Terms of use

These terms govern the use of tellmelo and the rights and duties of both sides.

New in this version

A short summary of what changes; the text below is what counts.

• § 9: The Feed Duel is new, with a monthly rating and prizes for the first two places.
• § 2: The switch for the post of the week is under Settings → Taking part.
• § 2: New or reworked features may arrive step by step, first for a share of the members or for groups; there is no entitlement to get them earlier.
• § 6: Groups can mute, kick and ban members for a time or permanently, also through roles with the permission.
• § 4: Widgets and designs you submit to the gallery may be used by other members once the team has approved them; bots enter the directory after a review.

Basics

§ 1 Scope and contracting party

These terms apply to tellmelo at this address and in its apps. The contracting party is Blackline Development Inh. Sebastian Ostermeier (see Imprint). What a feature can do in detail, how much and for how long, tellmelo shows where you use it, within the framework of these terms.

§ 2 The service and the feed

Basic use is free of charge. There is no entitlement to availability; tellmelo runs on a single server that is maintained and can fail. The operator may add, change or discontinue features, as far as this is reasonable for you; paid services remain for the paid period (§ 8). The operator may release new or reworked features step by step, first to a share of the members or to groups such as the team, subscribers or members with early access; there is no entitlement to get a feature earlier. The operator announces the discontinuation of the whole service at least 30 days in advance so that you can download your data.

How the feed is sorted. “For you” orders posts by these main parameters: whether you follow the author, how well the post’s #tags and the topics recognised by the server match your topics (learned or entered), how much it is being discussed, how new the post is, whether it comes from your area, whether the team has highlighted it and whether the author is a partner or verified. You set the weighting under Settings → Your feed; with “More of this”, “Less of this” and wishes for a time you steer the topics further. Occasions and topics highlighted by the team can weight matching #tags more strongly, in “For you” only for topics that already belong to yours. “Following” and “Latest” sort by time only. If you have not been here for at least 7 days, posts from the accounts you follow appear higher up in “For you” for one day; the team can switch this off. A plan, sparks, gifts and shop items bring no reach.

Partners, verification and highlighting. Partners are selected by the operator; for verified accounts, a human has checked who is behind them (§ 3); both are marked. Posts by either only rise in “For you” for topics you are already interested in, and only as far as your breadth slider allows; with the slider fully open, not at all. Partner status and verification count only once together and never more than the match with your topic. Nobody pays for partnerships, verification or highlighting; if that changes, it will be marked on the post and changed here.

Holding back. The team can hold back posts that break no rule but should not be recommended further, such as borderline spam, borderline advertising, clickbait or chain letters. They then do not appear in “For you”, “Explore”, “Popular #tags” (trends), “Say hello” or the post of the week; they stay visible in the profile, under “Following” and “Latest”, in search and through their link. You are always told at once by notification and email, with the reason; there are no points for it. You can appeal under “Account standing” (§ 6). If the appeal succeeds or the team releases the post, it is recommended normally again, and you are told. Posts that break rules are not held back but decided as a case (§ 6).

Post of the week. Every Sunday tellmelo puts the five public posts of the week before with the most response to a vote for all members in the feed: likes count once, replies twice, reposts three times; at most one post per person, never held-back posts or supervised accounts. In December all of the year’s winners compete in the final for the post of the year; the winners go into the public year album. The vote does not change how “For you” is sorted. You take all your posts out under Settings → Taking part → Post of the week and withdraw single ones in the feed.

