Terms of Service

Communalytic© (Communalytic.com)

Please read this agreement carefully. Your use of any service made available through  Communalytic (the Service) indicates that You accept the following terms and conditions. If You do not agree to these terms and conditions, You may not use the Service.

1. Use of Service 

You may submit information to Communalytic (EDU and Pro Version), which will be used to run a designated program, generate results, and provide the results to You, over the World Wide Web. You may use the results for academic research. You agree not to imply that the results have any warranty or endorsement by the developers. You agree not to send automated queries of any sort to Communalytic.

If you submit any information/data to Communalytic, you are solely responsible to make certain that you hold all licenses and permission to such information/data. Furthermore, You represent that the information/data You submit does not violate a privacy, publicity or moral right, or disclose personal, government, business or other information without permission. For quality control and other purposes, Communalytic may collect usage statistics and monitor your use of the Service and transmission of information/data through it to help improve services and features of Communalytic. Any information/data that you submit to Communalytic will be handled according to our Privacy Policy. However, the user is warned that the Developer cannot fully guarantee the safety of these data. The Developer is not responsible for any third party seeing or obtaining information/data or results transmitted through the Service.

As a Communalytic user, it is your responsibility to (1) respect social media sites’ terms of service (e.g., it is generally not permitted to re-publish data from social media) and (2) consider ethical implications of using social media data for research (see, for example, “Ethical Decision-Making and Internet Research” prepared by the Association of Internet Researchers and available at http://aoir.org/reports/ethics2.pdf ).

2. Third-Party Services/Resources

Communalytic uses third-party services/resources to support some of its features. To access third-party services/resources, Communalytic may provide information and links to/from other sites or resources. You acknowledge that we are not responsible for the availability of such external resources, and do not endorse and are not liable for any content, products, services or other materials on or available from such services/resources. Any dealings by you with any third party on or through Communalytic shall be solely between you and that third party and we shall not be responsible for any loss or damage that may arise from any such dealings.

The use of third-party services/resources are subject to their own Terms of Use policies. The following services/resources are currently being used in Communalytic:

• Google OpenID for “Sign-in with Google” (see Google Terms)
• Reddit API for retrieval of Reddit public posts (see Reddit API Terms)
• Twitter API 2.0 for retrieval of Twitter threads (see Twitter Developer Terms)
• Twitter API 2.0 Academic Research Product Track for access to full-archive search and other v2 endpoints (see Twitter’s product for researchers“)
• CrowdTangle for retrieval of public Facebook and Instagram posts that shared the same URL (see CrowdTangle Terms)
• Google API for Toxicity Analysis with Perspective API (see Google API Terms)
• Plotly for data visualization (see Plotly Terms)
• AWS for data storage (see AWS Terms)
• SparkPost for email notifications (see SparkPost Terms)

3. Term and Termination 

The term of this Agreement will begin when You first use the Service, and will end the earliest of when you stop using the Service by deleting your account (via My Profile menu or via email request to [email protected]). The Developer may terminate your use of the Service at any time and for any reason.

4. You agree to cite the following reference in your presentations and publications:

Gruzd, A., & Mai, P. (2021). Communalytic: A Research Tool For Studying Online Discourse. Available at https://Communalytic.com

5. Warranty Disclaimer and Limitation of Liability 

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE DEVELOPERS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SERVICE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SERVICE.

You are solely responsible for determining the appropriateness of this Service for your purpose, and assume all risks associated with its use, including risks connected with your submission of information. The risks You assume include, but are not limited to, the risks of program errors; damage to or loss of information, programs or equipment; and unavailability or interruption of operations. The Developer is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, timeliness, reliability, content or availability of the Service or results from it.

You agree to indemnify and hold the Developer harmless from all damages, liabilities, costs and expenses, including attorneys’ fees, incurred by the Developer as a result of any claim, proceeding or judgment arising out of Your use of the Service or the results.

This Agreement is the only agreement we have regarding your use of the Service. It replaces all other communications and agreements we may have had prior to this Agreement. The Developer may modify this Agreement at any time by posting a new agreement with the Service. If You do not accept the modification, You must promptly stop using the Service. By continuing to use the Service, You accept the modification.