Community Standards / Acceptable Use Policy

Effective Date: June 17, 2025

Last Updated: June 17, 2025

This Community Standards / Acceptable Use Policy explains the rules for using Grip Culture.

This policy applies to all users, including organizers, academy owners, coaches, athletes, parents, legal guardians, managed athlete profile managers, referees, spectators, staff, volunteers, administrators, and any person or entity that accesses or uses Grip Culture.

By using Grip Culture, you agree to use the platform lawfully, honestly, respectfully, safely, and in a way that does not harm users, minors, athletes, academies, organizers, tournaments, the public, or the platform.

Grip Culture may restrict, suspend, terminate, remove, hide, label, investigate, or limit any account, profile, academy, tournament, listing, payment link, content, result, ranking, message, or activity that violates this policy or creates risk for users or the platform.

1. Adult User Requirement

Grip Culture user accounts are only available to individuals who are at least 18 years old.

By creating or using a Grip Culture account, you confirm that:

  • You are at least 18 years old.
  • You are legally capable of using the platform.
  • You are responsible for all activity under your account.
  • You will provide accurate, current, and truthful account information.

Minors may not create their own Grip Culture user accounts.

Minor athletes may appear only through managed athlete profiles created or managed by a parent, legal guardian, coach, academy representative, or other authorized adult.

2. Managed Athletes and Minors

If you create, manage, register, update, display, or submit information for a managed athlete or minor athlete, you confirm that:

  • You are at least 18 years old.
  • You are the parent, legal guardian, or authorized adult responsible for the athlete, or you otherwise have legal authority to manage the athlete’s information.
  • The information you provide is accurate, current, and truthful.
  • You will not submit private, sensitive, misleading, or unauthorized information.
  • You will not misuse a minor athlete profile.
  • You will remove or correct information if you no longer have authority to manage it.

Grip Culture may restrict, hide, suspend, or remove managed athlete profiles if there are concerns related to identity, authorization, consent, privacy, safety, disputes, false information, misuse, or platform integrity.

3. Respectful Conduct

Users must treat others with respect.

You may not use Grip Culture to harass, threaten, intimidate, humiliate, exploit, abuse, stalk, target, or attack another person or group.

Prohibited conduct includes, but is not limited to:

  • Harassment.
  • Bullying.
  • Cyberbullying.
  • Threats.
  • Doxxing.
  • Publishing private information without authorization.
  • Repeated unwanted contact.
  • Targeted insults.
  • Hate speech.
  • Slurs.
  • Discriminatory attacks.
  • Sexual harassment.
  • Exploitation.
  • Encouraging self-harm.
  • Encouraging violence.
  • Retaliation against users who report misconduct.
  • Abuse directed at minors, athletes, referees, coaches, organizers, parents, guardians, academies, or staff.

Grip Culture may take stronger action when misconduct targets minors, managed athletes, vulnerable users, or users involved in youth events.

4. No Hate, Discrimination, or Abusive Content

You may not post, upload, publish, promote, or transmit content that attacks, dehumanizes, threatens, excludes, or promotes hatred or discrimination based on protected or sensitive characteristics, including:

  • Race.
  • Color.
  • Ethnicity.
  • National origin.
  • Religion.
  • Sex.
  • Gender.
  • Gender identity.
  • Sexual orientation.
  • Disability.
  • Age.
  • Veteran status.
  • Citizenship status.
  • Medical condition.
  • Pregnancy.
  • Family status.
  • Any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

Grip Culture may remove content or accounts that promote hate, extremism, harassment, or discriminatory conduct.

5. No Violence, Threats, or Unsafe Conduct

Grip Culture is connected to combat sports, but users may not use the platform to promote unlawful violence, real-world threats, intimidation, retaliation, or unsafe conduct outside legitimate sport participation.

You may not:

  • Threaten to harm another person.
  • Encourage assault or retaliation.
  • Organize fights outside legitimate events.
  • Promote unsafe or illegal matches.
  • Encourage athletes to compete while injured or medically restricted.
  • Encourage dangerous weight cutting.
  • Encourage abuse of minors or vulnerable participants.
  • Promote illegal weapons, criminal conduct, or violent intimidation.
  • Use event tools to create unsafe or unauthorized events.

Grip Culture may report credible threats, suspected criminal activity, or safety risks to appropriate authorities when appropriate.