Account and content

§ 3 Account

1. An account is personal and may not be passed on or sold. You are responsible for your sign-in details, your passkeys and the devices you use to confirm sign-ins; only confirm sign-ins you started yourself. If you suspect misuse, change your password and report it to the operator.
2. The minimum age is 16 years. At 13 to 15, an account is only created with the consent of a parent or guardian (Art. 8 GDPR), who can set up supervision with times; there is no account under 13.
3. If you run an account fully automated, for example as a bot, mark it as “Automated” under Settings → Organisation. Automations are available to roles the operator gives the right to; you are responsible for what a workflow does as for your own actions, and tellmelo states its limits on the page.
4. Anyone who acts for another account (team or support access) or uses tools such as the widget, webhooks, a link page, API and site keys or an app for signing in to other sites complies with these terms. The account is responsible for what happens in its name; whoever sets up a tool is responsible for the website, server or site that uses it. Nothing is ever paid through the API. GIFs and videos that members also allow for other websites may only be shown through the tellmelo player or addresses, with the name of the person who shared them, and no longer once an item is no longer available; you may not copy the files into a collection of your own or sell them. You keep the API key secret on your server.
5. Verification and badges are granted by a human on application; there is no entitlement. Anyone who submits a forged, altered or someone else’s document or gives false information is rejected or loses a verification already granted, and the account can be suspended (§ 6). If the requirements no longer apply, the verification can be withdrawn.
6. Signing in to other sites: With your consent, another site receives only your username, confirmed email address and an identifier of its own (Privacy); its provider is responsible for the site. Anyone who applies for an app describes it truthfully, uses the details only for signing in, has a privacy policy of their own and keeps the app’s secret secret; otherwise the app is suspended.
7. You can delete your account at any time. It is blocked at once and finally deleted after 30 days; until then you undo the deletion by signing in.

§ 4 What you write

Rights to content. The rights to your content remain yours. You grant the operator only what is needed to display it: to store it, convert pictures, videos, GIFs and sounds and show it to the other members, with “Public profile” also publicly on the web, with “Can be found by search engines” also to search engines; the same applies to public group pages. Beyond that, only what you expressly share applies:

• For everyone, such as a GIF or video in the media library: all members may show it on tellmelo with your name.
• Custom emojis for your followers: whoever follows you may show them in their own texts on tellmelo.
• Also on other websites, for a shared GIF or video: other websites and programs may show it with your name, using the tellmelo player, addresses and interface.

You can take back any sharing at any time. Posts and texts on tellmelo that already show the content keep it; on other websites tellmelo stops showing it within a few minutes, and what those websites have stored themselves is outside tellmelo. All rights end when you delete the content. Beyond that, your content is not exploited, not sublicensed, not used to train models and not sold. You confirm that you hold the necessary rights to everything you post, import or share, including pictures, music and quotations.

Details and responsibility. Details about content, for example whether a picture was made with AI, are optional but must be correct; the team can correct them after a report. Everyone named on a joint post is responsible for it. The team also sees posts for close friends for moderation. How long, how large and how many pieces of content are possible, tellmelo states when you create them.

Custom short links. Posts are shared via short addresses under tmlo.app with a random code. With a plan, you can instead give a post of your own a name you choose. You are responsible for the name (§§ 5 and 6): it must not infringe the rights of others or give the impression that it comes from tellmelo or another person or body. If the plan ends, names already given remain, but there are no new ones; a name ends with its post. The operator may temporarily offer custom names only to members with early access.

Bots. Whoever creates a bot is responsible for everything it does, as for their own content. A bot reads and stores only what it needs for its purpose in the group, passes none of it on to third parties, writes to no one unasked, does not pose as a person and does not get around limits. The operator may suspend a bot and its creator (§ 6).

Gallery. Widgets and designs you submit to the gallery are reviewed by the team; it may reject them without any claim, send them back with a note, feature them and take them out again. Once approved, all members may use them on their pages in tellmelo while they are in the gallery; for this you grant them a simple, free right of use and confirm that you may grant it. A widget must not deceive, collect data, disrupt or get around limits; the same rules apply as for your content (§§ 5, 6). Bots are likewise only listed in the directory after a review by the team. A widget that uses the internet must say so when submitted; it may only show content, may not let anything be downloaded, may not collect or pass on members’ data and may not include malware or unmarked advertising. If a widget tries a download, tellmelo blocks it for that member and the team reviews it again. Ratings and reviews must be honest and about the entry. You may not rate your own entries, and you may not buy, trade or give ratings with several accounts. The team may hide insulting, advertising or unrelated reviews.

Local newsroom. For articles on the news page, the following also applies:

1. The team can invite individual members to write as a local editor for a region; the role only begins once the person accepts. There is no entitlement to it; the team can end the role at any time.
2. Local editors are responsible for their own articles and observe journalistic principles (§ 19 MStV), above all the duty of care: they check news for content, origin and truth before publishing. They mark significant changes afterwards with a correction notice.
3. The local newsroom badge with the region appears next to the name. Articles belong to the local newsroom, not to the personal profile; published articles and the news page are public and open to search engines, even if the author’s profile is closed to search engines.
4. Once a day, an article can be highlighted as breaking news for 12 hours; the team can end breaking news or switch it off entirely.
5. Members can report articles, giving a reason. The team removes articles that violate these terms or applicable law and tells the author the reason.

