Discora — Terms of Service

1. Description of the Service

Discora provides a structured epistemic discourse platform that enables registered users and guest visitors to explore, map, and participate in structured discussions and debates. Key architectural capabilities include:

• Discussion and Debate Rooms: Collaborative spaces organized around specific propositions, questions, and inquiries.
• Claims and Evidence Grounding: Structured decomposition of arguments into falsifiable propositions supported or challenged by cited evidence and external sources.
• Structured Inquiries: Targeted clarification mechanisms attached to specific claims.
• State of Understanding: Algorithmic syntheses categorizing discussion nodes into areas of support, contestation, and unresolved inquiry without imposing definitive conclusions, scorecards, or truth scores.
• Identity Modes: Option for registered users to contribute either under their public profile username or anonymously within individual discussion contexts.

2. Eligibility & 18+ Public Beta Requirement

2.1. Minimum Age Requirement: Discora is currently operating in Public Beta. You must be at least eighteen (18) years of age to register an account, contribute content, submit evidence, vote, or otherwise interact with the Platform.

2.2. No Minor Accounts: By creating an account or clicking "Register", you expressly represent and warrant that you are at least 18 years of age and possess the legal capacity to enter into this binding Agreement under applicable law, including the Indian Contract Act, 1872.

2.3. Data Minimization on Age: In adherence to Discora's data minimization principles, we do not require or collect your exact date of birth or government identification during registration. However, if we become aware or have reasonable grounds to suspect that an account is registered or operated by an individual under 18 years of age, we reserve the right to immediately suspend or permanently terminate the account and purge associated personal data.

3. Account Registration, Credentials & Security

3.1. Registration: To access interactive features (posting, voting, inquiry creation, saving rooms), you must register using a valid email address and password, or through an authorized third-party authentication provider (such as Google OAuth).

3.2. Credential Confidentiality: You are solely responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your login credentials and for all activities that occur under your account. You agree to notify Discora immediately upon discovering or suspecting any unauthorized access to or security breach of your account.

3.3. Single Identity: Creating multiple automated, deceptive, or abusive accounts ("sockpuppets") to manipulate debate positions, vote distributions, or reputation signals is strictly prohibited.

4. Acceptable Use & Prohibited Conduct (Intermediary Due Diligence)

As an intermediary hosting user-generated discourse under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and Rule 3(1)(b) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, Discora requires all users to refrain from uploading, hosting, displaying, modifying, publishing, transmitting, storing, updating, or sharing any information that:

1. Belongs to another person and to which you do not have any right;
2. Is obscene, pornographic, pedophilic, invasive of another's bodily privacy, insulting or harassing on the basis of gender, racially or ethnically objectionable, relating or encouraging money laundering or gambling, or otherwise inconsistent with or contrary to the laws in force;
3. Is harmful to children or minors;
4. Infringes any patent, trademark, copyright, trade secret, or other proprietary rights;
5. Deceives or misleads the addressee about the origin of the message or knowingly and intentionally communicates any misinformation or information which is patently false and untrue or misleading in nature;
6. Impersonates another person or entity;
7. Threatens the unity, integrity, defense, security or sovereignty of India, friendly relations with foreign States, or public order, or causes incitement to the commission of any cognizable offense, or prevents investigation of any offense, or is insulting to other nations;
8. Contains software viruses or any other computer code, files, or programs designed to interrupt, destroy, or limit the functionality of any computer resource;
9. Violates any law for the time being in force.

Furthermore, within Discora's epistemic environment, you agree not to:

• Fabricate, forge, or deliberately misquote source materials or citations;
• Deploy automated bots, scrapers, or crawlers without prior written authorization;
• Engage in vote brigades, coordinated brigading, or reputation gaming;
• Doxx, harass, or threaten any user, contributor, or moderator.

5. Intellectual Property & User Content License

5.1. Ownership of Your Content: You retain all copyrights and proprietary rights in the original text, arguments, claims, evidence descriptions, and feedback you submit to Discora ("User Content").

5.2. License to Discora: By submitting User Content to public rooms or publicly accessible areas of the Platform, you grant Discora an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, transferable license (with the right to sublicense) to host, store, cache, reproduce, format, display, distribute, index, and organize your User Content into Discora's structured knowledge graphs, search indexes, and epistemic summaries. This license exists solely for operating, developing, and providing the Platform's core discourse features.

5.3. Responsibility for Citations: When submitting evidence, URLs, or excerpts from third-party works, you warrant that your citation constitutes lawful fair dealing, fair use, or quotation under applicable copyright law, and that proper source attribution is provided.

6. Public vs. Private Discourse & Anonymous Participation

6.1. Public Discourse: Discussion rooms, public debate rooms, claims, evidence, questions, inquiries, and the State of Understanding summaries are public. They are readable by any guest on the internet and indexed by search engines.

6.2. Private Debate Rooms: When participating in a debate designated as "Private", access is restricted to individuals entering a valid room access code. However, Discora platform administrators maintain audit-logged oversight capabilities to inspect private rooms exclusively for moderation emergencies, illegal content investigations, or platform safety enforcement.

