Terms of Use

1. Provider and scope

Needle (app and website) is operated by Günter Lepuschitz, Neuer Weg 3, 3422 Altenberg, Austria, email lepo@lepo.at ("we", "us"). These terms apply to everyone who uses Needle By signing up you confirm that you have read and accept them. How we handle your data is explained in the Privacy Policy.

2. What Needle is

Needle is a private social network for real friends. Posts and stories are only visible to users you are friends with. It also offers comments, likes, direct messages and group chats.

Needle is free, has no ads and no in-app purchases. We aim for reliable operation but cannot guarantee constant availability. We may change, extend or discontinue features where this is reasonable for you, in particular for technical, legal or security reasons.

3. Account and minimum age

• You must be at least 14 years old. If you are under 18, please talk to your parents or guardians first.
• One account per person. Your information must be accurate and you must not impersonate anyone.
• Keep your password secret and do not share your account. Bots and automated scraping of Needle are prohibited.
• If we learn that a child under 14 has an account, we will delete it.

4. Community rules – zero tolerance

Needle has zero tolerance for objectionable or abusive content and users. This applies everywhere: posts, stories, comments, profiles, direct and group chats, and group names. In particular, the following is prohibited:

• Harassment, bullying (including cyberbullying), shaming, threats and extortion
• Hate speech and incitement against people based on origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability or other characteristics; Nazi glorification and terrorist propaganda
• Nudity, pornographic or sexual content; any sexual depiction of minors
• Intimate images or videos of others without their consent, including fakes (e.g. AI-generated "deepfakes")
• Glorification of violence, self-harm, suicide or eating disorders
• Selling drugs, weapons or other illegal goods
• Photos or data of other people without their consent where this harms their interests
• Content that infringes copyrights, trademarks or other rights of third parties
• Spam, fraud, phishing, chain letters, malware and unsolicited advertising
• Anything else that violates Austrian law or the law of your country

5. Group chats

• Only your own friends can be added to a group. A group can have at most 50 members.
• The person who creates a group is its admin. Group admins can rename the group, add and remove members and remove other members' messages for everyone. They should help make sure the community rules are followed.
• The same rules apply in groups as everywhere else in Needle Every message and every group can be reported. Our team can review reported group messages and groups, delete messages and entire groups, and ban members.
• You can leave any group at any time. Messages from users you have blocked are hidden in groups as well.

6. Reporting, blocking and moderation

In the app: You can report every post, story, comment, message (including in groups), group and profile, and block any user. See Support for how.

Without an account: Anyone can report illegal content by email to lepo@lepo.at. Please include why the content is illegal, where to find it (e.g. username, date, screenshot), your name and email address, and a statement that your information is accurate and complete to the best of your knowledge.

Review: We review reports carefully, impartially and within 24 hours. Objectionable content is removed. Users who break the rules are warned or banned temporarily or permanently; for serious violations (e.g. child sexual abuse material, threats to life or safety) immediately and permanently. Users who repeatedly submit manifestly unfounded reports may be excluded from reporting.

Automated moderation: An automatic filter checks text before it is sent for abusive terms and links and slows down spam. Depending on the term, the text is blocked or flagged for review by our team. Users who trip the filter several times within one day are automatically banned for a limited time. Images are not analysed automatically. Every automatic ban can be reviewed by a human on appeal.

Reasons and appeals: If your account is banned, the app shows you the reason and the duration. You can appeal within six months in the app or by email; a human on our team will decide. You can always go to court.

Authorities: We forward information about criminal offences that threaten the life or safety of persons to the competent authorities. We also report child sexual abuse material to the competent bodies (in Austria the reporting office of the Federal Criminal Police Office; where there is a US connection, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children).

Non-consensual intimate images: Anyone who is depicted intimately in an image or video on Needle. without having consented (including fakes) can report it in the app or by email. We remove such content and known copies within 48 hours of a valid request.

