Terms of Use

Effective 30 July 2026 · shortnews.be · These terms include our community rules.
Zero tolerance There is no tolerance for objectionable content or abusive users. Violating content is removed and the accounts responsible are suspended or permanently banned — within 24 hours of a report.

1. Agreement to these terms

shortnews.be ("the app", "we", "us") gives you short summaries of Belgian news and lets you take part in discussions, polls and reactions. These Terms of Use are a binding agreement between you and shortnews.be.

By tapping "I agree", creating an account, or using the app, you accept these terms. If you do not accept them, do not use the app.

2. Who may use the app

You must be at least 16 years old to use shortnews.be, and old enough under the law of your country to enter into this agreement. You are responsible for everything done through your account.

3. Zero tolerance for objectionable content and abusive users

This is the most important rule in these terms, so it is stated plainly: there is ZERO TOLERANCE for objectionable content and for abusive users on shortnews.be.

Objectionable content is removed. Accounts that post it are suspended or permanently terminated, without notice and without refund. Repeat offenders are permanently banned from the service and may not create a new account.

We decide what counts as objectionable content at our sole discretion, and we do not have to justify a removal or a ban to the person who was removed or banned.

4. Content and conduct that is not allowed

You must not post, upload, submit or transmit any of the following:

You must also not abuse the service itself: no attempting to break, overload, scrape or reverse-engineer the app or its servers, no circumventing moderation, and no evading a block, suspension or ban.

5. How we moderate

We filter objectionable content in several layers:

We act on reports of objectionable content within 24 hours: we remove the offending content and we eject the user who posted it by suspending or permanently terminating their account.

Moderation decisions are ours to make. We may remove content or terminate an account for any breach of these terms, whether or not anyone reported it.

6. Reporting and blocking are always available

In any discussion, tap the "…" menu on a comment to Report it or to Block the person who wrote it. Blocked accounts are listed in Settings → Blocked users, where you can unblock them.

If you believe content on shortnews.be is illegal, or you want to report something outside the app, email anmldubey@gmail.com. Tell us what the content is and where you saw it, and we will respond within 24 hours.

7. Your content

You keep ownership of what you post. By posting you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, display, reproduce and distribute that content within the app and its related services, for as long as you leave it posted.

You confirm that you have the right to post what you post, and that it does not break these terms or any law.

You can delete your own comments at any time, and you can delete your account and its data from Settings.

8. Comments are anonymous, not private

Comments appear under an automatically generated handle rather than your name or email. That handle is public. Do not post anything in a discussion that you would not want read publicly.

Anonymity does not shield abusive behaviour: we can link a handle to an account for moderation purposes and for cooperation with lawful requests from the authorities.

9. News summaries and third-party sources

Our summaries are short, machine-assisted digests of reporting published by other news organisations, with a link to the original article. The original publisher owns their reporting, and headlines and trademarks belong to their owners.

Summaries are provided for general information. They can be incomplete or wrong, and they are not professional, legal, medical or financial advice. Read the original article before relying on anything.

The photographs on our cards are illustrative. They come from stock libraries we hold rights to, they are not press photographs, and they do not depict the specific event being reported. Picture credits and how to report a copyright concern are on the copyright page.

10. Privacy

Our handling of your personal data is described in the privacy policy, which forms part of these terms.

11. Suspension and termination

We may suspend or terminate your access at any time, with or without notice, if you break these terms, if we are required to by law, or if we reasonably believe your use harms other users or the service.

You may stop using the app and delete your account at any time. Sections that by their nature should survive termination — including content licences already granted, disclaimers and limits of liability — continue to apply.

12. No warranty and limits on our liability

The app is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind. We do not promise that it will be uninterrupted, error-free, or that every piece of objectionable content will be caught before you see it.

To the fullest extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect, incidental, special or consequential losses, or for lost data or lost profits, arising from your use of the app. Nothing here limits liability that cannot be limited by law.

Content posted by other users is theirs, not ours. We are not responsible for it, though we will act on it under section 5.

13. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. If a change is significant we will ask you to agree again inside the app. Continuing to use the app after an update means you accept the updated terms.

14. Governing law

These terms are governed by Belgian law, and the courts of Belgium have jurisdiction over any dispute, without affecting any mandatory consumer-protection rights you have where you live.

15. Contact us

Questions, complaints and content reports: anmldubey@gmail.com. We answer content reports within 24 hours.