Station Owner & Community Rules

Who these Rules cover

These Station Owner & Community Rules (the "Rules") apply to every person who owns, operates, or helps run a station on Radiocast, and to every person who takes part in a station's community, including listeners who chat, send requests, or interact with a station page or Radiocast Site. By creating or operating a station, joining a station team, or taking part in a station community, you agree to these Rules.

Definitions

In these Rules:

1. "Station" has the meaning given in our Terms of Service and includes its stream, station page, chat, embeds, directory listing, and any Radiocast Site connected to it.
2. "Station owner" or "owner" means the account holder who created or controls a station. Where an organization operates a station, the owner is that organization and the account holder acting for it.
3. "Station team" means DJs, co-hosts, moderators, producers, guests given access, and anyone else the owner allows to broadcast, publish, or moderate on the station.
4. "Community" means listeners and members who use a station's chat, requests, dedications, page, or Radiocast Site.
5. "Minor" means a person under 18 years of age, or under the age of majority where they live if that is higher.
6. "Infraction" means any breach of these Rules, the Station Guidelines, the Terms of Service, or any other Radiocast policy.
7. "Strike" means a record of an infraction that counts toward escalation under section 9.
8. "Enforcement action" means any action we take under these Rules, including a warning, content removal, feature restriction, strike, suspension, or termination.

Relationship to other policies

These Rules form part of, and add to, our Terms of Service. The Station Guidelines set out what content may be broadcast or published; these Rules set out how stations and communities must be run and how infractions are handled. If these Rules conflict with the Terms of Service, the Terms of Service control. If these Rules conflict with the Station Guidelines on a matter of enforcement, these Rules control.

Interpretation

1. Headings and examples are for convenience. Examples illustrate a rule and do not limit it.
2. "Including" means "including without limitation".
3. A reference to a section, such as "section 8.2", is to a section of these Rules unless stated otherwise.
4. Conduct that is not listed may still be an infraction if it breaks the purpose of these Rules or puts people at risk.

General duties

Every station owner must:

1. follow the Terms of Service, the Station Guidelines, these Rules, and all laws that apply to the station and its audience;
2. hold, and be able to show, the licenses and permissions needed for everything the station broadcasts or publishes;
3. keep the explicit-content flag and the AI-generated music transparency badge accurate at all times;
4. supervise the station team and moderate the community as described in sections 3 and 5; and
5. act in good faith toward listeners, advertisers, other broadcasters, and Radiocast.

Accurate station information

The station name, description, artwork, genre, tags, language, location, schedule, and now-playing metadata must be accurate and must not mislead listeners. A station must not present itself as an official station of another brand, broadcaster, artist, or organization unless it is authorized to do so.

Account security and access

1. Owners must keep their login details secure and must not share their owner account. Use team access for anyone who helps run the station.
2. Owners are responsible for all activity on their station, including activity by anyone who uses their credentials.
3. If an owner believes their account or station has been compromised, they must tell us promptly at [email protected]. We take a compromise into account when deciding enforcement actions.

Cooperation with Radiocast

1. Owners must keep a working email address on their account and respond to messages from Radiocast about their station within any deadline we give, or otherwise within a reasonable time.
2. When asked, owners must provide records of content sources, licenses, sponsorship agreements, and team membership.
3. Owners must not give us false or misleading information, alter evidence, or obstruct an investigation. Doing so is itself an infraction, typically Level 3.

Prohibited uses of a station

A station must not be used to:

1. mislead, defraud, or exploit listeners, advertisers, sponsors, or other broadcasters;
2. collect personal information from listeners without a clear notice and a lawful basis, or collect any personal information from children under 13;
3. run contests, giveaways, or lotteries that do not comply with the law where they are offered;
4. manipulate Radiocast features, rankings, charts, or directory placement; or
5. help another person evade a Radiocast enforcement action.

Granting access

Owners should give team access only to people they trust and only the level of access each person needs. Owners must not give team access to anyone they know is banned or suspended from Radiocast.

Owner responsibility for the team

Owners are responsible for everything the station team broadcasts, publishes, or does on the station, as if the owner had done it. An infraction by a team member may lead to enforcement actions against that team member's account, against the station, or both.

Team member obligations

Team members must follow these Rules, the Station Guidelines, and the Terms of Service while acting for any station, and must follow the owner's reasonable instructions that are consistent with them.

Removing access

Owners must remove access promptly when a team member leaves, or when a team member commits an infraction that puts the community at risk. Removing the person responsible quickly and cooperating with us counts as a mitigating factor under section 8.2.