7. Your content

Your content belongs to you. So that we can operate Needle, you allow us to store your content, adapt it technically (e.g. image size) and show it to the people you share it with (e.g. your friends or a group). This permission is free of charge, non-exclusive, worldwide and limited to operating Needle; it ends when you delete the content or your account. Messages you have sent remain visible to the recipients until you unsend them or delete your account.

Only upload content you have the necessary rights to. If other people can be recognised, you need their consent where their legitimate interests are affected.

8. Copyright (including DMCA)

If you believe content on Needle infringes your copyright, send a notice to lepo@lepo.at containing: your physical or electronic signature; the copyrighted work; where the content is located on Needle; your contact details; a statement that you have a good-faith belief that the use is not authorised; and a statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information is accurate and that you are authorised to act on behalf of the owner. If you believe your content was removed by mistake, you can send a counter-notice. We permanently ban repeat infringers.

9. Our rights in the app

The app, its design, name and logo belong to us. You may use the app for private purposes. You may not modify, resell or attack it, circumvent its security, or reverse engineer it except where the law expressly permits this.

10. Deleting your account and termination

You can delete your account at any time in the app under Profile → Settings → Delete account. We may terminate your account with two weeks' notice if we discontinue Needle If you violate these terms we may suspend or delete your account immediately. Banned users may not create a new account to get around a ban.

11. Warranty and liability

Needle is a free service. We are liable without limitation for damage caused intentionally or through gross negligence and for personal injury. We are not liable for property or financial damage caused through slight negligence. Claims under product liability law and other mandatory statutory claims remain unaffected.

Users are responsible for the content they post. We do not adopt third-party content as our own and do not monitor it generally; once we become aware of illegal content, we remove it without delay.

If you culpably violate these terms or the rights of others and a claim is made against us as a result, you must indemnify us against those claims and the reasonable costs of legal defence.

12. Additional terms for users in the United States

TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY THE LAW OF YOUR STATE: THE APP IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE", WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE ARE NOT LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES. OUR TOTAL LIABILITY IS LIMITED TO USD 50. Some states do not allow these exclusions; in that case they apply to you only to the extent permitted. Liability for intent, gross negligence and personal injury is not limited.

Needle is not directed at children under 13 and does not knowingly collect data from them (COPPA). You may not use Needle if you are on a U.S. government sanctions list or located in a country subject to a U.S. embargo.

13. Terms for the app from the Apple App Store

• These terms are concluded between you and us only, not with Apple Inc. ("Apple"). We, not Apple, are solely responsible for the app and its content.
• You may use the app on Apple-branded products that you own or control, as permitted by the Usage Rules in the Apple Media Services Terms and Conditions.
• We alone are responsible for maintenance and support. Apple has no obligation to provide any maintenance or support for the app.
• If the app fails to conform to any applicable warranty, you may notify Apple, and Apple will refund the purchase price, if any (for Needle: USD 0). To the maximum extent permitted by law, Apple has no other warranty obligation with respect to the app.
• We, not Apple, are responsible for addressing any claims relating to the app (e.g. product liability, failure to conform to legal or regulatory requirements, consumer protection, privacy).
• If a third party claims that the app infringes its intellectual property rights, we, not Apple, are solely responsible for the investigation, defence, settlement and discharge of that claim.
• Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these terms and, once you accept them, have the right to enforce them against you.
• Please direct questions, complaints or claims about the app to the contact details in section 1.

14. Changes to these terms

We may change these terms, e.g. for new features or changes in the law. We will inform you about material changes in the app at least 30 days in advance and ask for your consent. If you do not agree, you can delete your account at any time.

15. Governing law, jurisdiction, dispute resolution

Austrian law applies, excluding its conflict-of-law rules and the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. If you are a consumer, you keep the protection of the mandatory provisions of the country where you live. For claims against consumers resident in Austria, the court at their place of residence has jurisdiction; otherwise the statutory places of jurisdiction apply.

We are neither obliged nor willing to take part in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board. If there is a problem, just write to us.

If any provision of these terms is invalid, the remaining provisions remain valid.

Contact and point of contact

Single point of contact for users and authorities (Art. 11 and 12 Digital Services Act): lepo@lepo.at · Contact form. Languages: German and English.