§ 5 What is not allowed

Prohibited in particular:

• criminal content, incitement to hatred, depictions of violence and symbols of unconstitutional organizations;
• pornographic and sexually explicit depictions, including drawn or AI-generated ones;
• sexualised depictions in posts, replies, profiles and groups, such as suggestive poses focused on intimate parts or breasts, nudity meant to arouse, and fetish content, as well as advertising for sexual services and links to such offers; depictions in an artistic, educational, health or documentary context and breastfeeding remain allowed. Any sexualised depiction of minors is prohibited without exception;
• harassment, threats and calls against individuals or groups;
• other people’s content without the right to use it and other people’s personal data without their consent;
• advertising, chain letters, spam and automated mass sending, also through automations;
• faked approval, reach, activity or invitations, for example with several, other people’s or bought accounts;
• pretending to be another person, organisation or authority;
• false details about the account type, such as a business account without a business;
• names and usernames that insult, mislead or infringe the rights of others;
• links to sites the team has blocked, also in another spelling, through short links or redirects;
• invented or AI-generated content without a label where it could otherwise be taken as real;
• attempts to disrupt or overload the service, to get around limits or decisions of the team, or to get into other people’s accounts.

Moderation

§ 6 Moderation

1. Depending on how serious they are, violations lead to a notice, a warning, removal of the content, a restriction (such as a limit on posts per 24 hours), loss of badges and rewards or suspension of the account, for serious or repeated violations also without prior warning.
2. Every decision comes with reasons and appears under “Account standing”, with the day it lapses. You can appeal against every decision; a human reviews the appeal.
3. Sites classified as harmful or on a list of known phishing, scam or malware sites are blocked: links to them do not open and cannot be published. You can have every classification reviewed again. Anyone who gets around a block risks the permanent suspension of the account.
4. #tags. The team can take #tags out of the trends, block them or rename them; when a #tag is renamed, its posts and its followers move to the new name.
5. Groups. Founders and co-admins can set their own rules as long as they do not contradict these terms; whoever joins or applies agrees to keep them. In their group they can remove posts with reasons. They and roles given the permission can remove chat messages and mute members below them (one minute to one week: read only), and with reasons kick them (they can rejoin) or ban them (no joining for a time or until lifted). These are decisions of the group, not of the operator; regardless of that, you can report violations of these terms to the team.
6. Groups as a whole. If a group itself violates these terms or its leaders let violations stand, the team can decide against the group, with reasons and with points that expire after a fixed period. Depending on the points, the group is restricted (no longer findable, no new members, posts only for members), suspended (read-only) or closed. The leaders learn of every decision with reasons and can appeal.
7. Moderators from the community. Members aged 18 or over can apply to be a moderator while the operator has applications open, with no right to be accepted. This includes the agreement shown when applying, a test, the check of an ID copy and a training. Moderating is unpaid volunteer work; it creates no employment or service relationship. Moderators decide by these terms, not in matters concerning themselves, and treat what they see confidentially. They can stop at any time; the operator can end the cooperation with reasons and, after serious misconduct, also act under paragraph 1.
8. Helpers and invitations. Members aged 16 or over can become helpers, with a shorter test and training and the check of an ID copy. Helpers can take posts and profiles offline for the time being and put them before moderation; until moderation decides, the content cannot be seen. The operator can invite members as moderators or helpers; the application is then skipped, but not the test, ID and training. Otherwise the same applies to helpers as to moderators; anyone who misuses the role loses it.
9. Automatic picture check. Pictures, videos and GIFs are checked automatically on upload for pornographic and sexually explicit depictions (§ 5), photos in end-to-end encrypted chats already in the browser before encryption. A post with a detected picture appears only once a human approves it; as a reply, message, profile or group picture, such a picture is not accepted. The check can be wrong: a post held back wrongly is approved without any disadvantage to you.
10. Mandy is the system account of tellmelo: not a person and not artificial intelligence, but fixed rules set by the team. Mandy checks links, takes a quick look at new posts before they appear, sorts reports for the team and sends hints; the team decides on posts where something stands out. Mandy also writes posts and replies: she welcomes new members, thanks people for replies, asks about lively #tags, writes on fixed occasions, announces the challenge of the week, looks back on the week, sums up replies and highlights posts, in a group only if its leaders switch this on. She puts these texts together from sentences written by the team; each is marked as created automatically and is content of tellmelo. You switch off welcoming, thanking and highlighting your posts under Settings → Notifications; if you mute or block Mandy, you get no replies from her. Messages to Mandy are not possible.