6. Truthful and Accurate Information

Users must provide truthful, accurate, current, and non-misleading information.

You may not submit, publish, or display false, deceptive, or misleading information related to:

  • Identity.
  • Age.
  • Date of birth.
  • Athlete profile.
  • Managed athlete profile.
  • Rank or belt.
  • Weight.
  • Academy affiliation.
  • Coach role.
  • Organizer role.
  • Referee role.
  • Tournament information.
  • Venue information.
  • Payment information.
  • Refund policy.
  • Cancellation policy.
  • Brackets.
  • Results.
  • Medals.
  • Wins.
  • Losses.
  • Rankings.
  • Sponsors.
  • Partnerships.
  • Credentials.
  • Certifications.
  • Insurance.
  • Permits.
  • Legal authorization.
  • Public claims about services or events.

Grip Culture may correct, restrict, hide, remove, or investigate information that appears false, incomplete, misleading, manipulated, or disputed.

7. No Impersonation

You may not impersonate another person, academy, organizer, coach, athlete, referee, parent, guardian, business, venue, federation, sponsor, brand, government agency, Grip Culture representative, or other entity.

You may not falsely claim affiliation, authorization, approval, endorsement, sponsorship, ownership, management rights, or representative status.

Prohibited impersonation includes:

  • Fake academy profiles.
  • Fake tournament organizers.
  • Fake athlete profiles.
  • Fake coach profiles.
  • Fake referee profiles.
  • Fake managed athlete profiles.
  • Fake sponsor claims.
  • Fake venue claims.
  • Fake federation claims.
  • Fake Grip Culture staff claims.
  • Misleading usernames, logos, banners, or profile content.
  • Using another person’s name, image, identity, or credentials without authorization.

Grip Culture may require identity, authorization, or ownership verification at any time.

8. No Fraud, Scams, or Deceptive Activity

You may not use Grip Culture for fraud, scams, deception, or dishonest activity.

Prohibited conduct includes, but is not limited to:

  • Creating fake tournaments.
  • Creating fake academies.
  • Collecting money for tournaments that do not exist.
  • Publishing external payment links for fraudulent purposes.
  • Misleading participants about payment recipients.
  • Misleading participants about refunds.
  • Misrepresenting event status.
  • Misrepresenting venue authorization.
  • Misrepresenting organizer identity.
  • Misrepresenting athlete registration numbers.
  • Misrepresenting rankings, results, or brackets.
  • Creating false urgency.
  • Using deceptive payment pages.
  • Using phishing links.
  • Using malware links.
  • Charging hidden fees.
  • Avoiding refund obligations after cancellation.
  • Using Grip Culture to obtain money, credentials, personal information, or access through deception.

Grip Culture may preserve records, suspend accounts, remove listings, cooperate with payment processors, cooperate with banks or card networks, and report suspected fraud to appropriate authorities.

9. External Payment Links and Financial Conduct

External payment links may only be used in ways allowed by Grip Culture policies.

If you provide an external payment link, payment instruction, QR code, invoice, direct transfer instruction, cash payment instruction, or third-party checkout, you must comply with:

  • Organizer External Payments and Tournament Responsibility Policy.
  • Tournament Listing and Publication Rules.
  • External Payment Warning for Participants.
  • Any applicable law or payment provider rules.

You may not hide who is collecting payment, misstate the payment amount, mislead users about refunds, impersonate Grip Culture as the payment processor, or suggest that Grip Culture guarantees external payments.

Grip Culture may remove or disable external payment links that appear suspicious, misleading, unsafe, incomplete, unauthorized, fraudulent, or inconsistent with platform policies.

10. No Spam or Platform Manipulation

You may not misuse Grip Culture to spam, manipulate, overload, or interfere with the platform.

Prohibited activity includes:

  • Spam messages.
  • Repeated unwanted invitations.
  • Fake registrations.
  • Fake accounts.
  • Fake profiles.
  • Fake reviews.
  • Fake endorsements.
  • Fake results.
  • Fake rankings.
  • Fake traffic.
  • Bot activity.
  • Scraping without permission.
  • Automated account creation.
  • Credential stuffing.
  • Attempting to bypass rate limits.
  • Interfering with platform operations.
  • Uploading malicious files.
  • Attempting unauthorized access.
  • Reverse engineering restricted parts of the platform.
  • Circumventing suspensions or bans.
  • Creating multiple accounts to avoid enforcement.

