Terms of Use

Who we are

In brief: Debaty is a service of JGHP B.V., a company in the Netherlands. All formal details are in the legal notice.

Debaty is provided by JGHP B.V., established in the Netherlands. Our Chamber of Commerce number, our VAT number and our postal address are in the legal notice. Write to us via contact. For authorities there is a separate entrance: the contact point for authorities.

These terms apply between you and us as soon as you create an account. If you read Debaty without an account, they apply to what you do here then: reading, searching and reporting.

What Debaty is

In brief: a place to talk with others about topics. Below is exactly what it contains, so you know what these terms are about.

Debaty gives you:

• Bubbles — posts you publish, with text, photos, video, polls and sources.
• Debates — a conversation around a statement, in which you give your position and may change it.
• Conversations — private messages with one person or with a group.
• Stories — short posts that disappear on their own after a day.
• Timelines — alongside the chronological timeline a ranked one, where for each bubble you see why it is there and can adjust that yourself.
• Discover — follow topics, make lists, find people.
• Debaty+ — an optional subscription with extra features.

Debaty changes. What is new and what is gone, we keep track of in the changelog. If we remove a feature in which you stored something, you can download it first.

Who may take part

In brief: anyone aged 16 or older who follows these agreements. Under 16 cannot have an account here.

You may use Debaty if you are 16 or older. That limit comes from privacy law: in the Netherlands, a service like this may only process your personal data independently from the age of 16 (AVG and UAVG, Article 8). Debaty is not made for children and is not aimed at them.

When creating an account we ask for your date of birth to check whether you are old enough. We do not store that date; we only record that you confirmed you are 16 or older. See the privacy statement.

When you sign up, you confirm two things: that you are 16 or older, and that you accept these terms. If an account turns out to belong to someone under 16, we follow the route set out in the moderation policy. What that means for young people is on Debaty and minors.

Signing up, and the waiting list

In brief: sometimes signing up is open to everyone, sometimes only with an invitation. If you are on the waiting list, we only store your e-mail address and your place in the queue.

Debaty grows step by step. That is why signing up is sometimes only possible with an invitation. If it is closed, you can leave your e-mail address on the waiting list. We then store your address, when you signed up, whether you confirmed your registration, and whether you have already received an invitation — nothing else.

You only join the list when you click. After a sign-up we send an e-mail with a confirmation link. If you click it, you are on the list. If you do not click, you are not on it: you do not count, your turn does not come, and you receive no e-mail from us other than that one. The link works for seven days; after that we delete the address automatically. This exists so that no one but you can put your address on our list.

You receive an invitation in order of sign-up, in groups at a time. There is no way to jump the queue and there is no paid priority. If you want off the list, let us know via contact; we will then remove your address.

An invitation code is personal and not for sale. If you sell or trade codes, we remove them.

Your account

In brief: you are responsible for what happens under your account. A pseudonym is allowed; impersonating someone else is not.

Keep your password secret and preferably turn on two-step verification. If you see something you did not do yourself, report it immediately via contact.

A few agreements about accounts:

• A pseudonym is allowed. You do not have to use your real name.
• Impersonating someone else is not allowed — no existing person, no company, no organisation, and no Debaty employee either.
• Your account is yours alone. Do not lend it, sell it or rent it out.
• A bot is allowed, but only via the route that exists for it and with a visible bot label. A bot that pretends to be human, we remove.
• Your username can change. We can reclaim a name if it imitates someone else, misleads, or is clearly being kept occupied. This happens with notice in advance, unless there is immediate danger.

Multiple accounts

In brief: having more than one account is allowed, and you can place them side by side on the same device. They just may not reinforce each other.

You can have multiple accounts — for example one personal and one for something you write about. On a single device you can link them and switch with one tap. That link exists only in that device: on the server we do not record that two accounts belong to the same person.

What is not allowed is pretending to be several people. So: do not back yourself up, do not fill in a poll more than once, and do not create a second account to circumvent a measure. In that last case the measure also applies to the new account.

What you post stays yours

In brief: you keep all rights to your own work. We only receive the right needed to store it and show it to whoever you choose.

You retain all rights to what you post. You give us a licence — that is consent, not a transfer — to store, process and display your content to the audience you have set for that bubble. That consent is non-exclusive, free, and applies worldwide because that is simply what the internet is.

