The fact is that the first part of the terms of service seem pretty standard to me. However I am not a lawyer and I am not giving legal advice in this post. All representation are just my opinion and do not represent steemit in anyway. You agree by reading this post that I am not responsible for anything you do as a result of reading this post
I absolutely could be entirely wrong about what I think it means. So check yourself to protect yourself.
Basically I have the opening Terms of Service clauses down below and you are invited to read for yourself what it says. I will sum this up in one sentence.
"Steemit Terms of Service
Last Updated April 28, 2016"
"Welcome to Steemit! These Terms of Service (“Terms”) apply to your access to and use of Steemit.com and any other products or services that link to these Terms (“Steemit”). Steemit is provided by Steemit, Inc. (“Steemit”, “we” or “us”). By accessing or using Steemit, you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you do not agree to these Terms, including the mandatory arbitration provision and class action waiver in Section 14, do not access or use Steemit. If we make changes to these Terms, we will provide notice of those changes by updating the “Last Updated” date above or posting notice on Steemit. Your continued use of Steemit will confirm your acceptance of the changes."
"You understand and agree that these Terms apply solely to your access to, and use of, Steemit and that, when you use other Steemit services such as Steemit.com or Steemitgifts.com, the terms and policies particular to those services apply."
Source: Steemit Terms of Service
Clause: By accessing or using Steemit, you agree to be bound by these Terms.
This clause is basically saying if you don't agree to the terms don't use steemit.
If you do use steemit such use constitutes agreement.
This just means that you can't say later I didn't agree to the terms and be using steemit.
If you are a member and you are writing post upvoting, commenting and all other activities it is possible to do on steemit you agree to the terms.
Clause: If you do not agree to these Terms, including the mandatory arbitration provision and class action waiver in Section 14, do not access or use Steemit.
- This one is a little more interesting and is basically saying you cannot later decide to join a class action lawsuit, but have to arbitrate with their judge, there court and on their terms.
< The last clause of interest is:
"You understand and agree that these Terms apply solely to your access to, and use of, Steemit and that, when you use other Steemit services such as Steemit.com or Steemitgifts.com, the terms and policies particular to those services apply."
This to me means "don't get mad at me because you were playing in someone else's house and didn't like what happened." The funny thing is this happens all the time.
- My final opinion of what the terms of service say can be summed up as follows:
With the crazy lawsuits and lawyers running rampant in the world today, I can't say I blame them. Steemit has been set up to help people all around the world with a great income opportunity. They've been doing a pretty good job of it so far. Of course there will be people that complain and sue if they can rather than make suggestions and try to persuade people to implement the suggestions.
Steemit doesn't want to spend time and money arguing with word splitting lawyers for silly things. I'm glad they had the foresight to include protection like that.
Steemit's not perfect, nothing man made is. But steemit seem to be the best of what's out there and filling an important niche.
I totally agree with you. As you say the lawsuits are crazy. Steemit is awesome. I love being on this plane of existence. lol
The purpose of taking the TOS apart is to better understand it's use and share that with steemians. The reason why I call it magic is because learning more about it is a way of educating myself and sharing that with others has value, which is what I am trying to promote. I want to add value to the pool and produce as a result more for us all.