Site Policies

Last updated Sep 07, 2024

The following policies describe how aethy.com ("aethy.com", "we", "us", "our") manage our website, your data, and what content we deem appropriate for our services. As our website is located in Illinois in the United States of America, this details how we comply with local laws and what's expected of our users based on our own policies and legal requirements.

Privacy Policy

This privacy policy describes how we collect, protect and use the personally identifiable information you may provide through the aethy.com website or its API. The policy also describes the choices available to you regarding our use of your personal information and how you can access and update this information. This policy does not apply to the practices of companies that aethy.com does not own or control, or to individuals that aethy.com does not employ or manage.

What information do we collect?

  • Basic account information: If you register on this server, you may be asked to enter a username, an e-mail address and a password. You may also enter additional profile information such as a display name and biography, and upload a profile picture and header image. The username, display name, biography, profile picture and header image are always listed publicly.
  • Posts, following and other public information: The list of people you follow is listed publicly, the same is true for your followers. When you submit a message, the date and time is stored as well as the application you submitted the message from. Messages may contain media attachments, such as pictures and videos. Public and unlisted posts are available publicly. When you feature a post on your profile, that is also publicly available information. Your posts are delivered to your followers, in some cases it means they are delivered to different servers and copies are stored there. When you delete posts, this is likewise delivered to your followers. The action of reblogging or favouriting another post is always public.
  • Direct and followers-only posts: All posts are stored and processed on the server. Followers-only posts are delivered to your followers and users who are mentioned in them, and direct posts are delivered only to users mentioned in them. In some cases it means they are delivered to different servers and copies are stored there. We make a good faith effort to limit the access to those posts only to authorized persons, but other servers may fail to do so. Therefore it's important to review servers your followers belong to. You may toggle an option to approve and reject new followers manually in the settings. Please keep in mind that the operators of the server and any receiving server may view such messages, and that recipients may screenshot, copy or otherwise re-share them. Do not share any sensitive information over Mastodon.
  • IPs and other metadata: When you log in, we record the IP address you log in from, as well as the name of your browser application. All the logged in sessions are available for your review and revocation in the settings. The latest IP address used is stored for up to 12 months. We also may retain server logs which include the IP address of every request to our server.

What do we use your information for?

Any of the information we collect from you may be used in the following ways:

  • To provide the core functionality of Mastodon. You can only interact with other people's content and post your own content when you are logged in. For example, you may follow other people to view their combined posts in your own personalized home timeline.
  • To aid moderation of the community, for example comparing your IP address with other known ones to determine ban evasion or other violations.
  • The email address you provide may be used to send you information, notifications about other people interacting with your content or sending you messages, and to respond to inquiries, and/or other requests or questions.

How do we protect your information?

We implement a variety of security measures to maintain the safety of your personal information when you enter, submit, or access your personal information. Among other things, your browser session, as well as the traffic between your applications and the API, are secured with SSL, and your password is hashed using a strong one-way algorithm. You may enable two-factor authentication to further secure access to your account.

What is our data retention policy?

We will make a good faith effort to:

  • Retain server logs containing the IP address of all requests to this server, in so far as such logs are kept, no more than 90 days.
  • Retain the IP addresses associated with registered users no more than 12 months.

You can request and download an archive of your content, including your posts, media attachments, profile picture, and header image.

You may irreversibly delete your account at any time.

Do we use cookies?

Yes. Cookies are small files that a site or its service provider transfers to your computer's hard drive through your Web browser (if you allow). These cookies enable the site to recognize your browser and, if you have a registered account, associate it with your registered account.

We use cookies to understand and save your preferences for future visits.

Do we disclose any information to outside parties?

We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information. This does not include trusted third parties who assist us in operating our site, conducting our business, or servicing you, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. We may also release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others rights, property, or safety.

Your public content may be downloaded by other servers in the network. Your public and followers-only posts are delivered to the servers where your followers reside, and direct messages are delivered to the servers of the recipients, in so far as those followers or recipients reside on a different server than this.

When you authorize an application to use your account, depending on the scope of permissions you approve, it may access your public profile information, your following list, your followers, your lists, all your posts, and your favourites. Applications can never access your e-mail address or password.