What we do do with that consent:

• store your content, show it and make it searchable within Debaty;
• technically adapt it where necessary — resize a photo, convert a video, create a preview;
• show it to whoever you choose, and send it along when someone shares or embeds your bubble on another site, if your bubble is public.

What we do not do with it: sell it, lend it to third parties, use it in advertising, or license it to anyone else. If you delete something, the consent lapses and we remove it. A copy may still remain briefly in a backup; that expires on its own.

You only post content for which you have the rights. If you use someone else's work, cite the source. If we receive a valid copyright complaint, we remove the content and you hear why — with the option to object.

For each bubble you choose who may see it and who may respond to it. We respect that choice; it is a setting, not a suggestion.

What you do not post here

In brief: the full rules are in the guidelines. This is the hard minimum where no weighing-up applies.

The substantive rules are in the guidelines. They also set out why they exist. Some of them are not a weighing-up but a boundary. Not allowed, in any case, is:

• content that is criminal, or that incites violence or a crime;
• threats, systematic harassment, or scattering someone's private data around;
• hatred towards people for who they are;
• sexual imagery of minors, or sexual imagery of someone who did not give consent for it;
• spam, fake accounts, and artificially inflating reach;
• content you know to be false and that can harm people — for example about health or about an election;
• infringement of someone else's work, trademark or likeness;
• advertising that pretends to be an ordinary post.

Not sure whether something is allowed? The guidelines give examples. If you see something that crosses this line, report it: logged in via the menu at the bubble, or without an account via the public reporting channel.

How we enforce rules

In brief: software can flag something, but a human decides. You are always told what was decided and why.

Here is how it works, in four steps:

1. Reporting. Anyone can report content — with an account via the menu at the bubble, without an account via the public reporting channel. We bundle notices about the same piece of content into a single case.
2. Flagging. Filters can mark possible violations for the moderation queue. In a very clear case such a filter can temporarily hide a post. That is provisional: a moderator reverses it if it was wrong.
3. Deciding. A moderator assesses and chooses a measure. Software never decides that alone.
4. Explaining. You receive notice of what was decided, why, and how to object.

The measures, from light to severe:

We choose the lightest measure that works, and we impose the most severe one only for something serious or for repetition. The full process, including the deadlines we set ourselves, is in the moderation policy. How many notices we received and what we did with them is in the transparency report.

If you disagree

In brief: you can object within six months, and someone else then looks at it again. If you cannot resolve it with us, there are three further routes outside us.

Every decision about your content or your account comes with a way back:

• Objection with us. Go to the objection page. Someone who was not involved in the original decision assesses it again. You have six months from the decision for this — that is the period the DSA prescribes. Objecting costs nothing.
• An independent dispute-settlement body. If you cannot resolve it with us, you can submit your case to a body for out-of-court dispute settlement recognised for this purpose by a supervisory authority (DSA Article 21). We cooperate with this and are bound by the outcome as the law provides. We may not designate such a body ourselves; the European Commission keeps track of which ones there are.
• Complaining to the supervisory authority. If you believe we are not following the rules, you can report this to the Autoriteit Consument & Markt in the Netherlands, or to the supervisory authority for digital services in your own country.
• To the courts. That route is always open and the steps above are not a precondition for it.

If your complaint concerns your personal data, it goes differently: see your data rights and the privacy statement.

Advertising

In brief: there is advertising on Debaty, but it belongs to the topic you are reading and not to you. No profile of you is made.

Debaty shows adverts. They are always marked as an advert and they are chosen on the topic of what you are reading at that moment, the language, and the country the advertiser targets. Never on who you are, what you did before or what you clicked. We do not build an advertising profile and do not share data with advertisers. What we report back to an advertiser is a count per hour, with no one's name attached.

An advert is assessed by a human before it is shown. With Debaty+ you see none. Why it is set up this way is on How Debaty makes money.

Advertising as a business

In brief: advertising is only possible as a business, paid in advance, and after approval by a human. You never pay more than the balance you topped up yourself.

If you want to advertise yourself, these terms apply too, plus the following. You sign up via advertising.

• Business only. Advertising is open to companies and organisations, not to private individuals.
• Pay in advance. You top up a balance and campaigns draw on it. When the balance is used up, the campaign stops on its own. We never charge more than is there.
• Assessment in advance. A human approves your campaign before it runs. We can refuse, and then you hear why.
• The rules apply to you too. An advert follows the same guidelines as ordinary content, and may not pretend to be editorial content.
• No targeting of individuals. You choose a topic, a language and a country. You cannot choose people; that possibility does not exist here.
• Invoices. You receive an invoice with each top-up. We charge VAT according to the rules of your country.

