Privacy Policy

"Mastodon" is an open source software product used to create social network communities.

"Displaced.social" refers to a collection of computer infrastructure, software, and third-party services. This collection may be referenced as a Mastodon instance.

"Mastodon instances" refer to collections of computer infrastructure, software, and third-party services operatored indipenetly of other Mastodon instances. Displaced.social is an example of a Mastodon instance.

"Federation" or "Fediverse" refers to the decentralized network of Mastodon instances owned and operatored by different individuals, groups, and corporations.

What information do we collect?

• Basic account information: If you register on this server, you will 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. Third-party Mastodon servers, known as instances, as well as the services they use are outside of the control of Displaced.social and our Administrators. Your content may continue to be stored and shared on these third-party servers and services after you have deleted it from Displaced.social.
• Direct and followers-only posts: All posts are stored and processed on Displaced.social. 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 Mastodon instances and copies are stored there. We make a good faith effort to limit the access to those posts only to authorized persons, but other Mastodon instances may fail to do so. Therefore it's important to review Mastodon instances 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 Mastodon instances and any receiving Mastodon instances may view such messages, and that recipients may screenshot, copy or otherwise re-share them. Do not share any dangerous information over Displaced.social.
• 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 logs which include the IP address of every request to Displaced.social.
• The text and media (audio, photo, video) content you generate, either privatly or publicly, is subject to algorithmic pattern recognition for the pourpose of detecting abusing, harrasing, or otherwise illegal material. This process can identify the objects, people, text, scenes, and activities. The idenfitifed information is stored and processed outside of the publicly available Displaced.social service and is retained throughout the moderation process until being purged.

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 Displaces.social. To aid moderation of content, for example comparing your IP address with other known ones to determine ban evasion or other violations. This incudes but is not limited to algorithmic pattern recognition. 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. Demographic, geographic and other information derieved from the data you provide may be used to calculate usage anonymous statistics of Displaced.social.

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 Mastodon instances in the Fediverse. Your public and followers-only posts are delivered to the Mastodon instances where your followers reside, and direct messages are delivered to the Mastodon instances of the recipients, in so far as those followers or recipients reside on a different Mastodon instances 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.

Changes to our Privacy Policy

If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page.

This document was last updated December 14, 2018.