The terms for sharing your story.
Effective August 16, 2026 · Version 2026-08-16-v9
Please read this before submitting. The exact agreement text, version, fingerprint, and consent statements you accept are recorded inside your encrypted submission.
Eligibility and choice
You confirm that you are at least 18 years old and are choosing voluntarily to submit material for possible publication. Submit only when you are able to understand the choices you are making and make them for yourself. Medication or substance use does not automatically prevent submission, but do not submit while you are too impaired, exhausted, medicated, overwhelmed, or otherwise unable to understand these permissions. You may stop before submitting. You may use your name, a pseudonym, first name only, or request anonymous publication.
Not an emergency or professional service
This project is not monitored continuously and is not an emergency line, law-enforcement report, legal service, medical or mental-health service, victim-advocacy service, or evidence repository. A submission does not create an attorney-client, therapist-patient, advocate-client, fiduciary, confidential-source, employment, partnership, or agency relationship. Contact local emergency services if anyone is in immediate danger.
Your account and your rights
You state that, to the best of your knowledge and recollection, the material is substantially truthful and is not knowingly false, fabricated, threatening, or submitted to harass someone. You also state that the story is yours and that you have the rights and permissions needed to submit every part of it. Do not submit someone else's private records, copyrighted work, or confidential material unless you are legally allowed to do so.
Material that must not be uploaded
Do not upload sexual or intimate images, video, audio recordings, contraband, malware, evidence that must be preserved in its original form, government identification numbers, financial account information, medical or counseling records, sealed court records, or material you are prohibited by law or agreement from sharing. Do not identify a child or an uninvolved third party unless it is necessary to understand your story. The project may reject, quarantine, remove, preserve, or report material when reasonably necessary for safety, security, legal compliance, or the rights of others.
Publication license
You keep ownership of your original expression. You grant We Will Not Be Silent and Michael Haukoos a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to reproduce, edit, adapt, translate, publish, distribute, display, perform, read aloud, archive, excerpt, and promote the submitted material, in whole or in part, in books, websites, blogs, social-media posts, short-form and long-form video, livestreams, audio or spoken-word readings, podcasts, advocacy materials, publicity, and related media. This includes use on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, and a limited right to let printers, publishers, distributors, retailers, platforms, editors, and other production partners use the material only to prepare, distribute, host, or promote an authorized publication. A selected full story may also be shortened into an excerpt or roughly one-to-three-minute read-aloud version, provided the project does not intentionally change the meaning. The license for an edition or item already published includes its continued sale, distribution, hosting, archiving, and promotion after a later withdrawal request.
Identity, editing, and context
The project will use the publication identity choice you make on the form unless you later agree otherwise. You permit use of that chosen identity and any biographical details you voluntarily include in connection with an authorized publication. The project may correct spelling and grammar, shorten or organize material, select excerpts, remove identifying or unsafe details, add headings or context, and make other reasonable editorial changes without intentionally changing the meaning. The project may contact you for clarification only if your email choice permits it. Unless separately agreed in writing, you do not have a right to approve the final edit, title, cover, placement, marketing, format, platform, or publication context.
No guarantee or compensation
Submitting does not require the project to review, respond to, publish, return, or preserve your submission forever. Unless a separate written agreement signed by both sides says otherwise, you will not receive payment, royalties, ownership in a book or project, accounting rights, employment, or any other compensation.
Privacy and confidentiality limits
The project uses the safeguards described in the Privacy Notice, but no internet, email, hosting, review technology, publication platform, or storage system can promise absolute secrecy or security. A private note is intended for internal review and not publication, but it is not legally privileged. Hosting, email, security, review-technology, publishing, platform, and professional service providers may process limited information as needed to provide their services. Information may be preserved or disclosed when reasonably necessary to comply with law, legal process, safety obligations, or to establish, exercise, or defend legal rights.
Withdrawal and deletion
You may request that unpublished material not be used in the future, or request deletion from active storage, by contacting stories@wewillnotbesilent.org and providing the submission ID and private code if available. A withdrawal does not make earlier processing unlawful and cannot recall books already printed, copies already distributed, platform posts or recordings already published, third-party reposts, continued distribution or hosting of an edition or item already published, or material the project must retain for legal compliance or to document and defend rights relating to an existing publication. The project will stop materially new unpublished uses after a verified withdrawal where reasonably possible. Deleted data may remain temporarily in access-restricted backups until those backups expire.
Law and changes
This agreement is governed by South Dakota law, except where mandatory law requires otherwise. Nothing in it waives a right that applicable law does not allow a person to waive. If a provision is unenforceable, the remaining provisions continue to apply. The version accepted at the time of submission governs that submission. A later website update does not silently replace the recorded version you accepted.
Privacy Notice
The Privacy Notice explains what information is collected, who may process it, security limits, retention, international processing, and privacy requests.