Conduct rules for everyone

Everyone taking part in a station's community, including listeners, DJs, and owners, must not:

1. harass, bully, threaten, intimidate, or target anyone, including other listeners, DJs, or station owners;
2. post hate speech, slurs, or content that promotes discrimination or violence against people based on a protected characteristic;
3. post sexual content, or any content that sexualizes minors;
4. share anyone's private information, such as home addresses, phone numbers, private photos, or financial details;
5. spam, flood chat, post scams, phishing, or malicious links, or advertise without the station owner's permission;
6. impersonate Radiocast staff, a station, a DJ, or another person;
7. organize raids, brigading, or coordinated harassment of another station or community;
8. encourage self-harm, suicide, eating disorders, or dangerous challenges; or
9. evade a mute, ban, or other moderation action, for example by using another account.

Station-specific community rules

Owners may set stricter rules for their own community, such as topic rules or language rules. Station-specific rules must not conflict with these Rules or the law, must be applied fairly, and must not be used to discriminate against people based on a protected characteristic.

Requests, dedications, and listener submissions

Owners are responsible for anything they choose to broadcast from listener requests, dedications, call-ins, voice messages, or other submissions, and must check them against the Station Guidelines before broadcasting them.

Required moderation

Station owners must:

1. use the moderation tools available to them, such as deleting messages and muting or banning users, to act on content that breaks these Rules;
2. act on reports from listeners and from Radiocast:
   1. promptly, and no later than 24 hours after becoming aware of it, for content that may be Level 3 or Level 4; and
   2. within a reasonable time for everything else;
3. not encourage, reward, or knowingly allow repeated harassment, hate speech, or sexual content in their community; and
4. report anything involving minors, threats of violence, or other illegal activity to Radiocast right away, rather than handling it only within the station.

Misuse of moderation tools

Owners and moderators must not use moderation tools to harass, extort, or retaliate against people, to silence people for reporting an infraction to Radiocast, or for reasons unrelated to the station's community rules.

Reasonable effort standard

Age requirements

Radiocast accounts are only for people 13 and older, as described in our Terms of Service. Public station pages and streams can still be reached by listeners of any age, so owners must assume that minors may be listening unless their station is flagged as explicit.

Child safety rules

Any breach of the following is a Level 4 (Critical) infraction. No one may:

1. distribute sexually explicit content to minors, or knowingly direct explicit programming at minors;
2. create, share, request, store, or link to child sexual abuse material (CSAM) in any form, including AI-generated, drawn, or audio-only material;
3. contact a minor for sexual purposes, groom a minor, or engage in sextortion;
4. move a conversation with a minor to a private channel to avoid moderation or the minor's parents or guardians; or
5. sexualize minors in any broadcast, chat message, artwork, or station page.

Stations aimed at children or teens

Stations whose programming or community is aimed at minors must keep all programming, chat, artwork, and station pages free of explicit content, must actively moderate their community, must not collect personal information from children under 13, and must not invite minors to private channels.

Reporting and preservation

We report apparent CSAM and child exploitation to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and, where appropriate, to law enforcement. We preserve related content and account data as the law requires, and we may take a station offline immediately while we do so. Owners must not delete evidence after becoming aware of a possible child safety issue; report it to us instead.

When off-platform conduct counts

We may take enforcement action for conduct outside Radiocast, such as on a Discord server, social media account, or website that a station promotes, when the conduct is closely connected to the station and puts our listeners, community, or platform at risk. This includes using a station to direct listeners to harmful content elsewhere.

Serious off-platform conduct

Conduct anywhere that would be Level 4 on Radiocast, such as child exploitation or credible threats of violence, may lead to permanent termination even if it did not take place on Radiocast.

How we classify infractions

Every infraction is classified into one of four levels. When classifying an infraction, we consider:

1. the harm caused or risked, and to whom;
2. whether minors were involved or put at risk;
3. whether the infraction was intentional, reckless, or a genuine mistake;
4. how widely the content reached listeners and for how long; and
5. the station's and owner's history of infractions.

Aggravating and mitigating factors

We may move an infraction up one level for aggravating factors, such as repeating it after a warning, profiting from it, targeting a vulnerable person, or obstructing our investigation. We may move it down one level for mitigating factors, such as correcting it promptly, reporting it to us yourself, removing the person responsible, or showing that your account was compromised. Level 4 infractions involving minors are never moved down.

The four levels

The penalties below are the standard penalties for each level. The examples are not a complete list; other conduct is classified by comparing it to them.

Other remedies

Enforcement actions under these Rules do not limit any other right or remedy Radiocast has under the Terms of Service or the law, including recovering losses, sharing information with law enforcement, or taking legal action.

