Welcome to Newsenz, an audio-first social news platform combining official news and citizen journalism. These Terms of Use ("Terms") govern your access to and use of the Newsenz progressive web application, websites, and related services (together, the "Service"). Please read them carefully.
1. Acceptance of Terms
By accessing, browsing, or using the Service, you agree to be bound by these Terms and by our other published policies. If you do not agree to these Terms, you must not use the Service.
2. Eligibility
You must be at least 13 years old, or the minimum age of digital consent in your jurisdiction, whichever is greater, to use the Service. If you are under the age of legal majority in your jurisdiction, you may use the Service only with the consent and supervision of a parent or legal guardian who agrees to be bound by these Terms on your behalf.
3. Your Account
Reading content on Newsenz is open to everyone. To publish posts, react, comment, repost, or otherwise interact with content, you must register for an account. Registration requires email verification and may require completion of a captcha challenge. You agree to provide accurate registration information, to keep one account per person, to maintain the confidentiality of your credentials, and to notify us promptly of any unauthorised access. You are responsible for all activity that occurs under your account. We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms.
4. User-Generated Content (Citizen Journalism)
Newsenz supports citizen journalism. You retain ownership of the posts, comments, audio narrations, images, profile information, and other materials you submit ("Your Content"). By submitting Your Content to the Service, you grant Newsenz a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable, transferable licence to host, store, reproduce, transcode, synthesise into audio, distribute, publicly display, perform, and otherwise use Your Content for the purpose of operating, promoting, and improving the Service. This licence covers surfacing Your Content in feeds (including the For You and Discovery feeds), in search results, in recommendations, in reposts within Newsenz, and in external shares performed via your device's native share sheet.
You agree to comply with our publishing constraints, including the 2,000-word per-post limit (approximately 10–13 minutes of audio) and the fixed set of content categories provided in the editor.
5. Acceptable Use and Prohibited Conduct
You agree not to use the Service to post, transmit, or otherwise make available any content that is unlawful, harassing, defamatory, hateful, threatening, obscene, sexually explicit, or that infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright, privacy right, or other right of any party. You also agree not to:
- impersonate any person or entity, or misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity;
- distribute spam, chain messages, malware, or other harmful code;
- collect or harvest personal information about other users without their consent;
- scrape, crawl, or use automated means to access the Service without our prior written permission;
- circumvent rate limits, moderation systems, or other technical measures we use to protect the Service;
- misuse our audio synthesis features, including by generating audio designed to deceive, defraud, or impersonate;
- interfere with, disrupt, or place an unreasonable load on the Service or its underlying infrastructure.
Newsenz operates automated keyword filters and reserves the right to block, hide, or remove content matching them.
6. Reactions, Comments, Reposts, and Shares
Liking, disliking, and commenting on posts are part of the social experience on Newsenz and contribute to how content is ranked in your feeds. Reposts redistribute a post within Newsenz, attaching a "Reposted" label on your profile and contributing to feed ranking signals. Shares use your device's native share sheet to send a link to a post to other applications and platforms outside Newsenz; once content is shared externally, its onward redistribution is governed by the receiving platform's terms and is outside our control.
7. Audio Content
Posts on Newsenz may include user-submitted recordings or audio narrations generated through text-to-speech synthesis. If you upload audio, you warrant that you hold all necessary rights, including any performance and distribution rights, to the audio you submit. We may transcode, cache, and stream audio for playback, and we may generate text-to-speech narrations of text posts using third-party providers (for example, OpenAI). Background playback is supported via the Media Session API, and playback may continue while your device is locked.
8. Official Content and Third-Party Material
Some content on Newsenz is published by Newsenz itself and is identified as "Official". Posts may also link to, reference, or embed content from third-party websites and services. We do not endorse and are not responsible for third-party content, and we make no representations about its accuracy, completeness, or legality. Your interactions with third parties are solely between you and the third party.
9. Intellectual Property
The Newsenz name, logo, branding, user interface, software, and underlying technology are owned by Newsenz and are protected by intellectual property laws. Except for the limited rights expressly granted in these Terms, you may not copy, modify, distribute, sell, lease, reverse-engineer, or create derivative works of any part of the Service without our prior written permission.
10. Moderation and Removal
We may, at our sole discretion and with or without prior notice, review, edit, refuse to publish, remove, unpublish, or restrict access to any content or account that we believe violates these Terms, is harmful to other users, or is otherwise objectionable. If you believe a moderation decision was made in error, you may contact our support team.
11. Advertisements and Subscriptions
Newsenz is supported in part by advertising. Free users may see in-feed visual ads (typically every 10 posts), in-content ads, in-playlist audio ads, and posts clearly labelled as "Sponsored". Premium subscribers receive an ad-free experience and a "Premium" indicator on their profile. Subscription pricing, billing, renewal, and cancellation are handled by our payment gateway provider and are described at the point of checkout.
12. Disclaimers
The Service is provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, accuracy of news content, uninterrupted or error-free operation, or freedom from viruses or other harmful components. Your use of the Service is at your sole risk.
13. Limitation of Liability
To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, Newsenz and its officers, directors, employees, and agents will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, consequential, special, exemplary, or punitive damages arising out of or in connection with your use of the Service. Our aggregate liability for any claim arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service will not exceed the greater of (a) the amounts you paid to Newsenz in the twelve (12) months preceding the claim, or (b) MYR 100.
14. Indemnification
You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Newsenz and its officers, directors, employees, and agents from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and expenses, including reasonable legal fees, arising out of or in any way connected with Your Content, your use of the Service, your violation of these Terms, or your violation of any rights of another person or entity.
15. Termination
You may stop using the Service and delete your account at any time. We may suspend or terminate your access to the Service, with or without notice, if we believe you have violated these Terms or if we are required to do so by law. Upon termination, the provisions of these Terms that by their nature should survive (including those relating to ownership, intellectual property, disclaimers, limitation of liability, and indemnification) will remain in effect.
16. Governing Law
These Terms are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of Malaysia, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles. You agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Malaysia for the resolution of any disputes arising out of or in connection with these Terms or the Service.
17. Changes to These Terms
We may update these Terms from time to time. When we make material changes, we will notify you through the Service or by other reasonable means. Your continued use of the Service after the updated Terms take effect constitutes your acceptance of the updated Terms. If you do not agree to the updated Terms, you must stop using the Service.
18. Contact
If you have any questions about these Terms or the Service, please contact us at support@newsenz.com.