If a campaign is still running and you cancel, we refund the unused balance, except for what has already been delivered.

Being an ambassador

In brief: a recognition programme without payment. You sign up, a human reads it, and you can always stop.

The ambassador programme is for members who welcome others. No money is involved and there are no targets to meet; what you get is a badge, early access to new features, and the right to put together starter packs. What an ambassador is not: an employee, a spokesperson, or someone with priority in moderation.

You sign up with a short motivation; we read it and store it with your application. A human decides. We can withdraw ambassadorship for repeated breaches of the guidelines; you can stop at any time.

Debaty+

In brief: an optional subscription, cancellable every month, with fourteen days to reconsider. What it costs is on the Debaty+ page.

Debaty+ is a paid subscription with extra features. The price and what you get for it are on that page and are always up to date there. Payment goes via Mollie, a Dutch payment service; we do not see your account number.

• Cancelling. You can do this at any time in your account. Your subscription then continues until the end of the period you have already paid for and is not renewed after that. What you stored stays; only the extra features fall away.
• Cooling-off period. As a consumer you have fourteen days to reconsider after signing up. That is the European right of withdrawal for distance purchases. If you ask us to start Debaty+ immediately, you give consent for the service to start within those fourteen days. If you then still withdraw, you pay pro rata for the days you have used and get the rest back.
• Price change. If the price changes, we must give notice of it at least thirty days in advance by e-mail. The new price applies only from your next period. If you disagree, you cancel before that date and pay out the old price.
• Invoices. Each payment produces an invoice that you find back in your account.
• If a payment fails. We try again and let you know. If it still does not work after that, your account falls back to free. No debt arises.

Developers: apps, API and embedding

In brief: you may build with our API and embed bubbles on your own site. Automatically draining the site is not allowed.

If you want to build something on Debaty, there is the developer portal. There you request a key, link an app and set up webhooks. The following applies:

• Only the intended route. Use the API and the embed code. Automatically scouring the site, collecting data or draining accounts is not allowed, even if it technically works.
• What a member gives you belongs to the member. If through your app you gain access to someone's data, you use it only for what that person gave consent for. Reselling is not allowed, and if someone withdraws their consent, you delete what you had.
• Stay within the limits. Request limits apply. If you run into them structurally, reach out via contact instead of circumventing them.
• We can revoke a key if an app causes harm or breaks the rules. We give notice of this, with the reason.
• No false impression. Your app may not look as if it is from Debaty.

If you embed a bubble on your own site, the creator's setting still applies: what is not public, you do not embed.

Availability and maintenance

In brief: we do our best to keep Debaty running, but we do not promise uninterrupted service. We announce planned maintenance.

Debaty is an ordinary internet service and can go down. We monitor ourselves whether everything works, and for planned maintenance we try to give notice in advance and to do it at a quiet time. We do not give a guarantee of a particular availability, and we make no empty promise about it.

If something goes down, your data is not gone: we make backups and restore from them. What exactly went down and for how long, we tell afterwards if it affected you.

Stopping

In brief: you can leave at any time, with thirty days to reconsider. We only stop an account for a violation, and always with an explanation.

You can stop. Delete your account via Settings > Account. You then have thirty days to change your mind: just log back in and your account is back. After that it is final. Download your data before those thirty days are up, because after that we can no longer provide it.

We can stop. We can remove content or restrict, suspend or terminate an account for a violation of these terms, of the guidelines or of the law. This always comes with a statement of reasons and with the option to object. In case of immediate danger we act first and explain afterwards.

If Debaty itself stops. Should we ever cease, we say so at least thirty days in advance and ensure that you can download your data. If you paid for Debaty+, you get the unused part back.

A few agreements continue to apply after you have left: what is stated below about liability, and what is stated about law and courts.

What we do and do not vouch for

In brief: we vouch for our own service and for our own mistakes. We do not vouch for what others post or for damage that has nothing to do with us.

We make every effort for a service that works and is safe. We cannot guarantee that everything always runs flawlessly, and we also do not promise a particular outcome — that you get reach, for example, or that you change your mind.