11. No Manipulation of Competition Data

Grip Culture may display tournament results, rankings, medals, wins, losses, submissions, athlete records, academy scores, team scores, brackets, match history, and other competition data.

Users may not manipulate, falsify, alter, or misuse competition data.

Prohibited conduct includes:

  • Creating fake matches.
  • Editing results dishonestly.
  • Assigning medals improperly.
  • Manipulating team scores.
  • Manipulating brackets.
  • Creating fake wins or losses.
  • Registering athletes in improper divisions intentionally.
  • Misreporting submissions, points, or outcomes.
  • Entering false athlete information to gain advantage.
  • Removing or hiding legitimate results for dishonest reasons.
  • Colluding to alter rankings or statistics.

Grip Culture may correct, remove, review, suspend, or investigate competition data when fraud, error, manipulation, or disputes are reported.

12. Intellectual Property and Brand Use

You may only upload, publish, or use content that you own or have permission to use.

This includes:

  • Logos.
  • Photos.
  • Videos.
  • Academy names.
  • Tournament names.
  • Sponsor names.
  • Federation names.
  • Team names.
  • Graphics.
  • Music.
  • Written content.
  • Trademarks.
  • Copyrighted materials.
  • Athlete images.
  • Minor athlete images.
  • Venue images.
  • Promotional materials.

You may not use unauthorized intellectual property or branding.

Grip Culture may remove content, restrict profiles, suspend accounts, or request proof of authorization when intellectual property concerns arise.

13. Privacy and Personal Information

You may not publish or misuse another person’s private information without authorization.

Prohibited activity includes sharing or misusing:

  • Home addresses.
  • Personal phone numbers.
  • Personal emails.
  • Government IDs.
  • Payment information.
  • Medical information.
  • Minor information.
  • Emergency contact information.
  • Private messages.
  • Login credentials.
  • Sensitive personal data.
  • Private photos or videos.
  • Information obtained through academy or organizer access for unauthorized purposes.

Academy owners, coaches, organizers, and managers may have access to limited information for legitimate platform purposes. That information may not be used for harassment, spam, fraud, discrimination, unauthorized marketing, or any purpose outside the role-based context in which it was provided.

14. Content Involving Minors

Users must use extra care with content involving minors or managed athlete profiles.

You may not:

  • Create a minor athlete profile without authorization.
  • Publish false information about a minor.
  • Upload inappropriate images of minors.
  • Exploit minor athlete information.
  • Harass or shame minors.
  • Contact minors outside appropriate parent, guardian, coach, academy, or event channels.
  • Use minor athlete data for unauthorized marketing.
  • Display sensitive minor information unnecessarily.
  • Encourage minors to create their own accounts.
  • Bypass adult-managed profile requirements.

Grip Culture may restrict, hide, remove, or investigate minor-related content more aggressively to protect safety and privacy.

15. Reviews, Endorsements, Sponsorships, and Promotional Claims

Users may not post fake reviews, fake endorsements, false testimonials, undisclosed paid endorsements, or misleading promotional claims.

If you have a material connection to an academy, tournament, organizer, sponsor, athlete, coach, product, service, or promotion, you must disclose that connection when required.

Promotional statements must be honest and not misleading.

You may not falsely claim that Grip Culture endorses, sponsors, certifies, guarantees, insures, supervises, or operates an academy, tournament, organizer, coach, athlete, product, or service.

16. Prohibited Commercial Activity

You may not use Grip Culture for unauthorized commercial activity, including:

  • Unauthorized advertising.
  • Unauthorized solicitation.
  • Unauthorized resale of services.
  • Unauthorized data collection.
  • Unauthorized lead generation.
  • Pyramid schemes.
  • Multi-level marketing schemes.
  • Gambling.
  • Illegal betting.
  • Illegal products.
  • Counterfeit goods.
  • Fraudulent services.
  • Unauthorized ticket resale.
  • Deceptive promotions.
  • Payment scams.
  • Promotions that violate applicable law.

Grip Culture may allow certain commercial activity only through approved platform tools, subscriptions, listings, paid services, or written agreements.

