Acceptable Use Policy

1. Why this policy exists

Lebelo is a shared space for South African runners, clubs and event organisers. Club boards, community boards, results and leaderboards only work if people can trust them.

This policy sets out what is not allowed on the platform, how to report a problem, and what we will do about it. It forms part of our Terms of Service, and it applies to everyone who uses Lebelo — athletes, club administrators, event organisers and authority reviewers.

It applies to everything you put on the platform: posts and comments on club and community boards, messages, profile information, usernames, photographs, club and event descriptions, uploaded documents, results and activity data.

2. The short version

Beyond those, use common sense: post as though your club committee, your family and the organiser of your next race can all see it, because on Lebelo they usually can.

3. What is not allowed

3.1 Content that endangers children

We have zero tolerance here. You may not upload, share, request or link to any sexual content involving a person under 18, or any content that sexualises a child. You may not use Lebelo to groom, solicit or arrange contact with a child, or to share a child's personal details, school, training location or routine in a way that puts them at risk.

We report suspected child sexual abuse material to the South African Police Service and act on it immediately, without notice to the account holder.

Junior athletes use this platform. When posting about a minor — including your own child, or your club's junior members — do not include information that could allow a stranger to locate or identify them outside the club context.

3.2 Violence, threats and content that endangers people

You may not threaten violence against any person, incite others to violence, or celebrate or glorify violence. You may not post content that promotes dangerous activity likely to cause serious injury, or share graphic images of injury, death or serious accidents.

Race incidents happen. If you need to discuss an injury or an incident at an event for safety or accountability reasons, describe it — do not post graphic images.

3.3 Hate speech and unfair discrimination

You may not post content that advocates hatred based on race, ethnicity, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language, birth or HIV status, or that constitutes incitement to cause harm.

This reflects the limits the Constitution places on free expression and the prohibitions in the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act. It also reflects a simpler point: South African running clubs are among the more genuinely mixed spaces in this country, and we intend to keep the platform that way.

3.4 Harassment and bullying

You may not target another person with abuse, repeated unwanted contact, intimidation, or a coordinated campaign of criticism. You may not post content designed to humiliate someone, or continue contacting a person who has asked you to stop.

Robust discussion about a race, a result, a club decision or a policy is fine. Directing sustained hostility at a person is not. Note that harassment may also be a criminal matter under the Protection from Harassment Act and the Cybercrimes Act.

3.5 Self-harm, suicide, disordered eating and unsafe training

You may not encourage, glorify or provide instruction for suicide, self-harm or disordered eating. You may not post content promoting extreme calorie restriction, purging, appearance-based weight targets, or training through injury and illness as something to admire.

We take particular care here because of what this platform does. Lebelo displays training volume, streaks, rankings and scores. Those features can, in the wrong hands, become a vehicle for exactly the behaviour above. Our scores cap volume and consistency components deliberately, so that more is not endlessly better — and we will act on content that pushes members toward unsafe training or eating patterns.

If you are struggling, or you are worried about a member of your club, please reach out to a medical professional or a support service. If you see content that suggests someone is at immediate risk, report it and, where you can, contact them or their club directly.

3.6 Sexual content and non-consensual images

Lebelo is not a place for sexual or pornographic content. You may not post sexually explicit material, or sexually harass another user.

You may never share an intimate image of a person without their consent. This is a criminal offence under the Cybercrimes Act, and we will remove such content, suspend the account and report it.

3.7 Other people's personal information

You may not post another person's personal information without their permission. That includes identity or passport numbers, home or work address, telephone number, email address, medical information, identity or licence documents, medical aid details, or photographs of any of these.

Two situations that come up on this platform in particular:

• Licence and registration documents. Do not post a photograph of a licence, an identity document or a completed application form on a club board. It contains an identity number. Send it through the licence application flow instead, where it is encrypted.
• Club rosters and member lists. If you are a club administrator, member data is provided to you to administer your club. Do not repost it publicly, share it with third parties, or use it for anything other than club business.

3.8 Photographs and images

Running is visual, and we want the platform full of real photographs — finish lines, training runs, club mornings. That works only if people can trust how images are used.

When you upload an image:

• post images you took, or that you have permission to post — do not repost an event photographer's work you have not licensed;
• get the agreement of identifiable people in the image where the setting makes that reasonable. A wide shot of a race start is different from a close photograph of one runner;
• never post an identifiable image of a child outside your own club context, and never with information that could help a stranger locate them. If you are not that child’s parent or guardian, get their agreement first;
• do not post images of a person in distress, injured, or receiving medical attention;
• do not post an image of someone in order to mock, shame or single them out — including images of another runner’s finishing time, weight or body;
• do not post images of identity documents, licences, medical records or bank details, including your own; and
• do not use another person’s photograph as your profile image.

If you appear in an image on Lebelo and want it gone, email compliance@lebelos.co.za. We will remove it. You do not need to give a reason, and we will not ask you to negotiate with whoever posted it.

One technical note in your favour: we strip hidden location data from images when they are uploaded, so a training photograph does not quietly publish the co-ordinates of your front door. That protects you, but it does not cover what is visible in the frame — think about house numbers, street signs, school uniforms and vehicle registrations before you post.