§ 7 Reporting infringements

If content infringes your rights, report it via the report form or the contact form; you can also report any content within tellmelo. Known infringements are removed promptly (§§ 8–10 DDG).

Paid services and programmes

§ 8 Plans, sparks, gifts and shop

1. Plans (“Supporter”, for organizations “Organisation”) give additional tools and higher limits; sparks support groups you are a member of. tellmelo shows scope, price, term, validity and cancellation before you buy; what is shown applies, together with these terms, for the paid period.
2. Plan points and inventory: What you own, plan points, sparks and shop items, is in your inventory. A plan point is one month of the plan of your kind of account. A subscription puts its points there with each payment, one if monthly, twelve if yearly; as one-off purchases there are packs of 1 and 12 points, which do not renew. Points are redeemed as soon as your plan time runs out (the default, which can be changed in the inventory) or when you redeem them yourself; each point extends the plan time by one month. If nobody redeems, the plan time ends; the points remain. Once per account there is a trial point for seven days; it cannot be given away and lapses if you do not redeem it within 30 days. A plan without an end date needs no points. tellmelo places plan time with an end date that you received as a gift or from the team into your inventory as plan points beyond the current month; the time stays the same.
3. Spark subscription: Sparks are available as a one-off purchase or in the monthly spark subscription. It credits the chosen number of sparks every month, which count like bought ones, and renews for one month at a time until you cancel it; you can cancel at any time, effective at the end of the paid month, in the inventory or via “Cancel contracts here”. Bought once, a spark costs 10 % more than in the spark subscription; with a running plan it costs 10 % less in each case. There is one spark subscription per account; one taken out in the App Store you cancel with Apple.
4. Shop items are profile frames, effects that lie over your own cover image without replacing it, and looks for your profile card. An item only changes the appearance. You buy it once and keep it as long as your account and tellmelo exist; you receive the simple, non-transferable right to use it in tellmelo and can equip or unequip it at any time. The operator may stop selling an item or offer new ones; items you have bought stay yours. A collection can be bought as a whole as long as you do not own any of its items yet, and then costs less than its items individually. Members with a plan pay less in the shop; for a collection both discounts add up; how much is shown with the price. In the apps, Google or Apple sells an item as soon as it is approved there (see “Purchases in the apps”).
5. Special items: Limited items are available only in the stated number and, where applicable, only in the stated period; each piece carries a number. A piece is only yours once the payment has been received; if the last one is taken before that, tellmelo refunds the full amount. Limited items are available only in the browser, not in a collection and not as places under a post. Unique looks show a composition of their own for every purchase, with a number that is given only once; the preview in the shop shows an example. Exclusive items are offered by the operator only to selected members or groups; only they see and receive them. Under Settings → Appearance & app you can hide looks from the shop, including your own and those of groups; they stay yours. The team can give you an item free of charge and equip it for you; it belongs to you as if bought. You learn of this by notification and email and decide in the shop whether to keep it or return to what you had equipped before; without an answer, it stays equipped.
6. Packs, sales and vouchers: A pack bundles plan points, sparks and shop items at one price; the points belong to the plan of your kind of account, the sparks count like bought ones. A pack containing an item you already own cannot be bought. Sales lower prices for the period shown, a voucher code applies once per member; both add to the other discounts, together at most 90 %, and apply only in the browser. In the apps, packs are available once Google or Apple has approved them, at their prices and without sales and vouchers.
7. Looks for groups: A group’s leaders (whoever founded it and whoever co-manages it) can buy shop items for the group in the browser; the contracting party is whoever buys. The item then belongs to the group, even if the leaders change, and is deleted with it; everyone who manages the group can equip and unequip it. Group effects exist only for groups; limited items are not available to groups. With the perks “still looks” or “all looks” a group wears these without buying them, as long as its leaders have the perk turned on (§ 9); exclusive items only if it is on their list. A group wears a look for the profile card on its group header.