Site usage by children

Our site, products and services are all directed to people who are at least 18 years old. If you are under the age of 18, do not use this site. Those found in violation will be suspended without notice.


This above document is CC-BY-SA. Originally adapted from the Discourse privacy policy.


Acceptable Use Policy

This acceptable use policy describes the content that aethy.com ("aethy.com", "we", "us", "Aethy") deems either acceptable or unacceptable to be transmitted to our service.

Adults only! If a user is found to be under the age of 18, they will find their account permanently suspended.

Do not use hateful speech or espouse hateful rhetoric. This includes speech, ideals, and slurs meant to attack marginalized groups such as racial minorities, ethnicities, gender identities, sexual or romantic orientations, mental or physical disabilities, and other disenfranchised groups. Users also cannot espouse beliefs that promote ethnic cleansing and/or ethnic superiority, some examples including white nationalism, Zionism (including Israeli Nationalism), Nazism, etc (including support for groups with these ideals, such as the US Republican Party).

Harassment of users located both on Aethy and other services is not permitted. This includes (but is not limited to) aggressive unwanted criticism, disparaging remarks, unwanted romantic or sexual advances, stalking, and/or circumventing a block. Users engaging in these behaviors, even off the website, will find their access to Aethy revoked.

Threats of violence are not tolerated. Do not threaten violence or wish harm on other users. Do not make credible threats of harm against any person, organization, property, or any act of violence that could be considered an illegal activity.

No abusive material! This includes (but is not limited to):

  • Sexual photography, or video, or audio of people who did not consent to its posting, creation, or the actions presented (e.g. revenge porn).
  • Sexual imagery featuring real minors or sexual illustrations based on real minors (CSAM). This includes the use of real videos, photography, and audio of minors with the intent to sexualize them. However, this does not include non-realistic illustrations of characters based on a consenting adult which has been aged down or made to appear younger (commonly referred to as a 'self-insert').
  • Content that sexually depicts minors which could appear real at a glance. This means content which features renderings with realistic proportions, lighting, and/or texture work (e.g. semi-realistic 3D renderings, or AI generated imagery).
  • Real life images or videos featuring non-human animals with the intent to sexualize them.
  • Sexual illustrations of non-consenting non-public figures or public figures who have requested that material not be created.
  • Use of private characters without the consent of their owner, especially in cases where the subject is depicted sexually or violently.
  • Real depictions of gore or death.

Do not advocate for the violation of consent. On Aethy, and in many jurisdictions, we do not believe that minors (those under the age of 18) have the ability to consent to sexual or romantic relationships with adults. We also do not believe non-human animals have the ability to consent either. Advocacy that runs contrary to these beliefs, or others which violate the rules of consent, are not allowed on Aethy. Please see our Sexual Abuse policy for more information.

Respect the copyright of others! You may only post content in which you own the copyright to or are licensed to use. Do not make posts which infringe on the copyrights of other people or organizations. This also includes reposting content (including art) you have found online without the express permission of the owner.

Give proper attribution and disclosure! When posting works that you have the right to post (e.g. commissioned work, gift art, etc.) you may not pass it off as your own work and must give credit to the original creator. This also includes AI generated works where the tool used to create it must be disclosed. For works created entirely with AI, you must also disclose the name of the tool used in the /CW field as well as the post itself. Traced works and AI works that were created from a single copyrighted source (e.g. using someone else's art as a base) may not be posted.

Threatening or glorifying self-harm or suicide will be removed. It's okay to discuss topics of self-harm, depression, and other mental illnesses but threatening harm against yourself or glorifying it is forbidden. Please seek help at 988lifeline.

Keep private information private. Do not share information about a person without their consent that could lead to direct harm against the individual (e.g. doxxing).

Report problematic behavior! Do not decide to take actions into your own hands and confront users who violate our rules. Let us handle it.

Abusive behavior that happens off-site will be evaluated in a way similar to if the abuse were to happen on-site. That means if a user is found associating with abusive or hateful groups and ideologies off-site, they will be removed from Aethy. Harassment and abusive behavior toward users on Aethy will be evaluated similarly to if the harassment occurred on our site as well.

Don't lash out at Staff Members! This is a community space. This isn't a large social media website where users are a product. When a user joins, we're allowing them to come into our space and be apart of our community.