3.9 Impersonation and misrepresentation

You may not pretend to be another person, a club, an event organiser, a timing provider, a municipality, a provincial athletics body, Athletics South Africa, or Lebelo itself. You may not claim an official role, affiliation, sanction or approval you do not hold.

Parody and commentary are fine where it is obvious that is what they are. Choosing a username or club name intended to be mistaken for someone else's is not.

3.10 Results and leaderboard integrity

This section is specific to Lebelo, and we enforce it seriously — the value of a leaderboard rests entirely on it.

You may not:

• claim a result achieved by another person;
• submit a result you did not achieve, or alter a recorded time, distance or position;
• manipulate GPS or activity data, or upload an activity recorded by a vehicle, bicycle or another person as your own run;
• cut a course, start early, or use unauthorised assistance and then submit the result;
• run under another person's race number, or transfer a number outside the organiser's official process;
• create additional accounts to gain an advantage in a ranking, challenge or club competition; or
• coordinate with others to distort a club leaderboard or challenge outcome.

Where we find a result to be inaccurate or manipulated, we may re-status or remove it, adjust affected rankings, and where the conduct is deliberate, suspend or close the account. Where a result affects a club competition or a prize, we will tell the affected clubs.

3.11 Licence and event integrity

You may not:

• provide false information on an athletics licence application;
• use, share or display another athlete's licence number;
• misrepresent your club affiliation, age category or eligibility;
• list an event you have no authority to organise, or misrepresent an event's permits, sanctioning, insurance or safety arrangements; or
• submit false or fabricated documentation through the compliance features. Documents generated on Lebelo are used to apply for permits for events where public safety is at stake. Falsifying them may endanger people and may constitute fraud.

3.12 Club administrator conduct

If you administer a club or an event on Lebelo, you hold access to other people's information and a communication channel into their phones. With that comes an obligation to:

• use member information only to administer the club;
• keep announcements and messages relevant — the comms tools are not for unrelated commercial promotion;
• moderate your own club board, and act on reports from your members;
• not use roster or fee information to pressure, embarrass or single out a member publicly; and
• remove administrator access promptly when a person's role in the club ends.

3.13 Spam, automation and platform load

You may not send unsolicited bulk or repetitive messages, post the same content repeatedly across boards, run pyramid or get-rich schemes, or engage in deceptive commercial promotion. Marketing to Lebelo users requires their consent, as our Privacy Policy sets out.

You may not scrape the platform, use bots or automated tools other than through an interface we provide, or place an unreasonable load on our systems.

3.14 Security

You may not attempt to access another account, any part of the platform you are not authorised to use, or our infrastructure. You may not probe, scan or test our systems without our written permission, introduce malicious code, or interfere with the platform's operation.

Responsible disclosure. If you find a security vulnerability, please tell us at compliance@lebelos.co.za before telling anyone else, and give us a reasonable opportunity to fix it. We will not pursue action against someone who reports a genuine vulnerability in good faith, does not exploit it beyond what is needed to demonstrate it, and does not access or retain other people's data.

3.15 Intellectual property

You may not post content you do not have the right to post, including photographs taken by someone else, event photographs you have not licensed, copyrighted text, or another organisation's logos and branding. You may not use Lebelo's name or logo to suggest an endorsement or affiliation you do not have.

3.16 Unlawful activity and regulated goods

You may not use Lebelo to commit or facilitate a crime, to buy or sell regulated or prohibited goods, or to promote performance-enhancing substances prohibited under anti-doping rules.

4. Reporting a problem

If you see something that breaks this policy, report it using the report control on the post, comment or profile, or email compliance@lebelos.co.za. Tell us what you saw, where, and why you think it breaks the policy.

Reports go to:

Every report is reviewed by a person. We do not use an automated system to decide whether content comes down. Reports are assessed against this policy, not against whether we happen to agree with the opinion expressed.

Reporting in bad faith — mass-reporting a rival club, or reporting content you simply disagree with — is itself a breach of this policy.

4.1 Reporting content you believe is unlawful

Where you believe content on Lebelo is unlawful, you may send us a take-down notification under section 77 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act, to compliance@lebelos.co.za, setting out enough detail to identify the content, the grounds on which you say it is unlawful, and your full name, address, contact details and signature.

A person who lodges a notification that is materially false or misleading may be liable for damages under that Act.

5. What we will do

Our response depends on what happened, how serious it is, whether anyone is at risk, and whether it has happened before. Options available to us include:

We will tell you what action we have taken and why, unless telling you would prejudice an investigation, endanger someone, or where the law prevents us.

Where a breach concerns a club or an event, we may also inform the club committee or the organiser, because they usually need to know.

6. If you think we got it wrong

You can ask us to reconsider any action we take, by replying to the notice we send you or emailing compliance@lebelos.co.za within 30 days.

• A person reviews the decision — and, wherever practical, someone other than the person who made it.
• Tell us anything we may not have known when we decided.
• We will tell you the outcome and the reason.
• If we were wrong, we will restore the content, the feature or the account, and where a ranking or result was affected, correct it.

Nothing in this process affects your right to complain to a regulator or to approach a court.

7. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the platform grows and as we learn what actually causes problems. Each version carries a version number and an effective date. Where a change is material, we will give notice in the platform before it takes effect.

8. Contact