How long strikes last

1. A Level 2 strike stays active for 90 days from the date it is issued.
2. A Level 3 strike stays active for 12 months from the date it is issued.
3. An expired strike no longer counts toward escalation, but we keep a record of it and may consider it as history under section 8.1(e).

Escalation

1. Three active strikes of any level lead to a Level 3 suspension.
2. A further Level 3 infraction while a Level 3 strike is active may lead to permanent termination.
3. An infraction committed while a station or account is suspended may lead to permanent termination.

Strikes across stations and accounts

Strikes apply both to the station and to the owner's account, so they carry across every station the owner controls. A strike issued to a team member's account follows that person to any other station they join.

Ban evasion

A person who is suspended or terminated must not create, operate, or help run another station or account, directly or through someone else, until the suspension ends. Stations and accounts created to evade an enforcement action will be terminated, and the evasion is itself an infraction.

Immediate action

Strikes and escalation are not a precondition to stronger action. We may skip a warning or lower level and act right away where there is a risk of serious harm, where the law requires it, or for any Level 4 infraction.

Detection

We learn about infractions from community reports, copyright notices, law enforcement and other authorities, automated moderation tools, and our own reviews. Automated tools may flag content, but enforcement actions above Level 1 are confirmed by a person on our moderation team.

Investigation and interim measures

While we investigate a possible Level 3 or Level 4 infraction, we may take a station offline, hide it from the directory, or limit features. An interim measure is not a finding that an infraction happened. If we find no infraction, we will lift the interim measure and remove any record of it from the station's history.

Notice

We will tell the owner, by email or in the panel, which infraction we found, its level, the enforcement action taken, and how to appeal. We may delay or limit notice where giving it would break the law, put someone at risk, or interfere with an investigation.

Effect of a suspension

1. A suspended station is taken offline and hidden from the directory and search for the length of the suspension.
2. Plan fees for the suspension period are not refunded, unless the suspension is reversed on appeal.
3. Station content and settings are kept during the suspension and restored when it ends, unless the content itself must be removed.

Effect of termination

1. A terminated station and its content are removed and will not be restored.
2. For terminations below Level 4, we may give the owner a short window to export their own lawfully held content, where this is practical and safe.
3. For Level 4 terminations, no export is offered, and data is preserved or deleted as the law and section 6.4 require.
4. Termination under these Rules is also termination under the Terms of Service, and the provisions of the Terms of Service that survive termination continue to apply.

Records

We keep records of reports, investigations, and enforcement actions for as long as needed to apply these Rules, defend our decisions, and meet our legal obligations, as described in our Privacy Policy.

How to appeal

You may appeal any enforcement action within 30 days of our notice by opening a ticket at billing.radiocast.net/support or by emailing [email protected]. Only the owner, or the team member whose own account was penalized, may appeal.

What to include

1. the station name and the account email address;
2. the enforcement action you are appealing and the date of our notice;
3. why you believe the decision was wrong, or why the level or penalty is too severe; and
4. any supporting evidence, such as licenses, logs, or recordings.

Review

A member of our team who was not involved in the original decision reviews each appeal. We aim to respond within 14 days, and will tell you if we need longer. The enforcement action stays in place while the appeal is reviewed, unless we decide otherwise.

Outcomes

We may uphold the decision, change the level or penalty, or reverse it. If we reverse it, we remove the strike, restore the station and features where possible, and, for a suspension, credit plan fees for the suspension period.

Level 4 appeals

Level 4 terminations are reviewed only to check for a mistake about who was responsible or what happened, such as a compromised account or misidentified content.

Finality

Each enforcement action may be appealed once. The appeal decision is final. If you do not appeal within 30 days, the enforcement action is final. This does not affect any rights you have under the law.

Our discretion

Radiocast makes the final decision on whether an infraction happened, its level, and the enforcement action. We aim to apply these Rules consistently, but a decision about one station does not bind us in another case.

No duty to monitor

Radiocast may review stations and communities but is not obligated to monitor them. Not acting on an infraction does not waive our right to act on it or on later infractions.

Severability

If any part of these Rules is found to be unenforceable, it will be enforced to the greatest extent allowed, and the rest of these Rules will remain in effect.

Updates to these Rules

We may update these Rules from time to time. When we do, we will post the updated Rules here and change the "Last updated" date above. Infractions are judged under the Rules in effect when they happened, but penalties are applied under the Rules in effect when we take the enforcement action. Continued use of Radiocast after changes take effect means you accept them.

Contact

Questions about these Rules can be sent to [email protected]. If someone is in immediate danger, contact local emergency services first.