6.3. Anonymous Identity Mode: Discora enables contributors to submit messages and questions under an "Anonymous" label. In this mode, your public profile handle and avatar are detached from the contribution in public views. However, backend database records retain cryptographic linkage to your account to prevent abuse, enforce moderation guidelines, and comply with statutory legal orders. Anonymous participation is a privacy feature, not an instrument for unlawful evasion.

7. Epistemic Philosophy, AI Features & Limitation of Authority

7.1. No Guarantee of Truth or Accuracy: User Content represents the opinions, claims, and evidence submitted by individual participants. Discora does not endorse, verify, guarantee, or represent the truth, accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any claim, argument, source, or synthesis displayed on the Platform.

7.2. Votes Are Not Truth: Community stance indicators (such as agreement or disagreement on claims) reflect collective participant perspectives within a room; they do not establish factual veracity or empirical proof. Discora does not employ evidence-voting scorecards, winner/loser determinations, or truth-scoring algorithms. You must exercise independent critical judgment before relying on any information found on Discora.

7.3. Assistive, Non-Authoritative AI: Discora may, where assistive AI features are enabled by the platform, employ artificial intelligence models (such as large language models) to assist participants in structuring arguments, exploring inquiry angles, or organizing epistemic summaries. To the extent any AI features are deployed, you expressly acknowledge and agree that:

• AI on Discora is strictly assistive, never authoritative.
• AI is not an arbitrator, judge, or oracle of truth.
• AI outputs may contain errors, simplifications, or omissions.
• Ultimate epistemic evaluation and intellectual judgment rest entirely with human participants.

8. Moderation, Reporting & Grievance Mechanism

8.1. Community Moderation: Users may report content that violates these Terms or our Community Guidelines using the built-in "Report" action.

8.2. Moderator Actions: Authorized moderators and administrators may review reported items via an anonymity-preserving moderation queue. Discora reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to hide, restrict, lock, archive, or remove any content that breaches this Agreement.

8.3. Grievance Redressal: If you believe your content was wrongly removed, or if you wish to report a statutory grievance (including intellectual property infringement or prohibited content under Indian IT Rules), you may submit a formal complaint to our Grievance Officer in accordance with our Grievance Redressal Policy.

9. Account Deletion & Epistemic Graph Retention

9.1. Account Deletion Mechanism: Discora provides a self-service account deletion flow directly within user settings (Settings > Danger Zone), currently available in the beta application and subject to ongoing rollout. Where self-service is unavailable, users may submit an account deletion request through our designated privacy contact at [OFFICIAL PRIVACY CONTACT EMAIL — OPERATOR TO PROVIDE].

9.2. Eradication of Personal Data: When account deletion is executed (whether upon verified request or via the intended self-service mechanism), all personal and identity records—including your login credentials, email address, profile handle, display name, bio, avatar image, private preferences, saved bookmarks, votes, and reactions—will be permanently deleted from our primary application databases, subject to technical backups and legal retention requirements.

9.3. Anonymized Retention of Published Discourse: To preserve the structural integrity and intelligibility of public discussions and debates, you agree that your published epistemic contributions—including claims, evidence citations, questions, inquiries, and messages—may be retained in anonymized form where permitted or required by applicable law. Following deletion, all public attribution associated with your contributions will display permanently as "Deleted User". This prevents public discussions from becoming nonsensical or broken while completely stripping your personal identity.

10. Third-Party Integrations & Subprocessors

The Platform relies on trusted infrastructure providers to deliver its services:

• Supabase Inc.: Database hosting, user authentication, and file storage.
• Google Cloud (OAuth): Optional third-party federated login.
• Resend Inc.: Transactional email delivery (verification and password resets).
• Functional Software Inc. (Sentry): Crash and exception diagnostics (when enabled, scrubbed of personal identifiers).

Your interactions with third-party authentication providers are subject to their respective terms and privacy policies.

11. Disclaimer of Warranties & Limitation of Liability

11.1. "As-Is" and "As-Available": Discora is provided on an "AS IS" and "AS AVAILABLE" basis during Public Beta, without warranties of any kind, whether express, implied, statutory, or otherwise, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement.

11.2. Limitation of Liability: To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, in no event shall Discora, its founders, operators, employees, or agents be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, including loss of profits, data, goodwill, or other intangible losses, resulting from (a) your access to or inability to access the Platform; (b) any conduct or content of any third party; or (c) unauthorized access, use, or alteration of your content.

12. Changes to Service & Terms

We reserve the right to modify, suspend, or discontinue any feature of Discora at any time during Public Beta. We may update these Terms periodically. When material modifications occur, we will provide notice by updating the "Effective Date" at the top of these Terms and, where feasible, posting an announcement within the Platform. Your continued use of the Platform after such changes constitutes your acceptance of the revised Terms.

13. Governing Law & Jurisdiction

These Terms and any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with them shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of India, without giving effect to any principles of conflicts of law. Subject to applicable statutory grievance escalation procedures, the courts of competent jurisdiction located in [CITY / STATE, INDIA — OPERATOR TO PROVIDE] shall have exclusive jurisdiction over any disputes arising under this Agreement.

14. Contact & Inquiries