What we do vouch for: damage that arises because we have been intentionally or grossly negligent, and everything for which the law does not allow liability to be excluded. Think of damage to someone's life or health. If you are a consumer, all your rights under consumer law also remain in place; nothing here removes them.

What we do not vouch for: what other members post — that is their content, not ours. We do remove what crosses the line as soon as we know of it, as described above. Also not: lost profit or missed opportunities, damage because someone else's service went down, and damage because you shared your password with someone.

If something goes wrong with your Debaty+ subscription, our liability for that is limited to what you paid in the twelve months before. That limit does not apply in the cases above where the law does not permit it.

If these terms change

In brief: we may adjust them, but for a real change you hear about it at least thirty days in advance.

We sometimes adjust these terms: for a new feature, for new regulation, or because something can be made clearer.

• Important changes we give notice of at least thirty days in advance — in the app and by e-mail — with a short explanation of what changes. If you do not agree, you can cancel within those thirty days without consequences.
• Small changes, such as a clarification or a fixed link, we carry through and put in the change list at the bottom of this document.
• At the bottom of this document you always see the version and the date. If you continue with Debaty after a change, the new terms apply.

If part of this does not apply

In brief: if one agreement turns out to be invalid, the rest simply remains in place.

Should a court rule that part of these terms does not apply, then only that part lapses. The rest remains in force. For the lapsed part, what the law provides then applies, and as close as possible to what was stated.

If we do nothing on one occasion about a violation, that does not mean we have given up the right to do so.

If Debaty passes to someone else

In brief: if the company is transferred, your account goes along under the same agreements. You hear about it in advance and you can leave.

These terms apply between you and us. We can transfer them to another company if Debaty moves there, for example in a takeover. We give notice of this at least thirty days in advance, the agreements then stay the same, and within that period you can delete your account and take your data with you. You cannot transfer your account to anyone else.

Law, courts and supervision

In brief: Dutch law and the Dutch courts. If you live elsewhere in Europe, the mandatory consumer law of your country takes precedence there.

Dutch law applies to these terms, and a dispute can be submitted to the competent court in the Netherlands.

If you live in another country, you keep the protection of the mandatory consumer law of that country, and you can bring a claim against us there if the law there allows you to. Those rules take precedence over what is stated here. That is already the case anyway; we write it down because you ought to know it rather than have to look it up. Which language version applies to you is stated at the bottom of this document.

Supervision of digital services is carried out by the Autoriteit Consument & Markt (ACM). Supervision of data protection is carried out by the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens (AP). Authorities can reach us via the contact point for authorities.

Version and changes

In brief: this is version 1.0 of this document, adopted on 23 July 2026.

• v1.0 — 23 July 2026. First adopted, complete version of this document.

Where to take a complaint

In brief: come to us first. If that does not resolve it, the choice is yours: our Dutch supervisory authority, or the one in your own country.

We are a Dutch company. Our own supervisory authorities are therefore the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens (the Dutch data protection authority) and the Autoriteit Consument & Markt (the Dutch authority for digital services). You can turn to either one, wherever you live.

If you live in the EU or the EEA, you do not have to come to the Netherlands for that. You can lodge your complaint with the supervisory authority of the country where you live or work, in your own language. That authority handles it or passes it on, and remains your point of contact. The data protection authorities are listed by the European Data Protection Board (edpb.europa.eu); the Digital Services Coordinators are listed by the European Commission.

If you live outside the EU and the EEA, you can still turn to our Dutch supervisory authorities. On top of that, the law of your own country may give you an authority of your own; a complaint that reaches us through such an authority is handled in exactly the same way.

Why no foreign authority is named here. The language you are reading this in does not say which country you live in. Which supervisory authority is yours depends on where you live, not on the language you read — and sending you to the wrong desk costs you the very time a complaint does not leave you.

And the courts are always open. If you live in the EU, that may be the court in your own country, where consumer law there allows you to do so.

Language and validity

In brief: the version you read is the one that applies to you — a translation included.

This document is available on Debaty in fourteen languages. The version in your language applies to you, and it binds us too. Where a translation differs from the Dutch text, the reading that is most favourable to you applies: we cannot hold our own translation error against you.

Dutch is the language in which we write changes and against which we check translations. That is a working arrangement inside our company, not a ranking between readers. If a translation lags behind the Dutch text, we say so at the top of the page, with both dates.

Wherever you live, the mandatory consumer law of your own country continues to apply, whatever else is written here.