Terms of use

Who we are

Broadside is a personal project run by one person; it is not a company. In these terms, “we” and “us” mean the person who runs Broadside, and “you” means anyone who uses it: publishers who share pieces, and readers who open them.

Write to hello@broadside.page about anything, to safety@broadside.page to report a problem or appeal a decision, and to privacy@broadside.page about your data. Every address is on the contact page.

By creating an account, or by using Broadside without one, you agree to these terms. How we handle personal data is explained in the privacy policy.

What Broadside is

Broadside is a place to share printed pieces that were designed elsewhere. You upload a PDF or images; we check them and turn every page into images sized for phones; you get a link and a QR code. Readers can react, comment or fill in a form, if you allow it, and you see how your piece was read.

It is for organisations, artists, public bodies, schools and anyone who prints to inform or invite. It is not a design tool, and it is not a shop window: menus, product catalogues and sales flyers are not what it is for, and we may take them down.

Broadside is free to use. How it is paid for may change as it grows, for example with paid plans or adverts. Whatever comes, a printed QR code will never stop working because of it, and we will tell you before anything changes.

Broadside is new and still being built, and features marked “coming soon” are not there yet. We work to keep it running, but we cannot promise it will always be available or free of errors.

Who can have an account

Anyone can read a piece without an account. To have one, you must:

• be at least 13 years old, and if you are under 18, have the agreement of a parent or guardian;
• give true information about yourself, or about the organisation you open the account for, and an email address you can read;
• not have been banned from Broadside before;
• not be a convicted sex offender, and not be barred from using Broadside by the law of the place where you live.

Only someone allowed to act for an organisation may open an account in its name. Your username is public; your own name, or your organisation's, stays with the account.

You are responsible for what is done with your account. Keep your password and passkeys to yourself, and tell us at safety@broadside.page if someone else gets in. You may have more than one account, for example a personal one and one for an organisation, but never to get around a limit or a ban.

Your content

What you upload and what you write on Broadside stays yours. We do not claim ownership of it.

So that we can run Broadside, you give us permission to store your content, copy it, check it, turn it into page images and text, make its link and QR code, and show it to readers as your settings say: through its link and code, and on the board and in search if you list it. This permission is free, worldwide and non-exclusive. It ends when you delete the content or your account, apart from what we must keep for a ban, a dispute or the law (see the privacy policy).

If we ever want to use content in other ways, we will change these terms first and tell you, as described below.

You promise that you made what you upload, or have the right to share it, and that sharing it on Broadside breaks no one's rights: copyright, trademarks, privacy, or the rights of the people shown in it.

Reactions, comments and forms

Each publisher decides what readers can send back. Commenting needs an account. Private comments and form answers go only to the publisher. Public comments can be read by every reader of the piece, and the publisher may approve, hide or remove them. Readers who asked a question before 28 October 2026 can still have it seen by the publisher; questions can no longer be sent.

When you comment or answer a form, you let the publisher, and us, keep and show what you wrote as the piece's settings describe. Never put passwords, card numbers or other people's private details in a comment or a form.

A form's answers go to the publisher who wrote it, not to us. The publisher is responsible for what they ask and for what they do with the answers (see below).

Community rules

These rules apply to everything on Broadside: pages, captions, forms, comments, usernames and profile pictures. They apply to readers as well as publishers.

Never allowed: a permanent ban the first time

Any one of these leads to a permanent ban on the first offence, even when our checks caught it before anyone saw it:

• Nudity and sexual content of any kind, including pornography and sexual services, in pages, profile pictures or anywhere else.
• Anything that sexualises children. We report it to the authorities.
• Scams and fraud: fake charities and fake fundraising, fake prizes, jobs, loans or investments, and anything else that tricks people out of money.
• Phishing: asking for passwords, card numbers, bank details, codes or identity documents, or links and QR codes that lead to pages that do.
• Impersonation and unauthorised use: pretending to be a person, an organisation, a charity or a public body you are not, or publishing in their name without their permission, including fake official notices.
• Malware and hacking, including links or QR codes to harmful sites.
• Terrorism, violent extremism and organised hate, and content that praises or supports them.
• Threats of violence, and calls for violence against anyone.
• Selling or promoting illegal goods and services, such as drugs, weapons or forged documents.
• Exposing someone's private information, such as their home address or identity documents, or sharing intimate images of anyone without their consent.
• Coming back after a ban, with a new account or someone else's.

Not allowed: taken down, and a ban if it is serious or happens again

• Hate: attacking people for their ethnicity, nationality, religion, disability, sex, gender, sexual orientation, age or illness.
• Bullying and harassment.
• Graphic violence, and content that encourages suicide, self-harm or eating disorders. Information that helps people stay safe is welcome.
• False information that could cause real harm, such as fake health advice or lies about elections or emergencies.
• Spam: repeated, misleading or unwanted content, and fake reactions, views or accounts.
• Content that breaks someone's copyright or trademark.
• Anything else that is against the law.