Everyone who moderates this community is an unpaid volunteer who is dedicated to making this community the best it can be. Lashing out at volunteers isn't acceptable and that behavior will be quickly dealt with. Entitlement and rude behavior isn't acceptable from a paying customer at a coffee shop where employees are paid to deal with it, let alone on a free community site run by volunteers.

Law Enforcement and Legal Compliance

As Aethy is hosted in the United States, we must remain compliant with state and federal laws. Our policies, however, limit their use of the service.

Casual use of site by law enforcement

The creation of accounts and use of the site by individuals working in law enforcement is prohibited. While we do work with law enforcement in an official capacity (and notify them if we encounter material which contains abusive content), we disallow its casual use in an unofficial capacity. Accounts found to be working in law enforcement will have their access revoked. Examples in the United States include (but is not limited to) police officers, district attorneys, federal agents (such as the FBI, DEA, DOD, USMS, etc.), etc. Our goal is to create a welcoming environment for the LGBTQ+ community, people of color, and other marginalized groups. We don't believe we can carry out that mission effectively without this policy in place.

Sexual Abuse

Users of Aethy and of servers who federate with Aethy who are found to engage romantically or sexually with minors, or engage in the distribution of Child Sex Abuse Material ("CSAM") will be removed from this site and all information forwarded to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. We have zero tolerance for child abuse and its distribution, and will pursue every avenue to make sure that these users cannot continue to harm others.

Discussions of paraphilic disorders are allowed as a means to discuss abuse prevention and guide people to off-site resources, such as Prostasia. However, labels, symbols, flags and other iconography created with the intent to promote paraphilic disorders where the subject of desire can't consent (such as minor attraction, zoophilia, etc.) and/or to promote oneself's relation to those groups will be removed and accounts may face suspension. Exceptions will be made for simple discussions of this media on a case by case basis.

We've seen how this media has been used in relation to the normalization of abusive ideologies. While we believe in further research into proper abuse prevention with fully science backed and tested approaches, we don't believe Aethy to be the proper venue for this nor do we want to enable an atmosphere where vulnerable individuals are taken advantage of.

Also, as stated elsewhere in our rules, discussions or labels that advocate the decriminalization or legalization of harmful contact between adults and minors or humans and animals will result in an immediate suspension and possible law enforcement action. Those found associating with these abusive people or ideologies, including participating in websites that willingly host them, will also have their access to Aethy revoked.

For untreated persons with minor-attracted psychiatric disorders who are considering offending, please see the resources available at Prostasia. Stop yourself before you cause real harm to someone.

SESTA/FOSTA Compliance

The legislative branch of the US Government has decided that adults don't have rights to their own bodies. As such, users cannot engage in sexual services in which sexual contact is exchanged for money (i.e. prostitution). We must also put in a good faith effort to prevent and alert law enforcement to its existence on our services.

Unlike communication services such as Matrix, Signal, and WhatsApp, direct messages are not end to end encrypted on Aethy. We are obligated to report violations of SESTA and FOSTA to law enforcement.

Copyright Takedown Requests

Informal copyright takedown requests can be sent to our primary email, mail@aethy.com. This is a good option for those who don't want to fill out a full legal request containing potentially sensitive information. If the content is then found to violate our rules on copyright, it will be removed at our discretion. This is a good option for individuals such as artists whose work has been reposted without permission.

DMCA Complaint

Formal DMCA complaints must be submitted through writing via PDF or mail to our designated copyright agent as follows:

Copyright Manager
Email: dmca@aethy.com

The DMCA notice will then be forwarded to the user and the content will be publicly deleted from the website.

DMCA Counter Notifications

This step should be taken only when a user is adamant that no one's copyright has been infringed. We highly recommend seeking legal counsel before proceeding with this course of action.

Users have one week to submit a DMCA counter-notice when they have received a formal DMCA complaint. This can again be sent through writing via email or mail to:

Copyright Manager
Email: dmca@aethy.com

We will then forward this counter-notice to the individual or entity that made the initial complaint. They will then have ten days to respond to this counter-notice before the alleged offending material is reinstated on the website. However, we will still accept an injunction past this point and the restoration of the content may be revoked. At this point, either party may pursue other legal avenues.