, a trusted professional, or a crisis helpline available in your region.

Your Account

To use most features of Echoes, you need to create an account. When you do, you agree to:

• Provide accurate information during registration.
• Keep your login credentials secure and confidential.
• Be responsible for all activity that occurs under your account.
• Notify us promptly if you suspect unauthorized access to your account.

Content and Conduct

Echoes is built on vulnerability and empathy. We ask that everything you share reflects that spirit. Your content must follow these guidelines and character limits:

• Echoes: up to 280 characters
• Responses: up to 500 characters
• Direct messages: up to 1,000 characters
• Arc entries: up to 2,000 characters

The following types of content are not allowed on Echoes:

• Harassment, bullying, threats, or content intended to intimidate or harm others.
• Hate speech, discrimination, or content that targets individuals or groups based on identity.
• Spam, advertising, self-promotion, or unsolicited commercial content.
• Sexually explicit material or content involving minors in any harmful context.
• Content that impersonates another person or misrepresents your identity.
• Any content that violates applicable laws or encourages illegal activity.

Content Ownership and License

You retain full ownership of the content you create and share on Echoes. Your words are yours.

By posting content on Echoes, you grant us a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to display, distribute, and store your content as needed to operate and improve the platform. This license exists only for as long as your content remains on Echoes. If you delete your content, we will remove it from our active systems within a reasonable timeframe.

Messages, Blocking, and Reporting

Direct messages begin as a request. Nobody receives your messages until they accept, and either of you can step out at any time. Blocking someone stops messages and gestures in both directions and removes each of you from the other's shared rooms; muting quietly stops their notifications reaching you without telling them.

If you see something that breaks the rules above, report it. A report reaches us with the reason you chose and anything you add to it. Reporting in bad faith — mass-reporting someone, or using reports to harass — is itself a violation.

Do not use what you learn here against the people who trusted you with it. Republishing someone's echo, response, or message in order to mock, expose, or pressure them is a serious violation, and so is trying to work out who wrote an anonymous excerpt shared inside an arc.

Moderation and Enforcement

Before an echo is published, its text is checked automatically against the rules above. If the check flags it, the echo is not published and we tell you. If the check cannot run at all, we hold the post rather than let it through unchecked — so a fault on our side can briefly stop you publishing. When you write an arc entry, only the part you asked to make visible is ever checked; the private entry itself is saved either way and is never held against you.

Flags accumulate. Repeated flags within a rolling thirty-day window escalate on their own: first a warning, then your flagged content being hidden, and then a temporary suspension of your account lasting about a week. A suspended account can still read Echoes and still write privately — what it cannot do is publish. Serious cases can result in permanent removal.

Automated checks get things wrong. If a decision about your content or your account looks like a mistake, tell us through our contact page — it opens a case with us, and we will look at it and reply. We would much rather hear from you than have you assume the machine was right.

Privacy

Your privacy matters to us. We collect and use your data only as needed to provide and improve Echoes. For full details on how we handle your information, please review our Privacy Policy.

Intellectual Property

The Echoes name, logo, design, and underlying technology are the intellectual property of Echoes and its creators. You may not copy, modify, distribute, or reverse-engineer any part of the platform without our written permission. Your use of Echoes does not grant you any ownership rights over the platform itself.

Termination

You may delete your account yourself at any time, from your profile settings. We may also suspend or terminate your account if you violate these terms, engage in harmful behavior, or if we need to do so for legal or safety reasons. We will make reasonable efforts to notify you before taking action, except where doing so would compromise safety or legal obligations.

Deleting your account erases your display name, username, bio, and photo, switches off your notifications, and closes the account for good — you will not be able to sign back in. Content you already shared stays in the threads and conversations that other people are part of, shown as coming from a deleted account rather than from you. Our Privacy Policy sets out exactly what is removed and what remains.

Disclaimers

Echoes is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis. We do our best to keep the platform running smoothly and safely, but we cannot guarantee uninterrupted access, error-free operation, or that all content will be appropriate. We do not endorse or verify user-generated content and are not responsible for the views expressed by individual users.

Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Echoes and its creators shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages arising from your use of the platform, including but not limited to loss of data, emotional distress, or reliance on content shared by other users. Our total liability for any claim related to these terms shall not exceed the amount you paid to use Echoes (if any) during the twelve months preceding the claim.

Changes to Terms

We may update these terms from time to time to reflect changes in our platform, practices, or legal requirements. When we make significant changes, we will notify you through the platform or by other reasonable means. Your continued use of Echoes after changes take effect means you accept the updated terms.

Contact Us

If you have questions about these terms, need to report a concern, or just want to reach out, we are here for you. Visit our contact page.