Health, art and history

Pieces about health, anatomy, breastfeeding or sexual health, and historical works of art, may show the body in a medical, educational or artistic way. A person always checks them before they go public, and they are never allowed in profile pictures. Sexual content is never allowed, whatever the reason given.

Using Broadside itself

Do not use bots or scripts to read, react, comment or answer forms; do not copy Broadside in bulk, overload it, or get around its checks and limits; do not reach parts of it that are not yours. If you find a security weakness, tell us at safety@broadside.page instead of using it, and we will thank you.

How we check and enforce

Nothing goes public before it is checked, including a new version behind an existing QR code and every profile picture. Automatic checks look at every page for unsafe images, read the links in its text and decode the QR codes printed in it. A link on a list of known dangerous sites blocks a piece automatically; anything uncertain waits for a person.

A person decides every removal for breaking the rules and every ban. Automatic checks alone can hold a piece back or block a dangerous link, but they never close an account.

Anyone can report a piece, with or without an account, with the report button beside it on the board and in the reader. To report a comment or a profile, or to tell us more, write to safety@broadside.page with its link and what is wrong. If you believe it is illegal, say which law it breaks if you can, and confirm that you report in good faith. If we can reach you, we tell you what we decided.

What we can do: hold a piece back; take down a piece, a comment, a username or a picture; take a piece off the board; limit what an account can do; suspend it while we look into something; or ban it permanently. When several people report a listed piece, it leaves the board until a person has looked at it, while its link and QR code keep working.

When we take something down or limit an account, we tell you what we did, which rule or law it was about, whether an automatic check was involved, and how to appeal, unless the law or someone's safety forbids it.

If someone keeps sending reports that are clearly unfounded, we may set their reports aside for a while.

Permanent bans

A permanent ban closes the account for good and takes all its pieces, comments and pictures offline. Their links and QR codes then say that the piece was removed; they never show anyone else's piece.

A ban is for the person, not only the account. To stop a banned person coming back, we keep a scrambled copy of the account's email address and ban the browsers the account was used on: they can no longer open or use an account on Broadside. Any new account a banned person opens is closed when we find it. The privacy policy says exactly what we keep, and for how long.

We keep what shows why the ban was made, such as the removed content and our notes, so that it can be looked at again on appeal and handed to the authorities where the law requires it.

Appeals

If you think we got a decision wrong (we removed your content, limited or banned your account, or did nothing about something you reported), write to safety@broadside.page within six months of hearing from us. Say which decision you mean and why you think it is wrong.

A person looks at it again, with what you sent. If we were wrong, we put things back as they were and tell you. Appealing is free, and you can still go to court.

If you collect answers from readers

When your piece has a form, or takes comments, you decide what readers are asked and what happens to their answers. Under data protection law you are responsible for that information (the “controller”), and we store it for you (the “processor”). This section is our agreement for it:

• we use the answers only to run your piece as your settings say and to keep Broadside safe, never for our own purposes;
• everyone who can reach them is bound to keep them confidential, and we protect them as the privacy policy describes;
• we use only the service providers listed in the privacy policy, and we tell you before adding one, so you can object or leave;
• we help you answer readers who ask to see or delete their answers, and we tell you without delay if they are ever exposed;
• when you delete a piece or your account, we delete its answers, and our backups of them expire within 30 days;
• we give you the information you need to show that this is how we work.

In return, you must have a lawful reason for what you ask, tell readers what their answers are for (a form that asks for an email address must say so), never ask for passwords or card numbers, and ask for sensitive information, such as health details, only when you truly need it and the law allows it.

Leaving

You can stop using Broadside and delete your account at any time. Deleting it deletes your pieces, their responses and their counts; their links and QR codes then say the piece was removed. Until there is a delete button in Settings, write to privacy@broadside.page from your account's email address and we will do it.

If we ever stop running Broadside, we will tell you at least 60 days before, so you can save what you need.

Responsibility

Broadside is free and provided as it is. We take care to keep it safe and working, but we cannot promise that it will never fail, lose something or show something that should have been caught. Keep your own copy of your files.

We are fully responsible for harm we cause on purpose or through gross negligence, for injury to life, body or health, and wherever the law does not allow responsibility to be limited. For slight negligence we are responsible only when we break a duty that is essential to the service, and then only for the harm that was typical and foreseeable. We are not responsible for what others publish, except as the law requires once we know about it.

You are responsible for what you publish and for the answers you collect.

Changes to these terms

We may change these terms when Broadside changes or the law requires it. For important changes we tell you at least 30 days before, by email or when you log in, say what changes, and ask you to accept them. If you do not want to, you can delete your account. Small corrections apply once they are published here.

Disputes and the law

If something goes wrong, write to hello@broadside.page first: most problems are solved that way.

Nothing in these terms takes away the rights you have under the law of the country where you live. If you live in the European Union, you can bring a claim in the courts of your own country, and its consumer protection law applies.

If a part of these terms turns out to be invalid, the rest still applies. These terms were written in English and translated; if a translation is unclear, the reading that is better for you applies.