8. Purchases in the apps are made through Google Play or the App Store, with Google or Apple as the seller; their terms also apply, in particular on payment, renewal, cancellation, withdrawal and refunds.
9. Beta of the iOS app: Purchases in the beta (TestFlight) are test purchases in Apple’s test environment: Apple charges nothing, and tellmelo credits nothing. As a thank-you for testing, an account’s first test purchase brings one plan point, once. While Apple reviews a new version, the operator may temporarily credit test purchases like real ones.
10. Subscriptions and orders in the inventory: There you find your running subscriptions and orders with invoices and credit notes, and there you cancel a subscription effective at the end of the paid period; until then you can take the cancellation back, for a subscription through Google Play in Google Play. A subscription from the App Store you cancel with Apple. You can send the team a question about any order, for example about a refund after the 48 hours have passed; the team decides case by case, and no claim arises from it. Your statutory rights, including withdrawal and cancellation via “Cancel contracts here”, remain unaffected.
11. Gifts: You can give other members sparks or plan time and, with the right to do so, shop items, in each case also as places to collect under a post of your own. The contracting party is the giver; the member receiving the gift learns who it is from, and a gifted item belongs to them as if bought. Gifted plan time does not renew automatically and arrives in the inventory as plan points. A supervised account receives gifts directly only from its parents or guardians; any account can collect places under a post, a place with a shop item only an account that does not own the item yet and for which the shop is open. Places not collected are refunded if the post or your account is deleted. From your inventory you can give away plan points, sparks you bought or received as a gift and shop items you have never equipped, but not free sparks (such as the monthly ones) or the trial point. What you receive as a gift cannot be given on for seven days; an item once equipped stays with you. A gift cannot be taken back.
12. No withdrawal when the service starts immediately: Sparks (in the spark subscription every month), plan points from packs, packs and gifts are credited immediately, shop items are provided immediately. Before buying, you expressly agree that the service begins before the withdrawal period ends and confirm that your right of withdrawal thereby expires (§ 356(5) BGB); you receive the confirmation by email. Your right of withdrawal for subscriptions is not affected.
13. Refund within 48 hours: Regardless of this, you can return a purchase of your own in the inventory within 48 hours of payment, voluntarily and without giving reasons: shop items, including equipped ones; plan points from a pack or a subscription payment, as long as none of them has been given away or redeemed by you (a point redeemed automatically counts as unused; its plan time ends with the refund, and the subscription no longer renews); sparks, including those of a month of the spark subscription, as far as they have not yet gone to a group or a member, pro rata (with Google Play, which refunds only whole purchases, only as long as none of them has been given), whereby the spark subscription no longer renews after the return; packs, as long as nothing of them has been used or given away. Gifts to others are excluded. The money goes back the way you paid. App Store purchases are refunded only by Apple; you request the refund there, in the iOS app directly from the inventory.
14. Plans, plan points, sparks, gifts and shop items have no monetary value beyond the purchase and cannot be transferred, exchanged or paid out outside tellmelo. Expired sparks and trial points are not refunded. If a purchase is refunded, what it gave ends, including what was given away from it; a refunded shop item is unequipped, and the number of a refunded limited piece or unique look is not given again. If a gifted account is deleted or suspended for a violation, the gift lapses without a refund.
15. Minors buy only with the consent of their parents or guardians or with means given to them for that purpose or for their free disposal (§§ 107, 110 BGB).
16. When a plan ends, its tools stop running. What you created with them is kept for six months and comes back with a new plan; after that it is deleted, with an email two weeks beforehand. Posts, messages and the account remain.