17. Safety and Event Responsibility

Users must not use Grip Culture in a way that creates unreasonable safety risks.

Organizers are responsible for event safety, venue readiness, rules, staffing, medical support, waivers, permits, insurance, minor athlete requirements, and event operations.

Academies and coaches are responsible for their own training, supervision, athlete readiness, member conduct, and academy operations.

Grip Culture does not operate, supervise, inspect, insure, or guarantee organizer-created events or academy activities unless expressly stated otherwise in writing.

18. Reporting Violations

Users may report conduct, content, tournaments, academies, profiles, payment links, results, or accounts that appear to violate this policy.

Grip Culture may review reports and may take action at its discretion.

When reporting, users should provide relevant details, such as:

  • Profile name.
  • Tournament name.
  • Academy name.
  • Organizer name.
  • Screenshots.
  • Payment links.
  • Dates.
  • Communications.
  • Reason for the report.
  • Any supporting evidence.

False, malicious, abusive, or retaliatory reports may also violate this policy.

19. Enforcement Actions

Grip Culture may take one or more enforcement actions, including:

  • Warning the user.
  • Requesting correction.
  • Requesting verification.
  • Removing content.
  • Hiding content.
  • Labeling content.
  • Restricting features.
  • Removing external payment links.
  • Suspending a tournament.
  • Suspending an academy.
  • Suspending a profile.
  • Suspending a user account.
  • Terminating a user account.
  • Removing rankings or results.
  • Reversing manipulated data.
  • Preserving records.
  • Blocking future access.
  • Cooperating with payment processors.
  • Cooperating with banks, card networks, regulators, law enforcement, or legal authorities.
  • Taking any other action Grip Culture considers necessary to protect users or the platform.

Grip Culture may act with or without prior notice when immediate action is necessary.

20. Appeals and Review

Grip Culture may provide a way to request review of certain enforcement actions.

A request for review does not guarantee reinstatement, restoration, refund, republishing, or reversal of enforcement.

Grip Culture may deny appeals when there is evidence of fraud, safety risk, minor safety concern, legal risk, repeated violations, platform abuse, or serious misconduct.

21. Records and Evidence

Grip Culture may preserve records related to suspected violations, including:

  • Account information.
  • Login activity.
  • IP address.
  • User agent.
  • Profile edits.
  • Academy edits.
  • Tournament edits.
  • Payment link records.
  • External payment warning acceptance records.
  • Policy acceptance records.
  • Reports and complaints.
  • Messages or communications sent through the platform.
  • Uploaded content.
  • Results and ranking changes.
  • Organizer actions.
  • Admin actions.
  • Support communications.

These records may be used for safety, fraud prevention, legal compliance, dispute review, chargeback response, policy enforcement, and platform integrity.

22. Relationship to Other Policies

This policy works together with:

  • Grip Culture Terms of Service.
  • Grip Culture Privacy Policy.
  • Academy Registration and Verification Policy.
  • Organizer External Payments and Tournament Responsibility Policy.
  • Organizer Paid Services and Subscription Policy.
  • Tournament Listing and Publication Rules.
  • Safety, Assumption of Risk and Event Responsibility Notice.
  • External Payment Warning for Participants.
  • Any organizer, academy, subscription, checkout, or event-specific terms.

If there is a conflict between this policy and a written agreement signed by Grip Culture, the signed written agreement controls only for the specific subject it covers.

23. Policy Updates

Grip Culture may update this policy from time to time.

If changes are material, Grip Culture may notify users by email, account notification, platform notice, checkout notice, or another reasonable method.

Continued use of Grip Culture after policy updates means acceptance of the updated policy.

24. Acceptance

By using Grip Culture, I confirm that:

  • I am at least 18 years old.
  • I will use the platform lawfully, honestly, respectfully, and safely.
  • I will not submit false, misleading, fraudulent, abusive, unauthorized, or harmful content.
  • I will not impersonate another person, academy, organizer, business, federation, venue, sponsor, or Grip Culture representative.
  • I will not misuse athlete, managed athlete, minor, academy, tournament, or payment information.
  • I understand Grip Culture may restrict, suspend, remove, investigate, or terminate accounts, listings, content, profiles, tournaments, academies, payment links, or platform access for violations of this policy.
  • I accept the Community Standards / Acceptable Use Policy.