§ 9 Programmes without entitlement

tellmelo offers free programmes, such as monthly sparks for all members, perks for groups that their leaders turn on with the group’s sparks, invitation rewards, the loyalty rhythm for active weeks, badges that level up with posts, reactions and followers, Bughunter for confirmed bug reports, Early Supporter for plan time before 2027 (it lapses three months after the plan time ends), the Advent calendar (its raffle is governed by the conditions for raffles), the Feed Duel with monthly prizes (below) and partnerships with allowances to give away. An allowance (plan months, sparks, looks from the shop with a number of copies) lies in the partner’s inventory and is for giving to members and for places under posts, not for the partner themselves; the operator can take back what has not been given yet, and it ends with the partnership. For all programmes:

1. Requirements, levels, rewards, validity and expiry are shown by tellmelo in the programme, for example under Settings → Taking part → Rewards. What you have reached remains according to the rules stated there as long as the requirements are met; before it is lost, there is a notification and a deadline.
2. There is no entitlement to programmes, future levels and rewards. The operator can change, pause or end a programme for the future; what has already been received runs out as promised.
3. Rewards have no monetary value, can neither be transferred nor paid out and bring no reach. Group perks only concern design and tools; if a group’s sparks no longer cover them, they stay on for 14 days, then the ones turned on last go first.
4. Anyone who fakes requirements, for example with their own, other people’s or bought accounts or automatically, loses what they received through it, and the account can be suspended (§ 6).

Feed Duel. As long as the operator offers it, members guess in the Feed Duel which of two public posts was received better, alone or against others. Each month by German time has its own rating, which starts at 1000 and changes with every game according to the rules explained in the app; you get onto the leaderboard from ten games. After the end of the month, 1st place receives a plan month, which lies in the inventory as a plan point and can be redeemed or given away like other plan points, and 2nd place two sparks that are valid for one month. With an equal rating, the higher number of games decides, then who reached the rating earlier. Prizes go to those who are on the leaderboard when the prizes are awarded after the end of the month; supervised accounts only play alone and receive no prizes. If the game ends before the end of the month, the month is rated with the standing reached by then. During a game, the account’s other sessions and API keys are locked. Looking things up during the game, collusion, second accounts or automated aids count as faking under number 4; a prize received this way is taken back.

§ 10 Discovery programme

In Explore, some members appear with the “Discovered” mark, their profile and a selection of their public posts. They are selected for regular activity: on how many days of the last weeks someone wrote and how others responded, capped per day, so that neither many posts on one day nor single posts bring a place; the team can also invite by hand. Not selected are suspended and automated accounts and accounts with a recent sanction. A place only comes about with your yes, for supervised accounts with that of the parents; after “Don’t ask again” no more invitations come. With a place you design your portrait, for example with a featured post and an introduction; the rules for posts apply to it (§ 4). Places are reassigned at unpredictable intervals and end when you leave, without activity, with a sanction or by the team; afterwards your profile stays under “Discovered before” for up to 30 more days. Under “New here”, Explore also shows new members with public posts, except those who no longer want invitations. § 9 applies to the programme.

Legal

§ 11 Liability

The operator is liable without limitation for intent and gross negligence and for injury to life, body or health. In the case of simple negligence, the operator is only liable for the breach of essential contractual obligations (obligations whose fulfilment makes the performance of the contract possible in the first place and on whose observance you may rely), limited to the foreseeable damage typical for the contract. Liability under the Product Liability Act remains unaffected.

The operator is not liable for members’ content and does not have to monitor it (§ 7(2) DDG). External links first lead to a notice that the site does not belong to tellmelo; the operator does not adopt its content. If the notice mentions a review, it reflects its state on the day named. Widgets by other members, including those that load content from the internet, do not come from the operator; he reviews them before they enter the gallery but does not adopt their content or that of third-party sites as his own. Whether you allow a widget with internet access is your own decision; for content, services and damage coming from third-party sites or such widgets, the operator is liable only under the sentences above.

§ 12 Termination

You terminate at any time by deleting your account. The operator can terminate with 14 days’ notice, for serious violations without notice. Before that you can download your data; after an immediate block you receive it on request through the contact form.

§ 13 Changes to these terms

New or changed features within the framework of these terms do not change them. If the terms themselves change, this is announced by email to your account’s address and applies from the date stated for further use. No consent is inferred from this; silence does not count as agreement. If you do not agree, stop using the service and download your data beforehand. Purely editorial changes are not announced separately. The date at the top names the version in force.

§ 14 Final provisions

German law applies. If a provision is invalid, the others remain valid. For consumers the statutory places of jurisdiction apply; towards businesses the place of jurisdiction is the operator’s seat. The operator does not take part in proceedings before a consumer arbitration board and is not obliged to do so.